The Power of Language in Shaping Motivation and Mindset
Sometimes it seems like nothing works to motivate your team. No incentive, no reward, no carrot at the end of the stick.
And sometimes we’re not that easy to motivate either.
But I have a little trick. And it doesn’t require anything to change externally. Not a thing. These past couple of weeks, it was on high rotation with the teams I was supporting, so I thought I’d share it.
It’s this:
Shifting the language from ‘I have to’ to ‘I GET to.’
On the surface, it’s just a word – how effective can it really be? Well, that one word does a lot of emotional heavy lifting.
When we start looking at our work, our everyday minutia, our to-do list with that lens of ‘I get to’…
Well, you try it.
I’m willing to bet it:
Makes you feel like you have choice, agency
Like what you do matters
Like you have ownership over your actions.
And yes, there’s the byproduct of motivation too, because where there’s meaning and agency, oh… you almost don’t need motivation. I guess you might say you get to be motivated 🙃. Lack of motivation can often be just the symptom of missing those things.
And if we just sit with that for a minute. It’s quite a powerful shift, isn’t it?
A Simple Way to Put This Mindset into Practice Today
Now, let’s put it into practice. Pick the next thing on your to-do list (that you were perhaps procrastinating about) and shift how you think about tackling it: from ‘I have to’ → ‘I get to.’
Notice what it does.
All good things,
Juliet Robinson
Leadership and Change Specialist
