by Alex L. Araneta
There are many words we love to say depending on the occasion and depending when we are with family and friends, clients and business associates. The words that comes out of our mouth depend largely also on the level of relationship or “connectedness” that we have with the people we’re confronted with. With a client or prospect the words we speak would have to be courteous and friendly in order to establish trust. For our boss we need to be direct and matter-of-fact in order to reassure them that we are on top of our job. And for our wife and children our words need to be obviously loving and supportive for the purpose of “building-up” and definitely not tearing down.
If we have deliberate and specific words for each of the persons in our lives what words do we have for the one we are most connected (or disconnected even) with and that is ourselves? Think about this – the words we say to ourselves lead to the decisions we make which manifest into the actions we take. The Good Book has a great way of putting it which goes like this: “As a man thinks of himself, so is he.” Looking at my own life and observing others I have come to the conclusion that the words we say to ourselves creates major impact on who we are and how we act and respond to the circumstances around us. Try and make an audit of your personal vocabulary and see if the words can’t, but, difficult, impossible, if only, no, I wish, bad, failure, won’t, loss, I’m not sure, boring crop-up often and discern if these have anything to do with what’s going on in your life. Perhaps you are a person who is fond of saying can, yes, let’s go, definitely, why not, happy, exciting, great, win, invest, possible, potential, succeed, challenging, motivated. Have these words played a big role in your life’s results?
On a greater scale, thanks to top-notch advertising and film director Jeric Soriano, I’ve learned that the words we put into our minds turn into images that are in color and in 3D (maybe only for me since I’m a movie junkie) ! The impact therefore becomes even greater as a mere word we place on our mind grows organically first into several images then into scenes then into a storyline which depending on what we fed ourselves with, can be either a drama or suspense (hopefully not horror!), inspirational and feel good (maybe with a touch of comedy too). And since we are the lead actor we play this out in our day-to-day living where every role we play is true to life.
So, what’s the lesson that we can learn from what I have just shared? Very simple. If we want to change our results and circumstances we need to change our actions. If we want to change our actions we need to change our thoughts. If we want to change our thoughts we need to change the words we say to ourselves.
Feb 282012