If I had learnt years ago that what I said to myself and to others would shape my life, I know I would have made some decidedly different choices. My language was filled with ‘I can't” and “it’s too hard,” and “later.”
If only I had known that saying those words created my reality. I would have changed them in an instant and that would have changed my world. But I didn't, and I stayed stuck for a decade, living with the three old men of life, Wishing, Waiting, and Hoping.
When I finally realised the truth of the saying “What you tell yourself and others on a consistent basis is how you will experience your life”, I had recognise the enormous cost I had paid until then.
People with a negative vocabulary experience a negative life. People with rich vocabularies experience more choices and more variety in how they experience their world.
What does this mean? It means if we continually use words that focus on lack, pain, disappointment, despair, sadness and anger then that is how we will experience their world.
If we continually describe our world and I view of it as multi-coloured, vibrant, fun, abundant and loving, then we will experience that world.
Language has enormous intensity. We can’t say the word hate, for instance, without having an emotional charge attached to it. We can’t say love without another type of charge.
Simply by changing your vocabulary you transform how you feel, how you think and the way you live. I experienced the power of this when something happened in our business that was extremely challenging. I reacted with alarm, and could feel myself going red as I used the words “hate this” and “this is terrible” and “how could they!”
I was with one of our team. My associate wasn’t getting angry. In fact, they seemed pretty calm about it. They were “curious” and “interested” about what was happening. Curious! I was fuming.
As the anger and frustration built it occurred to me that I has a choice in how I reacted to what was happening. I used the word “trickled” Instead of angry and found myself smiling. Before long the giant issue was manageable.
What other words can you use instead of angry, furious or livid? How about peeved? Or mildly annoyed? What about miffed?
What other words can use instead of depressed, miserable, gutted or devastated? How about concerned? Or confused? What about curious? Or a little sad?
Do you think this would make a difference to how you experience the events in your life? The thing to appreciate is that the words we use to describe our experience then become our experience. This is because we use our language to describe our world, and because our language can’t exactly describe how we feel, what we see and what we hear, we tend to exaggerate, misrepresent or distort our experience.
Think about a time an event happened that annoyed you yet seemed to anger someone else. The same event can cause any number of reactions because the words we use cause a change in our physiology. There is an actual biochemical change in our body when we use language that has energy.
Words impact our beliefs and our actions
Here are some typical words we might use to describe our experience. What words could you instead, that would have the effect of changing how you experience an event?
Angry
Afraid
Terrified
Frustrated
Furious
Humiliated
Devastated
Scared
Overwhelmed
Stressed
Jealous
Gutted
Miserable
Disgusted
Exhausted
Disenchanted
Concerned
Challenged
Stimulated
Now it’s your turn. Think of events in your life where you may react with strong language what creates negative feelings. What are some alternatives that you can use instead?
Old, Unresourceful word New, resourceful word
_____________________ ______________________
_____________________ ______________________
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Now it’s your turn. Think of events in your life where you may react with medicare language that creates neutral or flat feelings. What are some alternatives that you can use instead?
Mediocre Word Energised Word
_____________________ _______________________
_____________________ _______________________
_____________________ _______________________
Play the vocabulary game with passion and intensity and playfulness for ten days and notice the difference it makes. Just for the fun of it, when experiencing (rather than confronted with) an interesting (rather than challenging) situation, respond with mild, neutral and even empowering language.
When experiencing a situation that gives you pleasure, turn up the volume and intensity on your language, make it even more playful and outrageous and energised. Feel the emotions of the words you choose to use and notice the difference.
Result Report
As you do this exercise, record what you notice is different about your world and the people in it. What are you noticing you are feeling as a result of this commitment?
