Show Notes
- Research: Grip Force Reveals the Context Sensitivity of Language-Induced Motor Activity during “Action Words” Processing: Evidence from Sentential Negation
- Article: Language: It’s What You Say and How You Say It
Episode Transcript
Forgive typos and odd grammatical mistakes—this was transcribed using the magic of AI, and while it’s insanely awesome, it’s not perfect.
[00:00:00] In today’s episode of the I Hear You podcast, we’re digging into how simple, subtle word choices can silently sap our power, productivity and happiness. We’ll start off with some fascinating research demonstrating the reality of the mind body connection and dive into 10 changes you can start making today to instantly bring greater power, productivity and happiness into your life. Let’s dive in.
Words Have Power
[00:00:43] Ok, before I dive into the language and the word choices I recommend making, I want to start off with a little bit of research that I found online. This is a study that I find quite fascinating by an individual named Pia Aravena, I hope I’m saying the name correctly, and their colleagues. They sought out to test whether there was a connection between the words we read or the words we hear and our own physical strength. Now, they designed the study, I won’t get into all the details, but I will post a link to it on the show notes on my Website. But they invited participants to sit down and they would sit in front of a computer and they would hold a little pressure sensitive item. I don’t know exactly what it looked like, but basically they were asked to hold this. They said, don’t squeeze it too tightly. Just hold it light, hold it well enough to keep it in your hand and just hold on to that as we go through the study here. And they were then asked to close their eyes and listen to a wide variety of sentences. And they were asked as they listened to count the number of sentences that contained the name of a country. You with me here so far? So they’re holding onto this little thing. They’re listening to sentences and they’re just counting the number of times the sentence has a country in it. Now, there were three different types of sentences that they played for them. They were, ones that contained an affirmative action, ones that contained a negative action and ones that were neutral or didn’t really have any action in them at all.
[00:02:10] So an example of the affirmative action sentence was: “At the gym, Fiona lifts the dumbbells.” So, “lifts” is the affirmative action there. An example of the negative action sentence is, “in the plane, Lori doesn’t lift her luggage.” So, again, negative, “doesn’t lift.” So they still have the word “lift” in there, but one’s positive, one’s active, one’s negative. And then an example of the neutral, you might call it the control sentence here is, “in the Spring, Heather loves the flower bush in her garden.” So there’s no inclusion of the word “lift” there, whether negative or positive. Now they had participants listen to dozens of sentences and then they again measured how tightly they were gripping that little item. And what I find fascinating is that for the affirmative action sentences, whenever a participant heard an affirmative action sentence, there was a significant increase in the grip force on that little device. I mean, not that they were like clenching their fists all of a sudden, again, they’re only holding it with I believe a few fingers. But consistently, statistically, they found an increase in the grip strength whenever they heard a word that was an action verb, a positive action verb. Now, here’s what’s crazy, it wasn’t even just the word “lift,” for example, that made them squeeze it tighter. It was only when it was an affirmative action, it was only when they heard, “at the gym, Fiona lifts the dumbbells.” If they heard, “in the plane, Lori doesn’t lift her luggage.” There was no appreciable change in the grip strength. Isn’t that interesting? So this is one study, obviously, and you know, as I skim through the research, I mean, they controlled for a lot of variables and such, but it’s one little tiny way of looking at this.
Words Influence Action
[00:04:00] But there’s much more out there that backs up the power, the idea, that there there is power behind the words that we use. Nobel Prize winner John Eccles discovered way back in 1963 that a few milliseconds before a person decides to carry out an action, specific neurons discharge and a fire in the brain that then cues up the next neurons, getting them ready to actually do the physical action. So that’s perhaps unsurprising. Our brains control our our bodies, so of course certain neurons are going to fire right before the action happens. But what’s interesting is that scientists can literally see that spark of of volition, if you will, go on and off when looking at an FMRI. And it’s that little spark that triggers the action. And oftentimes we can feel it. And my main point in today’s article is that it’s the words that we use often times that dictate whether or not that little spark, whether or not that volition turns on or off. And oftentimes we can feel it. I mean, let’s just do a little test right now. Can you feel your volition turn on when you hear the verbs “go, jump, attack?” Can you feel it? Turn off when you hear “stop, sit, surrender?”
[00:05:23] Even when I do my best to use the same tone, the same cadence with the words, oftentimes we can feel a shift inside of our bodies, a shift in our energy that says “Go!” OK, I’m preparing for action. “Jump,” “attack.” And that gets us ready to take that action. Whereas if you hear, “stop,” “sit,” “surrender,” or, “can’t” or you go into a whole slew of more negative toxic words, we can feel a physiological change in our bodies and it impacts us. So the old playground phrase that little kids say to each other, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me!” We’ve got to get rid of that, because that is not true. It’s just flat out not true. And I think we all know that to a certain extent. But it’s interesting when you do find research that further backs up that connection there.
10 Phrases That Drain Our Energy (And What to Replace Them With)
So without further ado, let’s dive in to 10 of the most common words and phrases we use that weaken us, that sap our power and our energy. And let’s look at the simple changes we can make to each of those 10, to shift back into living a life of power, personal responsibility and happiness.
Phrase #1: “Makes Me”
[00:06:36] Phrase number one, “makes me.” As in, “he or she makes me mad, makes me angry, made me upset, made me feel that way.” This is one of the first things I learned when going to therapy and the reason that we honed in on that so quickly is that it is a victim mindset. When we say, “you made me mad” or, “she made me sad,” we’re basically suggesting that the other person truly has power to control our mind and our thoughts. Now, I’m not going to dive into this too much here because I have previous episodes that talk about victim mindset and personal responsibility. The fact of the matter is, we are in control of our own actions. We can’t always control what other people do, and certainly people will do things that affect us, yet we do control how we react. And so, rather than saying “she made me angry.” Change it to just be a statement of fact. “I feel angry” or, “when you did that, I felt angry.” “When you said that, I felt upset.” Do you see the difference there? Rather than saying, you made me upset or you make me upset, you’re just adding a few extra words there to say, when you do this, I feel this way. Now, the reason I draw that distinction there is that it really isn’t what the other person does that makes us feel a certain way because we choose how we react.
[00:08:09] And sometimes it doesn’t feel like that because it’s our own past experiences that subtly, sometimes subconsciously lead us to react a certain way. But I’ve seen instances, you know, just this weekend we were traveling and there was something that had happened that I, for whatever reason, felt pretty neutral about and didn’t really get too worked up over it. And my wife felt a lot of anxiety around it. That’s neither here nor there, but we both had the same experience, we just interpreted it differently because of our own backgrounds. So phrase number one, whenever you use the term “makes me” or made me or you make me sad, angry, upset, whatever, even, you make me so happy. It’s not really true. So I strongly recommend getting in the habit of shifting that into “I feel” a certain way, or I am a certain way. “I felt angry when..” Small change makes a big difference. And if you don’t believe me, give it a shot.
Phrase #2: “I Didn’t Have Time”
[00:09:09] Alright, phrase number two, “I didn’t have time.” What can you change this to? I didn’t make time, or I didn’t make it a priority, or I chose not to, or I chose to spend my time on other things. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how you grew up. I don’t care how much money you have. We all have 24 hours in the day. So the reality is we all have the same amount of time. Now, when we say I didn’t have time to do it or something like that, it’s not true. Because you did have time to do it. Assuming you weren’t born and then somebody asks you within 10 seconds if you did something, you had the time. The reality, the truth around the situation is you chose to spend that time doing something else. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You get to decide how you spend your time. But we’re talking about the nitty gritty details here. Because when you say I didn’t have time, you’re reinforcing this victim mindset again, that you are a victim to time. You need to have more time in the day, you deserve more than that 24 hours. It’s just not true. So, that simple change from “I didn’t have time” to I didn’t make time, or I focused on other things, or I chose not to do it. That is a stronger way of addressing the situation, and that has a lot of personal ownership and power to that. I admire people who are real and honest when they show up and they say, yeah, I didn’t do it. They just easily could’ve said I didn’t have time, but instead they say, I chose not to, or I focused on other things, or I didn’t plan properly, all of that is taking responsibility. So change, I didn’t have time to any of those more positive, more realistic answers.
Phrase #3: “I Should…” or “I Need To…”
[00:11:01] Alright, phrase number three, “I should” or, “I need to…” This one’s big and I catch myself on this on the daily. It’s just a weak way to say something. “Ah, I really should do that.” Well, what’s implied there? The implication is, I’m not going to. Really what we’re saying if you read between the lines is, I feel some outside pressure to do something that I don’t want to do and I’m not going to do it. So really, I’m just acknowledging the fact that somebody or something wants me to do it and I don’t want to do it. I should do this, I really need to diet better, I really need to get to the gym more, I really should be home for dinner. You name it. We could go on and on. It’s all weak, it all saps your energy. Do you feel it? I don’t like it, and yet it’s so common, it’s so easy for us to slip into that. So what do you replace it with? “I will” or, “I choose to.” Or, “I won’t” or, “I choose not to.” Make a decision, if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. If you do want to do it, then do it and commit to it. Use your words deliberately. Use them with purpose. Instead of saying, “I really should go to the gym more.” Decide in your mind first, are you or are you not going to go to the gym more? If you are than say, “I will go to the gym more.” And if you want to take it one step further, say, “I will go to the gym three times a week. Period.” And make a commitment, it’s powerful.
Phrase #4: “I Will Try”
[00:12:43] Alright, phrase number four, “I will try.” So some people will try to sneak this one here and say, “oh, I said, will, I didn’t say should!” Well, that’s great. “I will” is great. “I will try..” Nope, not going to fly. Because, again, you’re just going back into that victim position of, “Well I’m going to try, but I can’t promise that it’s going to work or that I’m going to be able to do it.” So if you say, “I will try to go to the gym more,” if you say, “I will try to be home by 6 o’clock.” There is zero responsibility in that. There’s zero power and there’s zero ownership. So if you tell your spouse or if your spouse asks if you can be home by 6:00, don’t say I will try. Say I either will, or I won’t, or I will call you at 5:00 and let you know if I can make it or not. Just get rid of the word “try” and get rid of any of the “should’s” and the “need to’s.” So, if you’re finding yourself saying, I will try, that’s a red flag, because again, that means you are dropping responsibility. So instead of try, again, “I will” or “I won’t.”.
Phrase #5: “It’s Not My Fault”
[00:13:51] Phrase number five,”It’s not my fault.” Now, most of us won’t outright say it like this, especially for adults. Kids? Sure, they say it all the time. As adults, we’ve gotten a little trickier, a little sneakier with how we say this. We recognize that it doesn’t sound good when you say, “it’s not my fault!” So instead what we use are excuses. We blame someone or something else when we don’t show up the way we committed to. The definition of an excuse is: to attempt to lessen the blame attaching to a fault or offense. It’s basically seeking to defend or justify ourselves and it’s easy to slip into.
[00:14:32] A couple of months ago, I had a hair appointment scheduled with my barber, and I drive anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes to get to this barber. I found him when I was living in that city and I since moved, but I really like him. So as crazy as it is, I decide to drive 30 to 45 minutes to go get my haircut. Well, I set up an appointment for one afternoon and I looked at the traffic and I thought, OK, 33 minutes is what it should typically take me to get there with no traffic. And so I did some other things and I packed my day pretty tight. And I left, though, right on time. I left 35 minutes before my appointment. Then as I’m driving on the freeway, I’m looking far, far north and I see this huge column of black billowing smoke. It was a little bit off the freeway, but I’m thinking, holy cow, what is that? That is not natural, that’s not coming from a factory or something. Something has gone wrong, I hope everybody’s OK. And then I keep driving. About 15 minutes in, traffic starts to slow down, and then pretty soon it comes to a near stop. And I sit on the freeway for a good 20 minutes. And as I’m slowly inching forward, I start to see that that giant column of black billowing smoke was actually right on the freeway. It was just before my exit to my barbershop and a semi-truck had caught on fire. Literally, the entire cabin was just charred black as I finally approached it. There was no prayer of me making the appointment, So I call up my barber once I realized that I wasn’t going to hit, it was about 10 minutes before the appointment and I said, “Hey, man, I’m sorry. This semi literally exploded on the freeway and I’m not gonna be able to make it. Traffic is just at a standstill.” And he said, “oh man that sucks, OK, yeah, no worries.” And I apologize and he said, “oh man, it’s not your fault, I get it.”
[00:16:32] Now, I want to pause here for a second, because is that true? Well, no, it wasn’t my fault that the semi exploded. But is it my fault that I can’t make the appointment? Maybe what I should ask is, is it his fault that I can’t make the appointment? Should he have to suffer, should he not get paid because I didn’t show?
[00:16:57] So when he offered me that excuse, it did trigger this little switch in my mind and I said, well, you know what, it is my fault because I could have left earlier. No, I didn’t know there was going to be this level of traffic and perhaps I still wouldn’t have left early enough. But the reality is, when I booked that appointment, I told him I would be there. And I made a commitment and he was counting on it. And if I don’t show up and he doesn’t charge me, he doesn’t make money. So, I know this is a small example, but I oftentimes focus on the small examples because it’s all in the details here. So the reality of that situation is, I didn’t leave early enough. No, I didn’t know the semi was going to explode, but I could have accounted for traffic because traffic is just the reality of life. You can basically count on traffic at least 50% of the time. And if you’re in California or some other bigger city, you know, you can count on it 100% of the time. So nevertheless, in this instant, I could have easily just blamed the traffic. But instead, what I recommend doing is replacing it with truth and truth, meaning truth about the situation and truth about your responsibility in that. So my response to him was when he said, man it’s not it’s not your fault. I say, “Well, you know what it is because the reality is, yeah I didn’t plan for that fire on the freeway, and I didn’t leave early enough to plan for traffic. So I’m sorry.” Now, in this instant, a quick sidebar here. I also recognize that my barber now had a chance to make a decision here. He could act co-dependently and not charge me for the appointment, or he could take personal responsibility and say, yeah, that’s unfortunate and I hope you understand I’m going to charge you for the slot. Or he could, in a position of genuine sincerity, still not charge me for the slot and be compassionate and recognize that things happen.
[00:18:57] So, if you haven’t listened to my episode on codependency, I strongly recommend you go back and listen to that, because again here and another example, it is part of our day to day life and part of all the decisions that we make. So bringing it back, though, to this phrase into the language. When you’re tempted to make an excuse, replace it with truth and truth. Truth about the situation, it’s fine for you to explain what happened, but don’t leave it there. Add to that, the truth around whatever decision you made that really is what made you late, or that really is what affected the situation. So, “sorry I’m late traffic was bad,” becomes, “I’m sorry I’m late, traffic was horrible,” that’s the first truth, and, “I didn’t leave early enough to account for it.” That’s the second bit of truth and that’s where your responsibility is.
[00:19:44] I run into this with my daily meetings. I am not great at showing up on time for my meetings and oftentimes I’m tempted to say, “sorry I’m late, my last meeting went long.” But that’s shirking responsibility, so instead I can say, “I’m sorry I’m late. I didn’t end that last meeting early enough.” Does that make sense?
[00:20:05] Now some of you are saying in your head, well, I can’t control everything. And you’re right. There are going to be situations where it doesn’t matter how much planning you do, you can’t account for. The most recent example of this, again, since we’re talking about traffic is, a friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day that she was stuck on the freeway for seven hours. I don’t even know exactly what it was that happened, but she said for seven hours the freeway was closed, there was no way to get off. Everybody put their cars to park. They built snowmen, they watched Netflix, they sang songs, they had fun with it, at least some people did. But that’s going to be one of those things that even if you left an hour early, if you left three hours early, if you left six hours early, you would still be late to something. So I’m not talking about those situations. You can certainly say, jeez, I thought I left early enough and yet I didn’t account for the seven hour delay. People are going to understand that. But those situations are few and far between. 9 times out of 10, the situations where we want to place blame, where we want to make an excuse, where we want to say, oh, sorry, this didn’t play out because so and so did it, there’s actually opportunity for us to take responsibility. So watch those excuses, watch those ways that you say, it’s not my fault, and replace it with those two bits of truth.
Phrase #6: “Always” or “Never”
[00:21:28] Phrase number six, always or never. Meaning, when you’re talking with somebody, especially in an aggressive situation, saying, “you always do this or you never do that.” I refer to these in my book as absolutes because they suggest that something absolutely happens one way or another. Now, the truth around this is that it’s rarely, if ever, the case. To claim that your spouse never does the dishes is probably false. Now, I don’t know, maybe they’ve truly never done the dishes in their lifetime but that’s pretty rare, I highly doubt that. Or to say that they never listen to you, or to say that a coworker or direct report always forgets to do this, or they never show up on time. They all just put the other person on the defensive. There’s very little, if any, benefit that comes from being that blatant in your accusations. So instead, what I recommend replacing it with is softer phrases or softer words such as “rarely” or “oftentimes” or “sometimes” or “frequently.” All of those changes help to soften the conversation, help the other person not go on the defense and help you have a more positive, more levelheaded conversation. And this goes with what we say to ourselves as well. “Jeez, I always screw up” or, “I never do this.” Watch that as well. Because, again, that pulls you down, that turns off that volition switch and that just doesn’t feel good. So, if you have a habit of doing something or of not doing something, admit it to yourself and use a softer phrase such as, “I do this often.” “I rarely do pay attention to my partner’s feelings.” Whatever it is, but always and never, those really don’t help our conversations.
Phrase #7: “Just”
[00:23:18] Alright, number seven, the word “just.” Now, I’ve used this several times throughout this episode alone as a replacement for this word, there is none. Omit it, get rid of it. You don’t need it in your conversations, you don’t need it in your sentences. And the reason I bring it up here, is that oftentimes it degrades, or it detracts from, or it lessens the importance of whatever we’re saying. So, for example, you might say, “I’m just a stay at home parent.” Or you could say, “I’m a stay at home parent.” Do you feel how the energy shifts there? The second one is far more powerful. It suggests much more confidence and it suggests that being a stay at home parent is every bit as important and admirable as, “I am the CEO of a company.” And yet many of us fall into this trap of saying, “well, yeah, I just did that,” or, oftentimes we downplay our positive actions, we downplay things that we’re proud of. We also use it to downplay negative things that we’ve done. We use it to downplay mistakes and say, “well, yeah, I just really didn’t plan my spending very well and now I’m in debt.” “Yeah, I just wasn’t thinking when I said that, I’m sorry.”
[00:24:37] You don’t need it. You can say, “I wasn’t thinking when I said that, I’m sorry.” You can say, “I didn’t plan my spending well, and now I’m in debt.” Again, do you feel the energy there? The word “just” in my opinion here is one of the strongest ways to turn off that volition, to turn off that sense of power and ownership. If you get rid of that and if you can say sentences like that, that don’t have it, “I’m a stay at home parent.” “I didn’t plan well.” “I’m going to do this.” Much, much more power.
Phrase #8: “But”
[00:25:12] Word number eight, I’m a big proponent of this one. Getting rid of the word “but.” You can still use the word with two t’s. Getting rid of the word “but” and replacing it with the word “and.” Now this is not in every situation, there are certain instances where you want to use the word “but” to connect two sentences by design, I won’t get into all of that. However, most of the time the word “but” actually kind of hurts the conversation. Using the word, “but” detracts from what you just said. So if you say, “hey, I really like what you did on that presentation, but…” Where does your mind go now? You’re thinking, oh, shoot. What did I do wrong? If you say, “hey, I really like the way you did that presentation and…” Well, now you’re expecting, you know, maybe more positive feedback, you’re expecting something else but you think oh, that’s great I’m glad that he liked the presentation and I’m curious what else he’s going to say now. You can still follow this up with critical feedback. You can say, “hey, I really liked what you done on that presentation and there are a couple of things that we need to work on for the next one.” And then you as a recipient likely are going, oh, OK. Well, let’s talk about let’s figure out what it is. If you offer a compliment, if you offer validation and you say, look, that’s really, really hard, jeez, I sympathize with you there, but I don’t think he meant to hurt you. Again, you just threw out all your hard work of validating beforehand. When you say, jeez, that’s tough. That really is. And I think maybe you’re not seeing the whole picture or, and I don’t think he meant to hurt you. It softens that and it helps them accept as truth or as reality, both sides of that sentence. So when in doubt, replace the word “but” with “and” again, not every situation. But you’ll be surprised, and I use “but” consciously there, you will be surprised at how often it makes a difference.
Phrase #9: “I’m Dumb/Stupid/Annoying/Ugly” Etc.
[00:27:22] Phrase number nine, I’m dumb, I’m stupid, I’m annoying, ugly, not enough, not lovable, not worthy. If you feel those, and if you’re going to say that to yourself, replace it with I feel stupid, I feel annoying, I feel ugly, etc..
[00:27:43] You probably expected me to give you advice to say, I am smart, I am lovable or, I’m not stupid, I’m not annoying, but why didn’t I? Why do you think I suggested that you just replace I am with, I feel? Well, it’s because you don’t want to invalidate your feelings. It’s critical to feel whatever we’re feeling, no matter how crazy it might seem. And I talk about this in my book, I talk about this in my earlier episode and validation, that it’s very important for us to allow our self the space to feel whatever we’re feeling. And it doesn’t matter if you’re feeling down, you’re feeling stupid, you’re feeling ugly. That’s fine, that’s just how you’re feeling. So you don’t do yourself any good to just say, I feel ugly, but I am beautiful. I am handsome. I feel weak. But I am strong. There are instances where those affirmations are very powerful. There is power in those positive I Am statements. They need to come after we’ve given ourselves space to feel and process. So what we don’t want is negative, destructive I Am statements and that’s what I started with. I am dumb, I am stupid. Do not go there. But you are OK to say, I feel dumb and I feel stupid, or I feel embarrassed, or I feel unworthy. I strongly recommend you allow yourself to say that and to feel that and say it to yourself or say it to others and get some help processing that, because hopefully if you’re talking with somebody who is emotionally healthy and cares about you, they can help you unpack that and say, interesting, why do you feel that way? Where is that coming from? And you start to look at it. Then, and only then, once you’ve put awareness around that feeling, awareness around the emotions, replace it with a positive I Am statement. I am beautiful, I am strong, I am powerful, I am worthy, I am lovable.
[00:29:48] All of those positive I Am statements, boy do they have power. That’s why affirmations are so positive, that’s why you read about them all over the self-help ecosystem, all over the Internet. You also need to allow yourself to feel the reality of whatever it is that you’re feeling.
[00:30:05] So, replace the I am dumb, I am whatever with I feel. And then once you validated that and once you’ve unpacked and processed the emotions, then you can replace it with the positive.
Phrase #10: “Sorry” [for being me]
[00:30:18] And number 10, replacing the word “sorry” when you feel you’re inconveniencing someone with “thank you.” Now, I qualify it by saying, when you feel you are inconveniencing someone because I’m not suggesting that you replace this anytime you’ve done harm to somebody, you’ve done something and you just never say sorry, You’ve still got to say sorry. What I’m talking about here are situations when you feel like you’re inconveniencing somebody and they step aside or they do something for you and your knee jerk reaction is to say,”oh, sorry, sorry.” That doesn’t help anything. This first came to mind when my wife and I were out on a hike and it was a very narrow trail and really only one person could walk one direction or the other at a time. And so if you ran into somebody who was coming down the trail while you were going up, one person had to step to the side of the trail and let the others pass. And at first, my wife and I were saying, oh, sorry, someone’s walking down, [00:31:18] we’re [00:31:18] walking up and they see us and they stand off to the side, which is a very kind gesture. Well, our responses at that time were, “oh, sorry.” Essentially meaning, I’m so sorry for inconveniencing you. And yet later, I don’t even remember where I stumbled across this, I realized that’s a rather negative way to look at the situation because the other person gave an act of kindness. They showed some respect and they said, please go ahead, I’m fine to stand here. When we say “sorry,” that takes away from the positive energy of that situation. Versus when you say “thank you.” So I talked to my wife about it, and the next time we went on a hike, we tried it. Somebody would step aside, instead of saying sorry, we’d say, “thank you.” And it was amazing the change that happened. Both people got a smile on their face. And, you know, when you give a gift to somebody and they say, thank you, you feel good, right? If you give a gift to somebody and they say, sorry, I didn’t mean to make you think I wanted a gift. Well, that doesn’t feel very good, right? So it was a really simple, but a very powerful change. I ran into it a few weeks ago when I was going to lunch with one of my siblings and we were walking out of the restaurant and this older lady was walking in, I saw her so I opened the door and she kind of hurried through and guess what she said to me? “Sorry!” And I thought to myself, “really? You don’t have to apologize for walking through a door.”
[00:32:49] It just underscored to me the reality that a lot of us are conditioned to think that whenever somebody does something for us, we are inconveniencing them. Yet if we can use our language, oftentimes, we can change our language and that helps us then change our mindset. We feel much more positive, we feel the happier connection that comes from that exchange. So number 10, is replacing the word “sorry” when you feel you’re inconveniencing someone with, “thank you.”
How’s Your Language?
[00:33:24] Alright, that’s a lot, ten different things to change. I don’t expect you to keep all of that in mind and to have it all memorized. You can find all of these on my show notes at michaelssorensen.com the links also in the description of today’s episode.
[00:33:39] Before we wrap up today, though, I want to leave with an invitation, and that is to write down one or more of the phrases we just talked about and look for it in your language and in the language of others. Because oftentimes it’s easier for us to hear it and see it in other people before it is in our own selves. And then do so obviously with compassion in a nonjudgmental way, I’m not saying you have to say oh, listen to her or listen to him, such negative language, that doesn’t help anybody. But when you can start to recognize it, when you hear it in somebody else or when you hear it in yourself, rephrase it in your mind and see how it feels.
[00:34:17] What does that change do to your energy? To your accountability? To your sense of responsibility? Pay attention, because I promise you, from personal experience, you will feel a shift. You will feel the change that comes from making these subtle changes because they bring back power. They create deeper connection. They allow more positive light, energy, to be within you and to stay within the day and within the interaction.
[00:34:48] And with that, we wrap up. Small changes that have a major impact. That’s often the theme of this show. If you’re finding this content insightful and valuable, please consider leaving a review, as doing so will help others find the show and of course, benefit from the same. I’ll see you next week.