Day 6: Must-Do and Musterbation
Week 1 Awareness
How often do you tell yourself you have to do something? Or you must, or you should? Those words seem harmless but they carry a psychological cost. They create a feeling of being trapped between doing something you don’t want to do and the consequences of not doing it. This lesson looks at why that language matters and what you can say instead.
Musterbation is quite simply what happens when you use a have to phrase in your internal self-talk. Have to phrases in NLP terminology are called modal operators of necessity. They’re really common phrases, but they’re also something you need to watch out for.
The Trap of Necessity
When you say you have to do something, you need to do something, or you should do something, it can make you feel stressed because you’re telling yourself there’s no other option. You’re compelled to do that one thing. A have to this or a have to that can make you feel disempowered and it saps your emotional energy and motivation because with this type of self-talk you lose choice.
A have to phrase makes you feel as if you’re being told what to do. This anchors your emotional state back to a time when you were being told or forced to do something you didn’t want to do. With this state of mind, stress and frustration creep in due to the lack of autonomy and choice you feel.
There are other phrases that cause a similar effect. Have to. Must do. Should. Need to. Got to. All of these words indicate a necessity to do something. They presuppose, either consciously or subconsciously, that you must do something, that it has to happen, and that it needs to happen. Here are three examples you might recognise:
I must lose weight.
I have to get a job.
I need to stop smoking.
The Double Bind
Must do this or need to do that limits your feeling of choice. It creates a mental trap called a double bind. This feeling of necessity ties you up because when you use these phrases, your mind alternates between what would happen if you begrudgingly did it and what would happen if you didn’t. Both options in this mental double bind give you a lack of choice and you’ll feel trapped between two pretty poor outcomes. This gives you a feeling of internal stress and limits your perception of choice. You get stuck in have to this or must do that. As the phrase goes, too much musterbation is really bad for you.
If you would like to decrease your mental stress and stop yourself musterbating, you can look out for modal operators of necessity in your self-talk. Musterbation makes you feel disempowered. It creates a lack of choice in how you can react in any situation. This limits your ability to access other resources and make other choices. You feel stuck between deadline and failure.
Feel It For Yourself
To illustrate the feeling of stress that musterbation causes, spend a second or two listening to your own self-talk when saying to yourself a few of the things you have to do today. Here are a few examples:
I have to cut the grass. I should really go for a run. I must iron my work shirts.
When you say these things you feel unmotivated inside. When you say have to, should, or must phrases to yourself, you can feel trapped and frustration builds. Whereas you could try saying instead that you could cut the grass a little later, that you’d prefer to go for a run when the weather’s better, and if you get a moment you could probably drop your shirts off at the dry cleaners instead.
The Alternative: Modal Operators of Choice
Using self-talk with better modal operators, words like could, prefer, or if, helps you feel a lot better because these words give you more choice. You feel more autonomous, less limited in your actions. You start to think of better choices too. When you feel you have a choice, you aren’t caught in that mental bind between do and don’t. So by stopping yourself musterbating, you reduce self-imposed feelings of frustration and anxiety and lower your internal stress levels.
A simple exercise you could choose to do for a day, or maybe a week or two if you really want to make the habit stick, would be to mentally catch yourself saying things like have to, need to, should do, and must do. Instead say to yourself what you’d like to do, what you could do, what you’d prefer to do, and what you’d want to do.
By choosing a better modal operator you limit the internal stress you feel and mentally open your mind to opportunity. By creating choice you create the ability to decide what you want to do. You free your mind up to alternatives and feel more empowered.
Adding Purpose with Because
As well as giving yourself choice by choosing a better modal operator, you can take this exercise a step further and ask yourself why. Asking why when you’re about to do something can give you purpose because often it’s the reason you’re doing something that gives you the motivation to do it.
So after changing your modal operator into one that gives you choice, find out why by adding a because in your self-talk. Say to yourself:
I choose to do X because…
By adding the because you’re asking yourself why you’ve chosen to do what you’re doing. Most of the time you’ll come up with a positive reason to do that action, as opposed to a have to statement that most of the time gives you the reason as because I have to, which isn’t the most mentally motivating reason.
Real World Impact
Consider someone who is drowning in shoulds. She should exercise more. She should eat better. She should spend more time with her kids. She should be more patient with her mother. She should, she should, she should. Every should feels like a weight on her shoulders. And she isn’t doing any of these things because they all feel like obligations, not choices.
The change isn’t magic. But when things feel like choices rather than obligations, when there are reasons rather than requirements, motivation actually follows. That’s the power of changing your modal operators. It’s not about tricking yourself or using positive thinking nonsense. It’s about recognising that most of the things you tell yourself you have to do, you actually don’t. You’re choosing to do them. Or you’re choosing not to. Either way, it’s a choice. Owning that choice gives you back your power.
The Practical Application
Catch yourself saying have to statements, shoulds, need tos, and must dos. Change your self-talk to give yourself some choice and free yourself from a little bit of stress. It’s a small change in language that creates a big change in how you feel.
Notice how often you do it. Every time you catch it, you have an opportunity to reframe it. Not as an obligation, but as a choice with reasons.
This isn’t about eliminating the things you need to do. Some things do need doing. But there’s a difference between I need to pay my bills because I want to keep my house and I have to pay my bills. One gives you agency. The other makes you a victim of circumstance.
Musterbation is one of the most common patterns of negative self-talk. It’s also one of the easiest to change once you’re aware of it. You just need to catch it in action and consciously choose different words.
References
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- Beck, A.T. (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. Guilford Press.
- Burns, D.D. (1980). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. William Morrow.
- Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. Plenum Press.
- Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. Lyle Stuart.
- Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever You Go, There You Are. Hyperion.
- Neff, K. (2011). Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. William Morrow.
- Sapolsky, R.M. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Henry Holt.
- Seligman, M.E.P. (1991). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Knopf.