August 26, 2026 • 17 mins
Cutting Through the Shoulds: Making Decisions That Reflect Your Values
How many of your decisions are driven by what you truly want—and how many are shaped by what you think you should do? In this episode of Elevate Her, we unpack the hidden influence of "shoulds" and explore how to make decisions rooted in your own values instead of external expectations. Learn practical tools to identify borrowed beliefs, clarify what matters most, and confidently choose a life that feels authentic.
Key Takeaways
- Not every "should" is wrong—but every "should" deserves to be questioned.
- A true value remains even when no one is watching or judging.
- Goals are destinations; values are the direction you choose to live each day.
- Achieving goals without connecting them to your values can leave you feeling unfulfilled.
- Your happiest, most authentic moments often reveal your real values.
- Your values can change over time, and that's a sign of growth—not failure.
- Relief is valuable information. Pay attention to decisions that feel lighter, not just more impressive.
- External validation is natural, but it shouldn't become your primary compass.
- Small, intentional decisions strengthen your ability to make bigger, values-driven choices later.
Share this episode with an individual who's ready to stop living by someone else's expectations and start making choices that reflect who she truly is. Then ask yourself: What's one "should" you're ready to question this week?
Hosted by Theresa Gonnella, a pharmaceutical sales leader and transformational coach who has led large teams and helped shape national sales strategy. After an unexpected layoff in her early 30s, she moved to Italy, built a private wine label, wrote a book, and returned to corporate America with a new perspective on risk, reinvention, resilience, and success on her own terms.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
Hello and welcome back to the Elevate Cur podcast.
I'm your host, Teresa Godella,and I am so happy that you're
here with me today.
I want to start out this podcastwith a question.
And this question, I want to sitwith you.
So please don't breeze past it.
(00:25):
How many decisions have you madethis year?
Big ones, small ones, because ofa should.
I should stay at this jobbecause I've been there for 10
years.
I should want this nextpromotion.
I should host the holiday againthis year.
(00:47):
I should look a certain way.
I should want a certain life.
I should be grateful for thisgift that was given me.
But actually, I feel exhausted.
Let's talk about cutting throughthe shoulds and talk about
value-based decision making.
(01:07):
Should is one of the sneakiestwords in the English language
because it sounds like aconviction, but it's usually a
borrowed conviction.
It's someone else's voicewearing your name tag.
Today, with this value-baseddecision-making conversation,
(01:28):
we're going to figure out whatactually really matters to you,
what matters to your values andhow you make decisions around
that.
Distinct from what you've beentold should matter, and how to
start making focused decisionsfrom a place of constant
(01:49):
internal approval instead ofconstant external approval.
This is deep work, but I promiseyou that it's also incredibly
practical.
Let's start by understandingwhere shoulds actually come
from, because most of us neverseparated them out of our real
(02:11):
lives or our real values.
A should usually comes from afew sources.
It might come from family, theexpectations that you absorbed
when you were old enough toactually question them.
It might come from culture, theversion of a good woman or a
good man or a successful personthat gets modeled everywhere
(02:36):
from social media to yourchildhood dinner table.
It also might come fromcomparison, watching someone
else's choice look good on them,and assuming that that choice
would also look good on you,too.
Here's the test that I want togive you.
And it's super simple.
(02:56):
When you notice a should showingup, ask yourself if no one would
ever find out, would I stillwant this?
This question cuts through somuch noise because a real value
survives inside of thatquestion.
(03:17):
A borrowed obligation usuallydoesn't.
So for example, I should want toclimb higher in my company,
survives that question for somany people and so many men and
women.
But for them, there's a realvalue in a good chase inside of
(03:40):
that.
But for other women and othermen, that same sentence can
dissolve the second you removean audience.
If no one would ever know or beimpressed by this, would you
still want that?
Would you still want to climbhigher in the company?
(04:01):
And again, for some, the answeris unequivocally yes.
But if we're no one were to knowand no one were watching, for
some, the answer may beunequivocally no.
Sometimes the honest answer ofbeing no is not a failure.
It's just incredibly usefulinformation you can actually act
(04:24):
upon.
I want to make a reallyimportant distinction here
because people often confusevalues with goals, and they're
absolutely not the same thing.
A goal is a destination to getpromoted, to get married, to
lose the weight, to write thebook.
A value is a direction, aconnection, integrity,
(04:48):
creativity, freedom, andsecurity.
They're very different things.
And here's why this matters: goals can be achieved and can (04:54):
undefined
leave you very empty because youare chasing a finish line
instead of a feeling.
Values never get achieved.
There's something that liveinside of you, they're ongoing,
they're everyday, regardless ofthe outcome.
(05:16):
This is why so many individualshit a goal.
The promotion, the wedding, thesize, the title.
And instead of feeling done,they feel strangely hollow.
It's not the goal that waswrong, not at all.
It's the goal that was neveractually connected to the real
(05:37):
value underneath it.
It was borrowed.
Here's an exercise.
Take any goal that you'recurrently chasing and ask
yourself, why do I want toactually achieve this?
So, for example, if you'reworking to achieve the next
promotion or working to possiblylose 10 pounds, or working to
(06:00):
build a little bit more muscle,take that answer and ask
yourself, why am I doing this?
Usually within two or threewhys, you hit something that
feels like a checkbox andor morelike a genuine value.
So it might be connection,respect, creative expression,
(06:23):
security for your family,freedom over time.
So once you find the root valueby exploring the whys, you can
actually evaluate whether thegoal you have been chasing is
the best way to get there, orwhether it's just a version that
everyone else told you that youwant.
(06:45):
Hopefully, you can make thatdistinction.
Ask yourself why multiple times,and you may be able to get to
that root value.
So let's get a little moreconcrete.
I want to walk you through asimple way to actually name your
real values that are distinctfrom the ones that you've
(07:06):
inherited.
Think of three moments in yourlife when you've fully felt your
best and most authentic self.
Not most impressive, not mostaccomplished, but most yourself.
It literally could be a randomTuesday.
(07:27):
It could be something no oneelse even noticed.
Now ask yourself, what wasactually present in that moment?
Was it creative freedom?
Was it deep connection withanother person?
Was it a room full of people?
Was it being quiet?
Was it being performing onstage?
(07:49):
Was it being useful to someone?
Was it volunteering?
Was it doing your deepest work?
Was it gratitude practice?
Was it working on a project atyour day job?
Be fully honest without managinganyone else's reaction.
Those recurring threads are muchcloser to your real values than
(08:14):
anything you'd write on a visionboard because it sounds
aspirational.
Real values tend to be almostembarrassingly simple.
Not I value excellence andimpact.
Sometimes it's just, I valuehaving a couple hours in my
evening, or I value being aroundthe people that I don't need to
(08:36):
perform, or I value being aroundpeople that I can just hang out
in my sweatpants with my hair ontop of my head and no makeup.
It's very different foreveryone, but it's really
important to sort of dig insideof that within yourself.
And here's something importantfor all of you who are
listening.
Women and men have spent manydecades in caregiving roles, in
(09:00):
careers, and marriages, and incommunities.
And your values are allowed tochange.
The value that organized in your30s may be a little bit
different than the values thatyou have in your 50s.
A woman, for example, who'sbuilt her identity around being
endlessly available to everyoneelse, is also allowed to
(09:23):
discover, maybe at the age of47, that she now values her own
time more than values beingneeded.
That's not selfish.
That's growth catching up withitself and self-identifying
those actual values inside.
So let's talk about how we canactually use this in real
(09:44):
decisions because knowing yourvalues in theory and using them
under pressure are two very,very different skills.
Here's how you can filter andrun any real decision through
context.
I want you to use this nextthing when it comes up.
Ask yourself three questions.
Question number one (10:05):
what does this decision look like from the
outside?
And what does it feel like fromthe inside?
If these two answers are verydifferent, it looks impressive
from the outside, but it feelsheavy on the inside.
That usually is wearing adifferent value clothing and
(10:26):
they may need to align with eachother.
So it's super important to takea look at that.
Question number two, you can askyourself, whose voice am I
hearing when I imagine sayingyes?
And whose voice am I hearingwhen I imagine saying no?
Is saying yes quiets a parent'svoice or a former mentor's voice
(10:49):
or a comparison to somebody onsocial media, but saying no is
the option that actually feelslike relief.
Pay attention to that.
Relief might be data.
Question number three (11:02):
When choice moves closer to the
values that I name, not theapplause that I get.
This one takes practice becauseour brains are wired for social
approval.
It's not a character flaw, it'sbiology, but you can overwrite
(11:23):
an old pattern by deliberatelyweighing the quieter pattern of
values in over the louder,applaud based one.
Hopefully that makes sense.
None of this means that externalvalidation is wrong.
In fact, it's amazing to getexternal validation, especially
(11:45):
from the people that we love andrespect.
It's normal and human to wantpeople to be proud of us and
especially those that we love.
The problem is not about wantingapproval.
The problem is when approvalbecomes the only compass and not
our own values being thecompass.
(12:06):
Very clear distinction betweenthose two things.
I want to be honest with youabout something before we wrap
up here.
Making decisions from youractual values instead of
external approval willoftentimes and or sometimes
disappoint people.
(12:26):
That's not a side effect.
It's most likely almostguaranteed.
I've spent years making choicesdesigned to keep everybody
comfortable myself.
And then when I actually endedup moving to Italy, I made a lot
of people extremelyuncomfortable.
And I had to follow my own valuesystem and my own internal
(12:50):
compass.
And it was very difficult for meto see that a lot of people did
not like that version of me.
But I personally liked thatversion of me.
So some people around you willneed to take time to get used to
this new version of you.
So be patient with them, bepatient with the process.
(13:14):
When you start deciding fromyour own value systems, some of
the relationships are going tostretch you.
It's going to stretch them, butit's also holding a more honest
version of you.
And that in itself is a superbeautiful thing.
Here's how to reframe thingsthat might help when you're
(13:37):
faced with this, especiallyaround a goal.
The goal was never ever made tomake anyone and everyone
comfortable.
The goal is to actually live thelife that you recognize that you
want.
A little discomfort in people inthe short term is a much smaller
(13:58):
cost than the decades of quietlyresenting a life built entirely
out of other people'sexpectations.
So not only when we look at thevalues that we have, but also
the goals that we have, we haveto be okay with being a little
bit uncomfortable when we chooseourselves and we choose
ourselves first.
And it might not be what otherswant from us because we're now
(14:23):
choosing a value-based decision.
And practically, just startsmall.
I talk about this on a lot of mypodcasts about just starting
small, so that you can actuallybuild a habit around this.
You don't have to completelyoverhaul your job, quit your job
tomorrow, or you know, end thefriendship tomorrow.
(14:46):
You can be super practical aboutthis.
And that practicality will startbuilding the muscle inside of
your brain and start buildingconfidence inside of you.
It decline the invitation younormally would accept out of
obligation.
See how that feels.
Work through that emotion.
Choose the smaller, quieterversion of a plan instead of the
(15:08):
impressive one.
Just notice how that feels.
Value-based decisions are aboutcreating that muscle and
building that muscle.
You build it in low-stakemoments so that it's strong
enough to hold you when there'sreally high-stake moments and
high-stake decisions thatarrive.
(15:28):
So here's what I want you totake with you today.
Not every should is wrong, butalmost every should deserves to
be questioned before you buildyour life around it.
And what you still want, if noone is watching, is not in that
(15:50):
should, you need to take a lookat that.
Trace your goals back to thevalues underneath them.
And when a real decision comes,weigh that out in the quiet.
Be honest with yourself aboutthe answer.
And then impress yourself andmake the decision based on your
internal values.
(16:12):
Try this this week.
Try running one decision, even asmall one, through that three
question filter.
Notice what changes when youdecide what your values are
inside of your own internalaudience.
And when others respond orreact, be patient.
(16:34):
Notice that they're going toneed to stretch in learning this
new aspect of yourself too.
So if this episode struck achord, send it to someone who
you think could also value fromlistening to this.
I would love to also hear fromyou.
What's one of your shoulds thatyou're ready to question this
(16:54):
week?
I'd love hearing these growthstories and these growth
opportunities.
So please come and share withus.
Until next time, this is theElevate Her podcast.
Be bold, be beautiful, makevalue based decisions, and have
an amazing week.
Hello and welcome back to the Elevate Cur podcast.
I'm your host, Teresa Godella,and I am so happy that you're
here with me today.
I want to start out this podcastwith a question.
And this question, I want to sitwith you.
So please don't breeze past it.
(00:25):
How many decisions have you madethis year?
Big ones, small ones, because ofa should.
I should stay at this jobbecause I've been there for 10
years.
I should want this nextpromotion.
I should host the holiday againthis year.
(00:47):
I should look a certain way.
I should want a certain life.
I should be grateful for thisgift that was given me.
But actually, I feel exhausted.
Let's talk about cutting throughthe shoulds and talk about
value-based decision making.
(01:07):
Should is one of the sneakiestwords in the English language
because it sounds like aconviction, but it's usually a
borrowed conviction.
It's someone else's voicewearing your name tag.
Today, with this value-baseddecision-making conversation,
(01:28):
we're going to figure out whatactually really matters to you,
what matters to your values andhow you make decisions around
that.
Distinct from what you've beentold should matter, and how to
start making focused decisionsfrom a place of constant
(01:49):
internal approval instead ofconstant external approval.
This is deep work, but I promiseyou that it's also incredibly
practical.
Let's start by understandingwhere shoulds actually come
from, because most of us neverseparated them out of our real
(02:11):
lives or our real values.
A should usually comes from afew sources.
It might come from family, theexpectations that you absorbed
when you were old enough toactually question them.
It might come from culture, theversion of a good woman or a
good man or a successful personthat gets modeled everywhere
(02:36):
from social media to yourchildhood dinner table.
It also might come fromcomparison, watching someone
else's choice look good on them,and assuming that that choice
would also look good on you,too.
Here's the test that I want togive you.
And it's super simple.
(02:56):
When you notice a should showingup, ask yourself if no one would
ever find out, would I stillwant this?
This question cuts through somuch noise because a real value
survives inside of thatquestion.
(03:17):
A borrowed obligation usuallydoesn't.
So for example, I should want toclimb higher in my company,
survives that question for somany people and so many men and
women.
But for them, there's a realvalue in a good chase inside of
(03:40):
that.
But for other women and othermen, that same sentence can
dissolve the second you removean audience.
If no one would ever know or beimpressed by this, would you
still want that?
Would you still want to climbhigher in the company?
(04:01):
And again, for some, the answeris unequivocally yes.
But if we're no one were to knowand no one were watching, for
some, the answer may beunequivocally no.
Sometimes the honest answer ofbeing no is not a failure.
It's just incredibly usefulinformation you can actually act
(04:24):
upon.
I want to make a reallyimportant distinction here
because people often confusevalues with goals, and they're
absolutely not the same thing.
A goal is a destination to getpromoted, to get married, to
lose the weight, to write thebook.
A value is a direction, aconnection, integrity,
(04:48):
creativity, freedom, andsecurity.
They're very different things.
And here's why this matters: goals can be achieved and can (04:54):
undefined
leave you very empty because youare chasing a finish line
instead of a feeling.
Values never get achieved.
There's something that liveinside of you, they're ongoing,
they're everyday, regardless ofthe outcome.
(05:16):
This is why so many individualshit a goal.
The promotion, the wedding, thesize, the title.
And instead of feeling done,they feel strangely hollow.
It's not the goal that waswrong, not at all.
It's the goal that was neveractually connected to the real
(05:37):
value underneath it.
It was borrowed.
Here's an exercise.
Take any goal that you'recurrently chasing and ask
yourself, why do I want toactually achieve this?
So, for example, if you'reworking to achieve the next
promotion or working to possiblylose 10 pounds, or working to
(06:00):
build a little bit more muscle,take that answer and ask
yourself, why am I doing this?
Usually within two or threewhys, you hit something that
feels like a checkbox andor morelike a genuine value.
So it might be connection,respect, creative expression,
(06:23):
security for your family,freedom over time.
So once you find the root valueby exploring the whys, you can
actually evaluate whether thegoal you have been chasing is
the best way to get there, orwhether it's just a version that
everyone else told you that youwant.
(06:45):
Hopefully, you can make thatdistinction.
Ask yourself why multiple times,and you may be able to get to
that root value.
So let's get a little moreconcrete.
I want to walk you through asimple way to actually name your
real values that are distinctfrom the ones that you've
(07:06):
inherited.
Think of three moments in yourlife when you've fully felt your
best and most authentic self.
Not most impressive, not mostaccomplished, but most yourself.
It literally could be a randomTuesday.
(07:27):
It could be something no oneelse even noticed.
Now ask yourself, what wasactually present in that moment?
Was it creative freedom?
Was it deep connection withanother person?
Was it a room full of people?
Was it being quiet?
Was it being performing onstage?
(07:49):
Was it being useful to someone?
Was it volunteering?
Was it doing your deepest work?
Was it gratitude practice?
Was it working on a project atyour day job?
Be fully honest without managinganyone else's reaction.
Those recurring threads are muchcloser to your real values than
(08:14):
anything you'd write on a visionboard because it sounds
aspirational.
Real values tend to be almostembarrassingly simple.
Not I value excellence andimpact.
Sometimes it's just, I valuehaving a couple hours in my
evening, or I value being aroundthe people that I don't need to
(08:36):
perform, or I value being aroundpeople that I can just hang out
in my sweatpants with my hair ontop of my head and no makeup.
It's very different foreveryone, but it's really
important to sort of dig insideof that within yourself.
And here's something importantfor all of you who are
listening.
Women and men have spent manydecades in caregiving roles, in
(09:00):
careers, and marriages, and incommunities.
And your values are allowed tochange.
The value that organized in your30s may be a little bit
different than the values thatyou have in your 50s.
A woman, for example, who'sbuilt her identity around being
endlessly available to everyoneelse, is also allowed to
(09:23):
discover, maybe at the age of47, that she now values her own
time more than values beingneeded.
That's not selfish.
That's growth catching up withitself and self-identifying
those actual values inside.
So let's talk about how we canactually use this in real
(09:44):
decisions because knowing yourvalues in theory and using them
under pressure are two very,very different skills.
Here's how you can filter andrun any real decision through
context.
I want you to use this nextthing when it comes up.
Ask yourself three questions.
Question number one (10:05):
what does this decision look like from the
outside?
And what does it feel like fromthe inside?
If these two answers are verydifferent, it looks impressive
from the outside, but it feelsheavy on the inside.
That usually is wearing adifferent value clothing and
(10:26):
they may need to align with eachother.
So it's super important to takea look at that.
Question number two, you can askyourself, whose voice am I
hearing when I imagine sayingyes?
And whose voice am I hearingwhen I imagine saying no?
Is saying yes quiets a parent'svoice or a former mentor's voice
(10:49):
or a comparison to somebody onsocial media, but saying no is
the option that actually feelslike relief.
Pay attention to that.
Relief might be data.
Question number three (11:02):
When choice moves closer to the
values that I name, not theapplause that I get.
This one takes practice becauseour brains are wired for social
approval.
It's not a character flaw, it'sbiology, but you can overwrite
(11:23):
an old pattern by deliberatelyweighing the quieter pattern of
values in over the louder,applaud based one.
Hopefully that makes sense.
None of this means that externalvalidation is wrong.
In fact, it's amazing to getexternal validation, especially
(11:45):
from the people that we love andrespect.
It's normal and human to wantpeople to be proud of us and
especially those that we love.
The problem is not about wantingapproval.
The problem is when approvalbecomes the only compass and not
our own values being thecompass.
(12:06):
Very clear distinction betweenthose two things.
I want to be honest with youabout something before we wrap
up here.
Making decisions from youractual values instead of
external approval willoftentimes and or sometimes
disappoint people.
(12:26):
That's not a side effect.
It's most likely almostguaranteed.
I've spent years making choicesdesigned to keep everybody
comfortable myself.
And then when I actually endedup moving to Italy, I made a lot
of people extremelyuncomfortable.
And I had to follow my own valuesystem and my own internal
(12:50):
compass.
And it was very difficult for meto see that a lot of people did
not like that version of me.
But I personally liked thatversion of me.
So some people around you willneed to take time to get used to
this new version of you.
So be patient with them, bepatient with the process.
(13:14):
When you start deciding fromyour own value systems, some of
the relationships are going tostretch you.
It's going to stretch them, butit's also holding a more honest
version of you.
And that in itself is a superbeautiful thing.
Here's how to reframe thingsthat might help when you're
(13:37):
faced with this, especiallyaround a goal.
The goal was never ever made tomake anyone and everyone
comfortable.
The goal is to actually live thelife that you recognize that you
want.
A little discomfort in people inthe short term is a much smaller
(13:58):
cost than the decades of quietlyresenting a life built entirely
out of other people'sexpectations.
So not only when we look at thevalues that we have, but also
the goals that we have, we haveto be okay with being a little
bit uncomfortable when we chooseourselves and we choose
ourselves first.
And it might not be what otherswant from us because we're now
(14:23):
choosing a value-based decision.
And practically, just startsmall.
I talk about this on a lot of mypodcasts about just starting
small, so that you can actuallybuild a habit around this.
You don't have to completelyoverhaul your job, quit your job
tomorrow, or you know, end thefriendship tomorrow.
(14:46):
You can be super practical aboutthis.
And that practicality will startbuilding the muscle inside of
your brain and start buildingconfidence inside of you.
It decline the invitation younormally would accept out of
obligation.
See how that feels.
Work through that emotion.
Choose the smaller, quieterversion of a plan instead of the
(15:08):
impressive one.
Just notice how that feels.
Value-based decisions are aboutcreating that muscle and
building that muscle.
You build it in low-stakemoments so that it's strong
enough to hold you when there'sreally high-stake moments and
high-stake decisions thatarrive.
(15:28):
So here's what I want you totake with you today.
Not every should is wrong, butalmost every should deserves to
be questioned before you buildyour life around it.
And what you still want, if noone is watching, is not in that
(15:50):
should, you need to take a lookat that.
Trace your goals back to thevalues underneath them.
And when a real decision comes,weigh that out in the quiet.
Be honest with yourself aboutthe answer.
And then impress yourself andmake the decision based on your
internal values.
(16:12):
Try this this week.
Try running one decision, even asmall one, through that three
question filter.
Notice what changes when youdecide what your values are
inside of your own internalaudience.
And when others respond orreact, be patient.
(16:34):
Notice that they're going toneed to stretch in learning this
new aspect of yourself too.
So if this episode struck achord, send it to someone who
you think could also value fromlistening to this.
I would love to also hear fromyou.
What's one of your shoulds thatyou're ready to question this
(16:54):
week?
I'd love hearing these growthstories and these growth
opportunities.
So please come and share withus.
Until next time, this is theElevate Her podcast.
Be bold, be beautiful, makevalue based decisions, and have
an amazing week.
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