I was recently tasked with creating a series of social media posts for my consultancy, Inventium, to share on LinkedIn and Instagram. While I love writing, I hate creating content for the socials. It’s time-consuming to turn long-form thoughts into short, pithy, and click-worthy tiles. So naturally, I procrastinated on doing this task until the deadline started to loom.
Inevitably, the highly conscientious voice in my head shouted, “You have to create the social media content! You’re letting the team down! Go! Now! C’mon, I said, go!” And begrudgingly, I did it. Urgh.
But could there be a better way of talking to myself? A method that actually makes me want to create engaging social media content rather than feel as though I am being bossed around by a nasty little person in my head? Turns out there is.
While competing in a 100-km ultramarathon in 2011, Turia Pitt was caught in a grassfire and suffered full thickness burns to 65% of her body. But surviving is the least of her achievements. Pitt has gone on to become a bestselling author, a two-time Ironman, and a humanitarian. And in 2017, she gave birth to her first son, Hakavai.
After becoming a mother, she became aware of her own self-talk around feeling as if she had to do certain things.
“I have to go clean his room or I have to prepare his food, or have to wash his clothes,” Pitt would think to herself. “When you tell yourself that you have to do things it’s really easy for you to resent them and for them to feel like an obligation and something that you don’t actually want to do.”
After reflecting on the impact that her inner voice was having, Pitt made a simple change. She started saying: “I get to.”
“I get to pick up Hakavai, I get to play with Hakavai, I get to be around and I get to watch him as he grows up. And for me, just changing my language suddenly reminded me that it was an opportunity. It was a choice, and it was something that I got to be really grateful for.”
Pitt also started to use this strategy in her professional life. As part of her work, Pitt delivers a lot of keynote presentations. She often feels very nervous beforehand and gets stuck in her own head, undermining her own focus and confidence. She worries that she won’t articulate herself clearly, or that people will think she is an idiot.
“I have to really stop and remind myself that it’s not that I have to do a speech, but that I get to do a speech. It’s a pretty awesome opportunity that a room full of people potentially want to listen to me and want to hear what I have to say.”
The effectiveness of the “get to” strategy lies in the fact that it reframes the activity from being a chore to being a gift. It taps into intrinsic, instead of extrinsic, motivation. Usually, when we feel as though we have to do something, it’s like an external force is telling us to do the activity: we don’t have a choice. But when we get to do something, it reframes the activity into one over which we have control and choice: we are choosing to create social media content to spread our thoughts far and wide, for example. And it makes our choice feel like it’s in line with our own values and wishes.
Reframing the task reduces time wasted procrastinating, so it’s a win-win: the task gets done and you feel happy about doing it.
Put it into action
Think about a behavior that you know is good for you but that you have negative self-talk around. It might be about a work task you have been avoiding or procrastinating over. There is a good chance that you’ve been telling yourself that you have to do it.
Deliberately rephrase your self-talk into using the language: “I get to do this task.” And consider how doing the task aligns with what matters to you, such as progressing in your career or doing a great job at work.
Amantha Imber, PhD, is the author of Time Wise (of which this article is an edited extract), the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and the host of How I Work, a podcast about the habits and rituals of the world’s most successful people.
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