Speaker 1: What do you have to do today? Maybe a long
Speaker 1: detailed report, whole stack of meetings, make dinner, do laundry,
Speaker 1: somehow squeeze in a workout. Ah, I hear you. Between work, family, friendships,
Speaker 1: and looking after our health, there's a lot that we
Speaker 1: feel like we have to do. But therein lies the
Speaker 1: problem thinking about what we have to do make something
Speaker 1: automatically feel like a burden. Your self talk is really powerful,
Speaker 1: but thankfully it works both ways, and today we're going
Speaker 1: to find a simple hack to improve your self talk.
Speaker 1: My name is doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist
Speaker 1: and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium. And this
Speaker 1: is How I Work, a show about how to help
Speaker 1: you do your best work. For the month of October,
Speaker 1: every episode of How I Work is going to be
Speaker 1: themed around well being at work, because goodness knows we
Speaker 1: need it. So let's get to today's tip around improving
Speaker 1: your well being. If you're a morning exerciser like me,
Speaker 1: you probably had many mornings where you've literally had to
Speaker 1: drag yourself out of bed, reluctantly, put on your gym
Speaker 1: gear and force yourself out the door to go for
Speaker 1: a run. For me. I exercise five mornings a week.
Speaker 1: It's become quite habitual, actually, but I definitely have days
Speaker 1: where it's the last thing I want to do. My
Speaker 1: brain tells me it would be so much more enjoyable
Speaker 1: to just lie in bed just a little bit longer
Speaker 1: and have a warm shower on a cold morning instead
Speaker 1: of lift weights in my freezing cold garage. But I
Speaker 1: say to myself, I have to exercise, and begrudgingly I
Speaker 1: go and do it. But could that be a better
Speaker 1: way of talking to myself, A method that actually makes
Speaker 1: me want to go and exercise rather than have it
Speaker 1: feel like a chore. Well, it turns out there is now.
Speaker 1: While competing in one hundred k Ultra Marathon in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: Turia Pitt was caught in a gas fire and suffered
Speaker 1: full thickness burns to sixty five percent of her body.
Speaker 1: But surviving that is the least of her achievements. Turia
Speaker 1: has gone on to become best selling author, a two
Speaker 1: time iron Man, and a humanitarian, and in twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: she gave birth to her first son, hack of I
Speaker 1: that after becoming a mum, Turia told me when I
Speaker 1: had her on how I work that she became really
Speaker 1: aware of her own self talk around feeling like she
Speaker 1: had to do certain things. She would think to herself,
Speaker 1: I have to go and clean his room, or I
Speaker 1: have to prepare his food, or I have to wash
Speaker 1: his clothes. And when you tell yourself that you have
Speaker 1: to do things, it's really easy to start resenting them
Speaker 1: and for them to feel like an obligation and something
Speaker 1: that you don't actually want to do. So after becoming
Speaker 1: aware of the impact her language was having, Turia made
Speaker 1: a simple change. She started saying I get to so
Speaker 1: she would say, I get to pick up hack of eye,
Speaker 1: I get to play with hack of eye, I get
Speaker 1: to be around it. I get to watch him as
Speaker 1: he grows up. And for Turia, just changing her language
Speaker 1: really reminded her that it was an opportunity, like it
Speaker 1: was a choice, and it was something that she got
Speaker 1: to be really grateful for now. Interestingly, Touria also started
Speaker 1: to use this strategy in her professional life. So as
Speaker 1: part of her work, she delivers a lot of keynote presentations,
Speaker 1: and she often gets really nervous beforehand and just stuck
Speaker 1: in her own head. She worries that she won't articulate
Speaker 1: herself clearly, or that people will think she's an idiot.
Speaker 1: So what she does is she really has to stop
Speaker 1: and remind herself before the speech that it's not that
Speaker 1: she has to do a speech, but that she gets
Speaker 1: to do a speech, and she sees that that's a
Speaker 1: pretty awesome opportunity that a room full of people potentially
Speaker 1: want to listen to her and what she has to say.
Speaker 1: So the effectiveness of the get to strategy lies in
Speaker 1: the fact that it reframes the activity from being mature
Speaker 1: to a gift. It taps into intrinsic motivation instead of extrinsic. Specifically,
Speaker 1: when we feel like we have to do something, it's
Speaker 1: like an external force is telling us to do the activity.
Speaker 1: We don't have a choice. But when we get to
Speaker 1: do something, it reframes the activity into one where we
Speaker 1: have control and choiceover we're choosing to exercise, for example.
Speaker 1: It makes our choice feel like it's in line with
Speaker 1: our own values and wishes. So maybe your challenge for
Speaker 1: this week is to put this strategy into action. So
Speaker 1: think about a behavior that you know is good for you,
Speaker 1: but that you've got some negative self talk around. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a healthy habit that you're trying to form, such
Speaker 1: as eating more vegetables or sticking to an exercise regime.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's about a work task that you've been
Speaker 1: avoiding or procrastinating over because chances are you're telling yourself
Speaker 1: that you have to do it, so deliberately rephrase your
Speaker 1: self talk into using language I get to do this task,
Speaker 1: and consider how doing the task aligns with what matters
Speaker 1: to you, such as being healthy or doing a great
Speaker 1: job at work. If you enjoyed today's show, you know
Speaker 1: someone that you think might benefit from this little strategy
Speaker 1: for the well being at work, maybe share the episode
Speaker 1: with them. And if you're looking for more tips to
Speaker 1: improve the way that you work, I write a short
Speaker 1: fortnightly newsletter that contains three all things that I have
Speaker 1: discovered that helped me work better, which range from interesting
Speaker 1: research findings through the gadgets that I'm loving. You can
Speaker 1: sign up for that at Howiwork dot co. Howiwork dot
Speaker 1: co and there's also a link in the show notes.
Speaker 1: How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support
Speaker 1: from Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Martin Nimba
Speaker 1: who does the audio mix and makes everything sound awesome,
Speaker 1: See you next time.