When obligations, goals, and standards to meet up to seem to weigh on our shoulders, how can we release the internal pressure and constraint they create, while being motivated to fulfill them? The stress of it all can feel understandably much. It comes from a very human tendency to see obligations, goals, and standards as one “have to” after another.
“Have to” is a phrase we take for granted. But does the phrase “have to” really help? And is there a healthy alternative that is motivating?
The phrase “have to,” when focused on too intensely, actually exhausts people’s motivation, though it may briefly work in the short term, it rarely works in the long-term. It intensifies the sense of pressure so much, making it hard to take action.
It is like holding oneself with a stiff or rigid posture in activities like playing sports, dancing, or playing music. It exerts too much pressure into each movement, preventing it from being smooth and graceful—and before long one’s energy gets depleted and one cannot keep going. When it comes to these activities, we know such a posture is not good for physical wellbeing. The same applies to mental health: a prolonged use of a “have to” mindset is a stiff and rigid internal framework that is not good for our psychological wellbeing.
When a musician plays with an internal pressure to be perfect, their stiffness and rigidity is felt subtly in their music when listened to by an attentive ear. Even if each note is technically accurate, there is a constrained and stifled quality—as if the music is not fully expressed and has lost its life. Similarly, a perfecting “have to” mentality constrains and stifles us internally, and it takes the life out of us.
Temporarily, a “have to” mindset may be able to check off obligations, goals, and standards to meet, but not long afterwards, it seems like even doing their basics becomes hard, and we even start to procrastinate. This is because there is so much internal pressure that is build up around them, we avoid doing them. “Have to” makes it seem we are directed like puppets—it makes it seem like what drives us comes from the outside, and that is why we feel disempowered.
Let us connect ourselves with a deeper source of motivation from within ourselves, one that is more enriching, revitalizing, and helpful. To get to this deeper source of motivation, it helps to realize that everything that we have called a “have to” has originally come from choices we made. For example, people often say that they “have to” read up on mental health, as if there is no other choice. However, that is not true, because reading up on mental health is a choice that they made. They chose to read on their mental health because they value caring for their own wellbeing and health. Beyond these values of wellbeing and health are deeper values of personal growth, and increasing their own self-awareness.
“Choice” is an empowering word, because the sense of control comes from within ourselves. In reality, there is nothing that we “have” to do, because we can technically do nothing—and even doing nothing is a choice in itself. We make choices, because of values that are important to us.
If someone says that they “have to” take care of their family, this is still a choice. They choose to take care of their family, because they value responsibility, loyalty, and nurturing others. Beneath these values are deeper values: they choose responsibility, loyalty, and nurturing others because these values help them to create meaning, grow, and build character. You can take anything that seems to be done out of complete necessity and you can make a case for how it is done based on deep values we care about.
I had worked with those on parole in which attending therapy services is a condition of their parole, and even then, they had a choice—they chosen to come to therapy, because very much could have chosen to go to jail. They chose therapy because they value their freedom. And we can look deeper here: they value their freedom because they value living a more enriching and meaningful life than one beyond bars.
Take something you think you “have to” do, and by reframing it as something you choose to do, based on a value you have that matters to you, you will be empowered. As shown in the above examples, we can even look deeper behind these values to find deeper values that are either more spiritual or more philosophical, such as personal growth, self-awareness, character-building, meaning-making, and enrichment. This helps us get beyond the surface of our motivation—our “have to’s”—to unearth the deeper reasons for doing things that come from our chosen values.
