Preferences Over Shoulds 2 Cope & Do Better Now Enjoy

PreferencesMustsPreferences TableRelated QuotationsRelated Pages6 Groups of Topics9 Skills & Topics

Turn Shoulds & Musts into Preferences

Stress for Success, 2nd Ed. for $2.99, will teach you how to make stress work for you.

Preferences before shoulds and shoulds before musts are rules that help us cope better. Preferring instead of demanding increases happiness.

“Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something.” —Thomas Edison

“When people change their irrational beliefs to undogmatic flexible preferences, they become less disturbed.” —Albert Ellis

“The truth is what is. And what should be is a fantasy—a terrible fantasy.” —Lenny Bruce

“You desire what you want, but don’t need it.” —Albert Ellis

Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people control and manipulate you.

Prefer Before You Should Before You Demand (Must)

I tend to make my preferences into shoulds and my shoulds into musts.
In other words, I then make my desires into rules and my rules into demands.
Since my musts are demands and I have little power and authority, I cause myself a lot of frustration by having demands that I cannot enforce.
For peace of mind, I will have more preferences than I have shoulds and more shoulds than musts or demands.

Remember this Distinction

Demands and musts are great for getting work done, but only if the work can be done.

3Rs Used With Demands

I will recognize my use of preferences, shoulds, and musts.
I will remove my inappropriate and self-defeating uses of shoulds and musts.
I will replace my failing shoulds and musts with working preferences.

More Information on the 3Rs

List of Pages on 3Rs

Book Devoted to the 3Rs

Problem Solved! 3Rs

Main Messages or Teachings

First, demand less.
Second, make fewer rules.
Third, have fewer wishes.
Fourth, practice more acceptance.

More Information

You can find more information on demands in the book listed below.
Attitude Is All You Need! Second Edition contains more information on preferences, shoulds, and musts.

Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people control and manipulate you.

Preferring Instead of Demanding Increases Happiness

Click to understand how shoulds provide a psychological payoff.

Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people control and manipulate you.

Quotations Various Sources

“Each of us does, in effect, strike a series of ‘deals,’ or compromises, between the wants and longings of the inner self, and an outer environment that offers certain possibilities and sets certain limitations.” —Maggie Scarf

“For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.” —I Peter 2:20

“Happy is the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.” —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“REBT is also a double-systems therapy in that it helps people un-upset themselves while they are still in a bad system, such as a bad family, or a bad work system, and then it helps them go back to point A, the activating events or the adversity in their lives and work out practical and problem-solving solutions to these realistic problems.” —Albert Ellis

“The truth is what is. And what should be is a fantasy…a terrible fantasy.” —Lenny Bruce

“What has always made a hell on earth is that man has tried to make it his heaven.” —Friedrich Holderlin