Breaking the “I Have To” Cycle

October 10, 2022 Author: Michael

🎙️ Podcast Link 🎙️

“I can’t go to dinner with my friends, I have to get this paper finished” 😔

“I can’t go to the beach / snow / mountains this weekend, I have to get these experiments running” 😟

“I can’t play with the kids, I have to get this grant submitted” 😥

“I have to” is one of the most damaging phrases that most people say on a regular basis, and there’s an easy fix to snap yourself out of it.

In this new video, I unpack what’s really behind the phrase, the multiple ways it can be harmful, and outline a very easy, very simple way to break yourself out of the habit.

Does this get you out of all professional and work commitments? No!

Does this break the habit of “I have to” being the default go to phrase, instead helping you deliberately consider each and every situation before making a decision – yes!

🙏 Please reshare if of interest to you, your colleagues, friends and/or family!

Complete topic list and timestamps:

📌 (0:00) Introduction: The “I Have To” Cycle
📌 (0:15) How Often Do You Say “I Have To”?
📌 (0:40) “I Have To”: A Dangerous Phrase!
📌 (0:59) Unpacking the Statement: All About Consequences
📌 (1:18) Good and Bad Consequences, and Speaking Out of Habit
📌 (1:32) Example of the Full Thought Process
📌 (1:57) “I Have To” Misrepresents the Situation
📌 (2:09) It’s Not as Simple As It Sounds!
📌 (2:25) “I Have To” Can Become Self-Reinforcing
📌 (2:56) The Words We Use Are Vitally Important
📌 (3:13) An Absolute That Impairs Prioritisation and Communication
📌 (3:41) An All Too Easy Barrier to Put Up
📌 (4:07) Consequence Prediction is Challenging
📌 (4:29) “I Have To” Can Be Based on Faulty Estimates
📌 (4:41) Perfectionism is a Complicating Factor
📌 (4:49) Much “I Have To” Activity is Not Justified
📌 (5:03) The Fix is Easy!
📌 (5:12) Self-Monitoring for the Phrase
📌 (5:23) The Substitute Phrase
📌 (5:45) Say It Internally or Verbally
📌 (5:53) Sitting Back and Evaluating
📌 (6:15) Example Scenario
📌 (6:36) Example Substitute Phrase
📌 (7:02) It Often Sounds Different When You Rephrase
📌 (7:15) It’s About Conscious, Deliberate Evaluation
📌 (7:33) How Good is Your Consequence Prediction?
📌 (7:47) Disappointing People: Consider Both Sides
📌 (8:21) This Doesn’t Get You Out of Every Situation!
📌 (8:56) Simple Tricks Can Be Highly Effective
📌 (9:23) Easy to Try and Often Instantly Illuminating
📌 (9:36) A Healthy Move Both Professionally and Personally

Full Video Notes

  • Introduction: This video covers a very simple key concept that regularly trips up and derails well educated, bright people – like, for example, academics. 
  • “I Have to”: How often do you say in daily life, “I have to…” Especially, “I can’t do A because I have to do B.”
  • For example, “I have to get this proposal finished”, or “I have to get this paper submitted”.
  • What’s the Issue? Innocuous phrase, but it’s extremely dangerous. In this video I’ll unpack the key concept that you never “have” to do anything, provide some techniques to mitigate this problem, and share some general thoughts
  • Unpacking the statement: So what do people actually mean when they say, “I have to do something”? They mean, “I am choosing to do something because of my estimate of the consequences of doing or not doing so”. The consequences can be good or bad. Or worse, they’re saying it out of habit without really thinking about it.
  • Example: For example, “I have to get this proposal finished because the deadline for submission is today”. That person doesn’t have to do that. They’re choosing to because some combination of internal motivations and external circumstances sum up to make them want to prioritise that activity.
  • Problems with the phrase: At this point you’re thinking, “thank you captain obvious. What other gems of wisdom do you have to share today?”. Well it comes down to why saying “I have to do something” is so problematic. There are a few key reasons.
  • It can become a subconscious self-reinforcing habit: if you regularly use this phrasing, you can start to say it when the context doesn’t actually merit it. So a situation might arise that isn’t actually that consequential, but you use this language, and then you start subconsciously treating the importance of the situation based on your statement, not on its actual real importance.
  • It doesn’t allow any nuance or prioritisation: I have to do something is an absolute statement. But you will often have dozens of demands on your time at any one time, and this adds an extra subtle barrier in terms of thinking clearly and prioritising your activities. It also puts up an absolute barrier in terms of communicating with your friends and family.
  • It Can All So Easily Become a Barrier to Work-Life Balance, especially as pertains to family and friends. “I can’t join you because I have to…”
  • Consequence prediction failure: Most importantly, bright, well-educated people tend to massively overestimate their ability to predict consequences of doing, or not doing something. They also often suffer from perfectionism. This means they can often think they “have” to do something, when the consequences of not doing so aren’t nearly as bad as they might envision.
  • What to do about it? A useful exercise I run is to have people self-monitor when they say “I have to…” throughout their day. Especially if they are saying it as a reason to not socialize with friends or spend time with their family.
  • Phrase substitution: When they catch themselves doing it, I get them to substitute the phrase in their head, “I am choosing to prioritise activity X over Y, because of A, B and C”. Then, you get them to think whether choosing to do this activity still makes sense.
  • Let’s try it out: it’s 4:30 pm, your partner or kids or friends are going down to throw a frisbee at the park or catch up over a coffee and ask if you’re in. You catch yourself saying, “I can’t, I have to finish proofing this paper”.
  • Phrase substitution: “I’m choosing to work on this paper instead of spending time with my partner / kids / friends, because I want to submit it tonight to the journal.”
  • Sounds different doesn’t it? This exercise is all about making you stop and consciously think about whether what you’re saying actually stacks up.
  • Then Comes the Assessment: does this still make sense? What are the actual consequences of delaying this another day? 
  • Let’s Talk About Consequences: there are lots, and evaluating consequences in detail is a topic for another day, but a common one driving a lot of “have to” statements is that you think you may disappoint people. You may – but you may not as much as you feared. And, more importantly, it’s worth pointing out that many of these “have to” activities are also disappointing others – including your closest friends and your family! Have you got your balance right?
  • Caveats: this isn’t a blanket “get out of all work commitments” trick. Unless you are strictly regimental about work-life balance, there will still be situations where you do choose to work late. The key here is to stop that being the default operation that you don’t even think about.

Wrap-up: it may feel insulting to resort to such a simple “trick” – but, as mentioned at the beginning of the video, bright, well-educated people can often place too much faith in their own intelligence and capabilities, and not enough in simple, but effective, tricks. This trick is easy to do, often instantly illuminating, and very worthwhile trying. Breaking the “I have to” cycle is one of the healthiest things you can do for your professional and personal life.