With a new year upon us, many of us will be busy setting goals and resolutions that we want to achieve in the 12 months ahead.
And now, a lifestyle guru has revealed the one word we should all avoid if we want to achieve success this year.
Erin Falconer, who is based in LA, says we need to ban the word ‘should’ from our vocabularies, as it’s holding us back.
She explains that the word has an ‘open-endedness’ about it, and is often associated with ‘guilt and shame’ about what you’re not doing.
Lifestyle expert Erin Falconer says banning the word ‘should’ will help us achieve our goals this year (file photo)
Writing her new book How to Get S*** Done, extracted on Well + Good, Erin says: ‘Not only does should suggest things are still up in the air, it’s almost always a negative.
‘We rarely use should when talking about something we’re looking forward to.’
Erin says we need to say things like ‘I’m going to the gym’, which is a definitive, rather than ‘I should go to the gym’, which is a possibility that sets us up for failure.
She continues by explaining that the word ‘should’ puts us in ‘two places’, meaning that you can’t enjoy what you’re actually doing because of the guilt you have about the thing you’re not doing.
She suggests that we say things like ‘I’m going to the gym’, which is a definitive, rather than ‘I should go to the gym’
It comes after organisational expert Beck Wadworth, 28, revealed how you should divide your goals into categories in order to achieve success this year.
She told FEMAIL: ‘I break my resolutions into three categories. Personal, professional and financial.
‘Everyone has different things they want to focus on within these categories, and it’s just working out what you want to prioritise and focus on for the next 12 months.’
Beck explained how she also sets herself monthly ‘stepping stones’ towards achieving each goal, to make sure she stays on track.
‘So when I was saving for New York, I did so by setting myself smaller targets for each month, then celebrate by booking my flights,’ she said.
‘I think it’s really important to celebrate the small successes along the way each month, too. It keeps you inspired, motivated and driven towards those big yearly goals.’