Ok. Do you want to know what one of the keys is to the door into your mind? A key that isn’t virtual, but exist for you to hear each and every day. Out Loud. A key that opens the door to daily your emotions, your behaviour and ultimately your results in life. You may notice this key on others, but do you really notice your own key? Sorry to have you hanging in suspense, but this is REALLY important for you. Not me. You. If you want to know the key, then read on.
This key is so simple, most of the time we pay it lip service. This key is the LANGUAGE that you use. You might not realise how important it is, but it really is one of the keys to understanding how you think. And how you behave. And how you come across to others – which ultimately means how they respond to you. How you behave in the world (the actions that you take), gives you the results that you get in life. So putting it all together – changing your language can have a huge affect on your whole life and whether you are using your mind as effectively as possible.
So let’s look deeper into this ‘language’ and in particular the concept of ‘speaking in absolutes’, which I recently commented on my Facebook fan page, and a made a video of for my website. Since then I have dug deeper into the concept of ‘absolutes’ and I now have new insights as a result of observing this language pattern more closely. When I say absolutes, what I mean is words like “must be, must have, must do”, “always”, “everything”, “all”, “has to be”, and “can’t be”.
If you use language like, “The electricity MUST have went out in the WHOLE city” (when you lose power at your house), you are locking yourself into an absolute, which may have the following outcomes:
- You may feel a need to defend your statement (otherwise you will look stupid if it looks like you might be wrong),
- You may be ‘locked in’ to there being no other possibility,
- You can feel overwhelm because of the scale of this situation you have created (and that all options and other possibilities are removed),
- Plus you may sound a like a know-all which can distance people from you.
The same applies if you use a statement like: “It HAS TO BE the teenagers that caused the damage to the property”. Can you see how this traps you inside a restrictive statement – free of any other possibility? And can you see how this might create unnecessary stress for you?
Might I suggest catching yourself out when you use ‘absolute’ words and use an alternative like: “perhaps…”, “it’s my opinion…”, “it’s possible…”, “most”, “a lot”, “it seems”. This way you will allow the possibility that you may not have 100% of the facts; you may sound less like a know-all AND MOST IMPORTANTLY it can allow your mind to consider that there are other possibilities. That life isn’t just black and white. That there is possibility outside of the knowledge of science, or what you have witnessed in front of your eyes.
I have found that clients that talk in absolutes are quite stressed and have limited their creativity, because they lock their thinking into rigid statements, and they don’t allow for a possibility outside of what they know (which is relatively limited for all of us), to enter into their consciousness.
So even if you are 97.2% sure about something, don’t be too rigid in your language. Because rigid language (generally) = rigid mind. Which can equate to stress, less fun, less magic in your life and can make you sound a little bit arrogant or authoritarian. Be cool. ;-)
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