My dog is adorable. She’s a two-year-old pit mix baby girl with a brindled coat and white stockings on her front legs. She loves to play – especially with our cats – loves to cuddle, and loves to eat. She’s a great pup. And yet, when she drinks water from her bowl, she cannot seem to get any of it in her mouth. My wife and I have the ugliest, bulkiest water-catching contraption for the inevitable splashes that get on our floor. We’ve set up a washable rug in her drinking area to catch the overflow. But the water gets trapped in her jowls nonetheless, tracking puddles throughout the living room. I hate wiping the floor up after her. I shouldn’t have to. After all, she should – like other dogs – be able to get most of the water in her mouth. I mean, her mouth should just work that way, right? She should just drink the water, and then it should go into her mouth, and then it should not be on the floor because it’s in her mouth. I shouldn’t have to wipe up after her. I shouldn’t have to do this.

I shouldn’t have to is a corrosive thought so deeply embedded that my brain doesn’t usually articulate it to me in words. Instead, it arrives as a feeling, a sensation in my stomach or nervous system. A tightening, a groan, a misdirected outburst. I shouldn’t have to. So I just tolerate it day after day and grit my teeth and wait for it to leave. I shouldn’t have to ignores reality in a way that prevents solutions from being seen and used. It suggests that we should tolerate the symptoms and situations that distress us until it simply goes away – someone or something altering its behavior while we wait on the sidelines.

I’m not suggesting that the thought is inaccurate; I’m just curious how useful it is. After all, it’s true a lot of times: you shouldn’t have to do this. But it’s a complaint, not a solution, and one that surprisingly lies at the heart of many of our tolerations.

One way to circumvent it is to turn the thought I shouldn’t have to do this into I won’t do this. Can you feel the difference there? To me, it feels empowering, resolute, in control. I feel like an active participant in my life, and less of just at its mercy. This turns a complaint into an action. Sometimes this gets us exactly what we want; sometimes we’re still dissatisfied. There are consequences when we don’t – and won’t – do things. For me, the trade-off is that the living room floor is filthy from dirt mixing in with the water puddles I won’t clean up. This isn’t what I want either.

So then if I must do this thing to get my desired result, it can only benefit me to accept this reality. When I don’t, I’m immobilized from taking action, trying something new, or achieving psychic relief. If you must do this (and we all have things we must do), practice accepting the thought and making it easier for yourself. In the case of my dog and her hydro-deficient mouth, I accepted that this is what I must do if I want cleaner floors and peace of mind. To help reinforce this thought, I bought a mop, I put it nearby, I scheduled in the 30 seconds it takes me each time she leaves her water bowl (2 minutes/day overall). This routine became part of my day, and I’ve acknowledged that by giving myself easy and efficient tools to handle it. It’s not difficult, it's not expensive or time-consuming, and the thought no longer gnaws at me. I’ve returned to reality.

Rosie continues sloshing water everywhere except inside her big, goofy mouth, but I don’t mind. Next week’s part II dives deeper into I shouldn’t have to and offers a simple question to improve your mindset and overcome that barrier. To keep learning about coaching in the meantime, visit my site to read about my coaching system I use with my clients.

Go get ‘em this week.