S3 E24 - Whose voice is should-ing on you?

One of the most freeing skills you can learn as a high-achieving woman: how to stop “should-ing” on yourself.

That nagging voice that says you should be working more, earning more, resting less, or living differently didn’t appear out of nowhere. It came from somewhere — a parent, a teacher, a TV show, capitalism, your past self, or a version of you that was afraid.

In this conversation, Sophia walks you through:

• How to identify whose voice your “should” actually is
• Why your highest and best self never speaks in shame, guilt, or pressure
• How arbitrary rules about work hours, productivity, rest, and success get embedded in us
• Real coaching stories that show how freeing it is to trace a belief back to its source
• Why there is no universal “right” number of hours to work, earn, rest, or achieve

If you’ve ever felt torn between two inner voices — one pushing you harder, and one quietly asking for something different — this episode will help you learn how to listen to the right one.

This is a practical, compassionate guide to designing your life and business from alignment instead of inherited rules.

Because your favorite life isn’t built by following someone else’s “shoulds.”
It’s built by learning how to trust yourself again.

Purchase your copy of Unleash Your Favorite Self book and the corresponding journal.

Interested in one-on-one coaching? Click here to schedule a Roadmap session with Sophia.

Download the Favorite Self app in the Apple Store or Google Play.

Connect with Sophia on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube

Have a topic you would love to hear Sophia address on the podcast? Send your ideas to hello@sophiahyde.com

Transcript

Sophia Hyde (00:00.99)
Hello, welcome back. I'm so glad to be here with you guys today. Unless my ADHD goes on some rabbit trails today, which we know happens sometimes, this should be a pretty short punchy episode because I only have one point I'm trying to make. I did not come with a long list of bullet points. We're going to just really drive home one idea very clearly because I really, really, really want this concept to stick in your head.

because if you can get this concept I'm gonna teach you today, if you can really, really, really master and integrate this into your life on regular basis, woo, is this gonna set you free and help you live your favorite life at such a higher level? Like this may be some of the best medicine for how to move through the world as your favorite self. So.

Before I dive in to today's content, if you're listening to this as it really, the week it releases, note that this is the last chance to join us for the Aligned Retreat in Asheville. You have to have everything to me through the website, go to, the link is in the bio or in the show notes, but I have to send in the final head count 90 days before, because I'm releasing the rooms we're not using. And it's a great group. We're going to,

just press the pause button, actually shut off, experience true rest, but also be gathering with great and brilliant minds and receive great coaching. You guys that are able to come and join us for the AlinderTreat group of business women in the mountains for three days, you guys are in for such a treat. Not to mention just the benefit of like,

turning off your brain, somebody else took care of all the arrangements. You don't have to think about food or agendas or plants, none of it. Like I got you, all right? I have so got you. All right, so looking forward to that. If you wanna join us April 30th through May 3rd in outside of Asheville, details below. Okay, let's dive in to today's conversation. What we're talk about is, you know, I'm always talking about not shitting on yourself, but how...

Sophia Hyde (02:24.108)
Do you stop shitting on yourself? One of the most powerful ways to stop shitting on yourself is to identify clearly whose voice the should is coming from. So this is one of the most like once you see this, can't unsee this ideas.

That little nagging voice that says you should be doing this or you should be at this place in your life. I'm going to give you guys some real clear black and white examples in a minute, but those voices, they came from somewhere. Maybe you, maybe society, maybe somewhere else, but your highest and best self. Like if I were to take you, sometimes I do this with clients, we go into a meditation and we actually go meet your highest self in a guided meditation process and you can listen to her or him.

It is insane how it is always true that our highest and best self is full of compassion and grace and love. You can scroll back to a former episode where I've taught about letters from love. And it is amazing how this concept where you like write down and you begin your day with love, what would you have me know today? And even though

when people write these letters from love with the, which shout out Liz Gilbert, that's who I learned this idea from. All of the letters from love, I subscribed to her sub stack where I would like get to read all these letters from love all the time from like a community of 50,000 people. And everybody's version of love inside them had a different voice, right? It would like talk in, know, whether they were assertive people or, you know, whether they talked in like some punchy way or they were really soft or they're super like nerdy and.

Detailed and use really big vocabulary words, know the voices sounded different because they were a reflection of like how that person either moves to the world or likes to be spoken to but everybody's version of love is full of Unconditional love and compassion and grace. Okay and quick if you don't know what letters from love is it's really it's literally just Open up a blank journal page and say love. What would you have me know?

Sophia Hyde (04:42.219)
and then let love speak through you. And maybe for you, if that comes from a higher power, maybe that just comes from a place inside of you. It doesn't matter whatever your belief system of where the source of love comes from. It doesn't matter. It meets everybody where they are, regardless of religion, spiritual beliefs, backgrounds. That's all irrelevant because we all can find our own, you know, source of love. Right. And so just that one little journal prompt, you just start your morning with

Love what would you have me know today and just let it flow and woo, good stuff. Good, good stuff comes out. Okay, so that is a version of our highest and best self speaking to us. And so that's how I always know when somebody is talking to me, we're on a coaching call and they're like, but Safiya, I should be or I should have, and it's filled with this layer of shame or guilt. I'm like, uh-uh, that ain't you.

That's not you. That's not your highest and best self. Where's that coming from? And so rather than trying to just overwrite it and be like, you shouldn't feel guilty for wanting to take a nap. That's one of the examples I'm going use today. You shouldn't feel guilty for taking a nap, girl. If you're tired, you go rest. Instead of just trying to overwrite this, it is so much more impactful to say, OK, there is a voice inside of you saying you can't This is an actual example from a coaching call last week.

A voice inside of you is saying you can't take a nap on a Monday morning. You're tired, you're exhausted, you're beat, you have all the stuff you've been going through and your body is saying, my gosh, I just, I really, I need rest. And then the voice is telling you, you can't, you're not allowed, no napping on a Monday morning. These are business hours, even though you own your own business and you make the hours, right? So whose voice is that?

And when we paused and we reflected, we found it was her voice, but not her highest and best self. It was a voice that came from a place of insecurity because she felt guilty because her husband works in corporate America and he can't just take a nap on a Monday morning. So like some part of her felt wrong. Like, well, if he can't just take a nap on a Monday morning, then why can't I? Which, why should I be able to? Which is wild.

Sophia Hyde (07:06.411)
because her husband's a very loving supportive partner and would totally be like, dude, you own your business and you work for yourself and you retire and we do this so that you can have freedom and flexibility. Why the hell would you not use that freedom and to take care of yourself? right? Like no one was asking her or telling her she could have taken a nap. It was...

insecurity speaking from her. And once we were able to identify that that's whose voice it was, a version of her but the insecure version, not her highest and best self, then she was able to to set that free. And then ultimately ended up deciding that what she needed was to go move her body and that was gonna make her feel better. regardless, this shoulding, which I see this in my clients all the time of how they should spend

the business hours, right? So society has said our business hours are Monday through Friday, eight to five or nine to five or whatever. They have these stories in their head of how they should spend that time. Like these are the working hours and these are the only these other hours. My evenings and my weekends are the only time I can have pleasure and rest. Yo, where'd that come from? Like we need to pause. I can't tell you how often I have this conversation. There's one client I have who

I've been working with for three years and we've had this conversation probably seven different times because it's been a constant. She's in her late 50s, early 60s. so, I mean, her generation, millennials are a little open to more flexibility, right? We want our freedom and our flexibility more, but the Gen X boomer generation.

This is really hard for them because it's so deeply ingrained in how society is supposed to work, right? But this woman's a business owner. so piece by piece, we've made progress where she's given herself more freedom to use her hours with more autonomy. But we just had it again, this conversation, as she realized she needed to, you know.

Sophia Hyde (09:15.565)
how much better she'd be able to take care of herself if she started her work day just one hour later. Just getting an hour of movement in before she sat down to that computer. Something we've been working on for a while, but she's finally ready for it. And so we had a conversation and I said, okay, where's this voice coming from? The voice that says these have to be your business hours. That you must, for her it was eight to five. Like this story in her head, like I need to be in front of a computer eight to five. And somehow that meant that she was being a good business owner.

And when we really unpacked it, it came from, first of all, this is deeply rooted in capitalism. Like we just have to identify that, right? And so it's like, well, who decided that? okay. This goes back to when really like the Henry Ford era.

and labor rights, like people, you they were asking workers to work insane hours and running their body into the ground. And then we had, there was, you know, protests and then that's when unions started. And so this is really a result of, you know, something that was invented around a roundtable between big business and labor unions came up with this 40 hour work week. It was invented. It was pulled out of forgive my language, somebody's ass.

Like it didn't come from anywhere. And so it is so important that we stop shitting on ourselves because what you you are going to run your life the way that Henry Ford said you needed to 100 years ago. Is that relevant? Is that what you actually need? So the voice inside your head is actually technically Henry Ford's. That's crazy. Right. And then we were able to identify the more we got into it. The voice in her head was it was from, you know, obviously our deeply rooted societal norms.

But also a story that said, well, I have employees and so I have to be on the same schedule as my employees. I can't ask something different of them than I ask of myself. Which we were able, what we discussed was like, is that actually true? And it's not because what we were able to realize is she never actually stops working.

Sophia Hyde (11:31.458)
Her brain is thinking about her business all of the time because she would show up on coaching calls and be like, this weekend, the husband and I were talking around the swap and I had this great idea. And she's like showing up to coaching calls with ideas and epiphanies and things like coming to her on the weekends and in the evenings and da da. I'm like, you live and breathe your business. You are always working. And so do you need these finite hours behind a computer screen? Not to mention the best thing a business owner does for the business is the

strategy, the ideation, the thinking of the future and extrapolating and those things, they all happen in the brain. Like the brain is the most powerful part of the body to take care of when you're the business owner. And you protect that by taking care of yourself, getting a full night's sleep, making sure you're moving your body. And so actually what I discussed with her was the most important asset in the business is not equipment you've purchased, software you've bought.

employees you pay a hundred grand to a year. Like these are not the most important assets. The most important asset of the business is the business owner. Because if you go south the whole thing goes south. And so actually rather than building a business around I must be behind a computer eight to five, we need to ask ourselves how, what is the best maintenance for this asset? What does it look like to get enough sleep, make healthy meals?

move your body, the things that restore your energy. What are those things that restore your energy? Is it time with your spouse, time with your friends inside of community? Like, what do you need to feel full and overflowing? And how do we make sure that your brain is firing on all cylinders, got great ideas, connecting the dots, realizing, you know, how to support your team? What does that look like? How do we protect the asset, which is you, the business owner, right?

And so what we figured out was even though her employees, which have a customer service job, have to start at 8 a.m. because they answer phones for clients who need to be able to get a hold of the company that they hire, right? Starting at 8 a.m. Her job is not customer service. She doesn't pick up the phone when the business phone rings. So why does she doesn't actually need to start at 8 a.m.

Sophia Hyde (13:53.964)
Right? And so we were working through a schedule that would better serve her. And while we're on this shitting over the schedule, I want to give you guys some examples. There is no number that is the right thing. There is no I know that you're going to find articles. You can find them. The reports on, we have solved it. It's a three day work week. It's a four day work week. People should have work four days and then take three off. we figured it out. It's actually working.

You know, five days a week, but fewer hours. Like everybody's looking for what is the maximum productivity? What is the recipe for the right number of hours that I should work or I should ask my employees to work? And you know what the answer actually is? That there's no right answer. So I'm going to give you guys some examples of people I've worked with who are living their favorite life. Let's start with two extremes.

One is a client I worked with who was a partner in a law firm. She had no children, loved her job. And one of her largest clients was like a passion project. It was actually a nonprofit. And when she got to do work for that client, like it literally restored her energy. It was one of the happiest parts of her life was getting to do this work that just really like energized her.

man, that time that she would spend that was like so great. Okay. When we built out her, I worked with her for over two years. And when we built out her favorite life, every single time that I tried to get her to scale back the hours or whatever, we kept landing on the right magic for her was a 55 hour work week. And most people would be like, what? But no man, the things that matter to her.

She liked to go on walks with her dog. She put a walking pad in the office. She had a spouse. Their favorite thing to do was to go out to dinner together and try new restaurants all the time. When we really looked at all the spokes on her wheel, 55 hours allowed her to do all the things that mattered to her. It allowed her to do the billable work she had to, but then also have the hours to put in for this nonprofit client that she loves so much.

Sophia Hyde (16:13.389)
It was her favorite life and I haven't worked with her in a couple of years, but I'm going to venture to guess home girl who I know is still thriving because we keep in touch a little bit. I know that she's like doing really well, kicking ass, living her favorite life. And I don't know how many hours she's working right now, but I will be flabbergasted if it's less than 55. It's got it's I guarantee you that every week she's probably putting in 50 to 60 hours and loving it. On the flip side.

Let's talk about my life. I have two different schedules. One when Brandon is here and one when Brandon is gone. And so for the month of January, he just got back a few days ago from being gone a month. And when he's gone, I work 25 hour work weeks, 10 to three, Monday through Friday. That is just consistently what works for me. I need the extra time in the morning to like, I...

When he's here, I can get a workout in while he makes sure the kids get off to school. But when it's me, I wake up, it's kids, and we don't skip the cup of coffee with the Mountain View, by the way. I start slow. I need slow mornings. I'm just not going to jump up and run to work out. I've been that person in the past. That does not come from my highest and best self. That comes from me shitting on myself, because somebody else, somewhere told me that that's how I'm supposed to start. And I don't. I start my morning slow.

I start my mornings soft. That is Sofia's favorite self. So anyways, got my soft start, then I get the kids ready, and then I work out. But if Brandon's home, I can do my workouts before because he can do the commute with them and make sure that they're ready and everything like that. it's 10 o'clock by the time I can sit down in front of my desk.

And then I have to leave earlier to cook a healthy meal for them or support them and figure out what they need, right? So 10 to three is a schedule that works. When brain is gone, there are times I will work nine to six, which I know a of people are listening to this and being like, what, Safiya, that's a normal person's life. Like, are you kidding me? Eight to five, nine to six, welcome to being human. Guys, so I am subscribed from this whole America's way of working.

Sophia Hyde (18:28.3)
not my jam, but there are times I do it and love it. I've put in 12 hour days and loved it, but consistently I have found that I like working Monday through Friday. It feels very good to me. And either 10 to three or when Brandon's gone like nine to five, it's a pretty consistent schedule for me. And I love it. I love it. I thrive that way. But my mentor,

works three days a week and every single time that she tries to add a fourth or a fifth day things actually go down in her business. Like she just really needs the way that her brain works and her energy works. She just takes those four days and reflects and her you know brain rests and then when she sits down it's like three days and she is so hardcore focused and efficient and when I look at her schedule for her three days of work

I can't do that. It's probably my ADHD. But the way that my brain works is I go in and then come out. Like I think of like coming up for air. Right? It's like I hold my breath. I go in and I do my focus work and then I got to come and breathe for a second. And so it's very normal for me. Like today, for example, I just texted my mastermind this. I was giving them example of some of the way I'm like caring for myself through these times right now. And I was like, yeah, I did this, this.

you know, work-related thing. And then I took 30 minutes off at like, you know, 2.30 in the afternoon and I put in my audiobook that was, you know, And except for not one of those things, but it doesn't matter, whatever. 30 minutes on my audiobook, listening to like two people, know, enemies to love your story while I built a puzzle. And then I did 30 minutes of my little puzzle and then I went back into work. And so I guess when I say working...

nine to five that includes that usually about three times a day I have to come up for air. I don't take a whole hour lunch. I take like a 30 minute lunch, but I will come in for the morning, do the morning stuff, whether it's admin or coaching calls. Then I come up for a little break and I go back in and then I do a lunch break and I have an afternoon. I need these little like breaks built in. But my mentor, like she comes in and she's boom, like high up. She could write like 26 emails and like

Sophia Hyde (20:46.948)
hours and they're like good. They're not even she's not even using AI. They're not bad. She just like flows boom. It just like all flows. That's not me. Like that's just not happening. There's no scenario where that's happening that is not my brain and I'm not gonna shut on myself and think that my brain should work like hers. But I can get done in five days the amount of work she gets done in three. Okay, and so where is this voice coming from? Right? Let's get back to the purpose of this conversation is the shitting.

I thought of this really funny example of a time that I shoulded so hard on myself and you're gonna laugh at where the original voice came from. And this memory came back to me because I'm now parenting a 12 year old and I had to like guide her through the kind of conversations moms have to have with middle schoolers. And we were talking about kissing and I told her this story of how I was so dumb.

when I was a teenager because I was really hard on myself. I showed it all over myself that I was supposed to have my first kiss by the time I was 14. And fast forward to now like, you know, knowing the end result, I ended up having my first kiss when I was 17. And I really felt like a failure for that, which in retrospect is so dumb. It's so stupid.

But I felt like I was ugly and boys didn't like me and I was unattractive like all because I didn't have my first kiss by 14. I ended up being 17. And by the way, I was like wanting to make that happen. I wasn't gonna like, you know, go out with some guy that I thought was stupid to get it. But the point is like I was eager to have a boyfriend mainly to check this box that I had finally had my first kiss. And do you guys wanna know?

So I was shitting on myself, right? You should have your first... the story in my head was you should have your first kiss by the age of 14. And do you want to know what was always playing on repeat in my mind, where that came from? I couldn't even tell you which episode it was because I've not gone back to rewatch it. But it was from Full House. There was an episode, you know, when I was, who knows, 10 or something. I don't know. This is back in the 90s watching TGIF.

Sophia Hyde (23:06.656)
There was an episode of Full House and the girls were talking and forgive me for not being a good millennial. Their names are slipping me there. Okay, DJ. then, DJ was the one that lived in the house and then the neighbor girl. can't, Kimmy. It's coming back to me. Okay, I'm pretty sure it was Kimmy and DJ and DJ hadn't had her first kiss yet. And Kimmy was like, what? Like, of

you would have your first kiss by 14 or it could have been when the twins were getting older. I don't remember but it was two characters from the show and somebody was about to have their first kiss and one person made the other person feel bad because they made this rule this rule it was a statement of course you you they have to have your first kiss by 14 or you should have your first kiss by 14 I don't know whatever I just heard the number on the TV and I internalized that as the truth.

as my truth and no one else ever told me that. That number was so arbitrary. And then I shamed myself like all the way through. I shamed myself until I finally had my first kiss at 17. I was like broken or something was wrong with me. Isn't that ludicrous? But a lot of times this is how stupid the shitting is. And I shared that story with my daughter.

obvious for obvious reasons. I needed her to know that there is no number. There is no aid. There is no right or wrong way to do this. And, you know, obviously I had a very motherly conversation about what needs to be true in these circumstances. Right. But I told her how hard I was on myself for that. And it came from a TV show. Right. And so.

These are the things we want to be looking at is where does the voice came from? Another example from a coaching call was a client was really hard on herself, like really beating herself up as she finished up, you know, wrapped up for 2025, had those final numbers and she didn't make as much money as her goal. And she was hardcore beating herself up about this. I should have made more money last year and hardcore. She had gotten about 75 % to the goal. And it didn't make sense because

Sophia Hyde (25:19.178)
The number she did make was still a great income and I also knew how great her quality of life is and that she was like doing all the things she wanted to be doing. She can afford to do anything she wants to do. So it was just, I was just trying to figure out like where this math, so I started asking more questions like where's this number coming from? Like you're hitting all of these goals in like every single spoke on your wheel. I'm just really confused because it's not like, you know.

My goals were attached to being able to buy my house in North Carolina. I needed to make a certain amount of money so I could have a certain amount of down payment so I could afford a certain monthly payment for my mountain house. Right? Like I couldn't figure out why the number was so bad in her head. And it turns out that it was a version of her from a few years ago that she gave herself the courage when she was going to leave corporate America to go work for herself.

she was walking away from a substantial income, a very substantial income. And so she had this story in her head that by December 2025, so walking, into January of 26, she would have replaced a significant percentage. And so she invented this number in her head of like, at the end of 2025, if I leave my job right now, then at the end of 2025, I will have this income.

and I can justify taking this leap because I know I can replace this percentage by that timeline. And that thought, that belief gave her the courage to walk. So it did serve her because it gave her the courage to make the leap. But then when the time actually came, December 25 arrived and she'd only made like 75 % of that figure, which was still a huge gap from where she had originally been when she worked in corporate.

She was like punishing herself, which was wild. So when we stopped to figure out the source of the voice and the source of the voice was herself from a few years ago, we were able to realize that the thought served old her, but it did not serve new her because new her was able to prove to herself that she was not locked in the chains in the prison that came from the company she worked for in corporate America that made so many things miserable for her. She was living a free and full life with a successful business.

Sophia Hyde (27:39.661)
and had all of the vacations, she's taking like five vacations this year, all across the world, literally all across the world. And when we looked at like, what else did she want to be doing with her life? She was doing everything and checking every box. The number was arbitrary and past self needed to believe that to give her the courage to walk. But current self was able to say like, this number that is the one I actually made is beautiful.

Not to mention past self had no freaking clue how many obstacles were going to come her way. Welcome to entrepreneurship. We take the leap and then the shit hits the fan. This is a very normal thing. Stuff goes wrong. Not everything goes according to plan. Obstacles get dropped on your lap. You didn't you could have never seen coming and you problem solving you overcome and yes. Hell yes. Let's celebrate the fact that she is now multiple years into owning her own business and it is thriving.

This is beautiful and now we can celebrate it because we identified where the voice came from. So this is your work. This is your work guys. When you have a thought and the best way to figure out like am I shitting on myself? The quickest way to figure out if you're shitting on yourself is when it has a similar feeling to like indecisiveness or maybe like an angel and a demon on the two shoulders. You're like you hear two parts of yourself going I should do this or I should do this and I just pause just pause.

hear the two voices, one voice is going to like figure out where they're coming from and most likely one of them is coming from your highest self which is like your gut, your instinct, like this part of you that really knows what you actually should do, like what's gonna serve you best and then this other one that is some other voice, maybe you, maybe you know the media and Full House from you know 1998 or something or maybe

It's something you picked up from family, religion, parents, teachers. Oh my God, do you know how many times I have had to work with people to override thoughts that when we got to the source of the should, it was a teacher or a professor? I cannot even tell you. That is probably one of the most common ones. Like something that was implanted about how their career was supposed to work or their life was supposed to work. Like some thought that was dropped into them by a teacher or a professor. Oh my gosh.

Sophia Hyde (30:01.126)
So freaking common. So identify the voice. When you're shitting on yourself, is this my highest and best self? Is this love speaking? Or whose voice is this? That is your work to do. And of course, if you want support and help identifying this, getting to the root cause, just book a session with me. Link is in the bio. Let's hop on a call. I'll talk you through it. We will figure out where these voices are coming from. Sending you love. Bye.