Have => Get

By: Michael Beiter

One perspective shift that helps when you lack motivation is to change your "have to" into "get to."

That's right, one word can make a huge difference in how you think about your actions.

Rather than saying, "I have to work out today and log my food," which frames these things as obligations, try saying, "Today, I get to work out and log my food." The second states them as opportunities.

It's too easy to forget that for most of history, people were obliged to exercise daily to survive, and food logging didn't exist.

My great-great-grandpa didn't have a choice as to whether or not he would exercise each day; he did manual labor for 10 hours daily for decades. He did not have the opportunity to log his food on a phone because the knowledge and technology still needed to be created.

We live in a world ripe with opportunities that generations who came before us could only dream of, but here we are, with more technology on our wrists and in our pockets than what NASA had when they landed on the moon, and we still complain.

I'm already done working today and going to the gym to do cardio. Not because I have to but because I have the free time, equipment, and knowledge to do so. Because I can.