“Gotta” or “got to” or “have to”

Another word to eliminate is gotta.

You hear it all the time… “Oh I’ve gotta do this…” or “I have to do that…”

One thing I’ve learned in life is that you don’t ‘gotta’ to do anything…ANYTHING.

You may be thinking, “well I have to go to work tomorrow…” Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t. This is one of my favorite topics to discuss when I’m addressing school kids… When I say you don’t have to go to school, I get all types of looks… Surprise from the kids, but confusion from the teachers or parents. I can sometimes hear the teachers saying, “I can’t believe we brought this guy in to talk to our students and he’s telling them that they don’t have to go to school.”

The truth is: they don’t.

But like anything else, there are consequences (more accurately, effects) that result from not going to school. The child may get in trouble with their parents, they may get in trouble with the school, or fall behind in their work…which ultimately isn’t what the child wants…but no child HAS to go to school.

Just like you don’t HAVE to go to work. You may get your pay docked, you may get fired…lose your house, etc….but you don’t HAVE to go.

Heck, you don’t even HAVE to eat. Obviously your quality of living may suffer, but your don’t HAVE to eat.
Remember, everything you do has a result that it causes, but you never HAVE to do anything.
Look at the things you do as choices. Because they are. You choose to go to work because you enjoy it or it pays your bills or what ever other reason you go…but always see what you do as a choice.

When you feel you ‘have’ to do something it becomes limiting, controlling, and dis-empowering…and that can lead to unconsciously resenting things.

So from here on, look at everything you do as a choice. YOUR choice. YOU are choosing to do the things you do in your life.