Awareness of Choice

Notice when you use the words "should", "ought to", "have to", "he or she made me."  Recognize that you make choices to meet needs. If they are not effective or cause dilemmas with other needs, look for a new strategy or collaboration.  Offer someone else an opportunity to contribute to your life my making a simple doable request or find a way to make a request of yourself instead of getting yourself stuck in thinking there is only one strategy for getting a need met.
See how often you can replace the words "I have to" with "I choose to ...... to meet my need for ....."
Examples:  I choose to get up early and go to work to meet my needs for competence and contribution to the family finances.  This meets my needs for security and predictability.  I choose to take my attention away from the others looking at my child crying in the grocery store and connect with my child's needs instead. This allows me to teach my child a new strategy for meeting her needs rather than using a strategy to get her to comply in order to meet my need for respect from those looking on. I choose to connect with my child instead of telling myself "I have to do whatever it takes to get her to stop crying and whining right now."  When we become aware of the choices we make, we can live more in line with all of our values and take more of an active role in how we balance our needs and contribute to others' values.