Friday, February 27, 2009
Get To or Got To?
Every morning for several years, promptly at 10am, a prominent businesswoman visited her mother in a nursing home. She was close to her mother and loved her very much. Often she had requests for appointments at the time of day. Her response was always the same: “No, I’ve got to visit with my mother.” Eventually, her mother passed away. Shortly thereafter someone asked the woman for an appointment at 10am. It suddenly hit her that she could no longer visit her mother. Her next thought was, ‘Oh, I wished I could visit my mother just one more time.’ From that moment on, she changed her “got to’s” to “get to’s.”
Her story makes us realize that pleasurable things are “get to’s.” I get to play pool today, or I get to go on vacation this week. Burdensome things are “got to’s.” I have got to go to work at 7am tomorrow, or I have got to clean the house. Since the perceptions influence thinking and performance, try this. Instead of saying, “I’ve got to go to work,” think about the people who have no job. Then you can enthusiastically change it to, “I get to go to work tomorrow.” If somebody invites you to go fishing, instead of saying, “No, I’ve got to go to my child’s game on Saturday,” think about the fact that someday your child will grow up and you won’t be able to go to his or her games. Then it’s easy to change it to “get to.”
It is amazing what that change in words will eventually do for your attitude. You will find yourself looking forward to doing those things instead of feeling as if you have to do them. With a difference in attitude, there will be a difference in performance. With a difference in performance, there will be a difference in rewards. So think about these things, and change your “got to’s” to “get to’s.”kAkA.hUnTeR
We have to keep running to the unseen end.
spoke at : 2/27/2009 03:36:00 PM