What if you could up level your life simply by making small changes to how you talk about it?

Charles Duhigg defines keystone habits as “small changes or habits that people introduce into their routines that unintentionally carry over into other aspects of their lives” in his book, The Power of Habit.

 

Let’s take a true life example and look closer at how making three small shifts in this simple mundane part of life can add up to monumental possibilities.

 

Language. It’s a bit like the color of the walls in your house, ever present and largely unremarked. And yet language shapes us. It colors how we think, how we see ourselves. It opens or closes the door of possibility.

 

It defines our reality: past, present, and future.

 

When I decided to re-orient my life and launch my business, I experimented with the power of language.

 

I never expected that making small changes to adopt positive language would be the keystone habit that transformed my life.

You too can use empowering language to redesign your life in three ways:

 

1.  Reframe tragedies and challenges in the past to focus on the learning and opportunities inherent in the moment.

 

Changing the language I used to talk about the past freed me from limiting identities. Reframing my past reshaped my identity. Overnight, I became a person who could!

 

2.  Use language to influence how you perceive and project yourself. Build an oral bridge from where you are and where you want to be.

 

Speaking about my success as if it had already happened influenced how I thought about my business and myself. In turn, this shaped others’ perceptions.

 

3.  Adopt nonjudgmental language to create new opportunities.

Removing judgment from my language removed it from my mind, which made it easier to take risks and ask for help.

Read more about how you can develop the three habits below to elevate your language and create transformation.

 

1. Reframe how you speak about the past to unlock new possibilities for yourself.

 

 

Don’t spend time focusing on the past. Simply notice how it supports (or doesn’t) your present.

 

Your past experiences define you. The failures as much as the successes contribute to where you are right now.

 

Over time, our failures and successes become character traits. We do or don’t do something and become a person who is or who isn’t.

 

Maybe in university you struggled to write papers. You put so much pressure on yourself to write a ground-breaking article that the stress of this caused you to feel like a failure. “I must not be a good writer. Others do it so easily,” you thought.

 

Later you became the feeling. You didn’t just feel like a failure, you were a failure at writing. The language you use now reflects your continued experience of the past. You are still not good at writing.

 

If you left your past behind, maybe this wouldn’t be such a big deal. But your present is built on your past. Your past informs your present. You make all of your decisions based on past experience.

 

If you don’t want your past to negatively inform your present, start talking about the past with self-compassion. Learn to see FAILing as First Attempts at Learning. In each moment of failure, identify what you learned and how that learning helps you now.

 

Then you become a person who not only can write papers, but who can do hard things. You are a person who faces challenges, perseveres, and triumphs! You can bring those same strengths to your present table.

 

 

What you consider yourself good at is also formed in this way. So be attentive because, if you were playing small or passive when you became a person who is good at X, you may continue to define yourself smaller than you could or would.

 

I know an architect who was good at specifications. That pigeonhole defined him out of his heart’s desire: design.

 

 

2. In your present, think and speak about your future success as if it’s already happening or has happened to shape how others perceive you.

 

 

When I wish becomes I am and I have, you get a different outcome.

 

In my case, I noticed a corresponding emotional, mental, energetic, and physical shift when I started talking about my business as if it was already the success I envisioned.

 

In the beginning, when it hadn’t taken off as quickly as I would have liked, I spent a lot of time thinking about the gap between where I was and where I wanted to be. This was reflected in my language.

 

My language reinforced my negative thinking.

 

Changing my language influenced everything from my body posture to the tone of my voice. I stopped hanging my head when I spoke about it because I focused on what I was doing and where it was going, rather than comparing myself to my expectations and others.

 

Simply put: your thoughts plus your feelings add up to your actions. Your language influences both ends of that equation, as well as the image you project.

 

If I believe my business is a success and spend time thinking about the cool things it and I are doing and have done, the language I choose positively influences how others see the business and me.

 

 

Your present is the reality of what the past versions of you thought possible for you. If you don’t like it, change it by raising your thinking.

 

If you want to play big, whether it’s getting a promotion or creating the relationship you want, begin talking about where you are at as if your vision has already been culminated.

 

 

3. Replace judgmental language with empowering language to enable you to change your life trajectory.

 

 

Your negative thinking comes from judgment of self and others. Judgment blocks change. Your should and shouldn’ts trap you into ways of being that are likely inherited, rather than intentional.

 

Whatever frustration or limiting possibilities you are encountering, you will need to untangle your judgments to create new opportunities.

 

 

Judgmental language includes should, shouldn’t, can’t, I am [s/he is] not someone who…, I am too…, and all self-deprecating words such as stupid, incapable, not strong enough, etc.

 

Notice the judgments and replace them. I should becomes I want to. Though typically, the object or action at the end of the sentence will change when the verb does.

 

When the verb and the object/action change, your possibilities change.

 

When I started that habit – replacing judgmental language with empowering language – my thought I shouldn’t quit my job because blah blah blah became I want a new opportunity.

 

Changing your language offers new options. Releasing judgment, empowered me to change my life trajectory.

 

It took me awhile after admitting that I wanted a new opportunity to get to the Y in the road but, when I got there, language was the mechanism through which I could embrace the change, accept the risk, and ask for the help I needed to make it happen.

 

Consistently making small positive word choices will transform your life.

 

If you want a partner to reword and rewire your language patterns, schedule a free call with me to explore what that would look like.