Are you ready for the greatest insight ever? The one that will have the most profound impact on you and your life? The one that will most powerfully affect your relationships, your decisions, your achievements, your impact on other people, and the legacy you will leave? Are you ready to stop blaming, stop complaining, and start taking control of your life? The insight that will change everything, is the understanding that your language is life.
I don’t know about you, but I hate taking responsibility for the things in my life that are not working. It is far easier to blame other people and challenging circumstances. There are two problems with that mindset. Firstly, it won’t change anything. Secondly, it’s the wrong place to look. The right place to look, in fact, looking is the wrong sense to evoke here. I mean, the right place to pay attention to, in fact the only place to pay attention to, is the language you use each and every day, with each and every situation in your life.
That is it. Nothing more complicated. The life you and I are currently experiencing right now, and will experience in the future, is 100% based on the tone, direction, and intent of our language. I don’t mean the dialect of language you speak. I am talking about how you think and speak about and to yourself and others, based on your perspective, belief systems, experiences, and conditioning. One definition of ‘language’ I found says, communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols. I would definitely include thoughts and self-talk in that definition.
That’s it peeps. If you are looking for answers, solutions, reasons, weaknesses, and strengths, look no further than your language in that area of life. The only reason you have achieved something that may have seemed illogical or unlikely is because of what you said to yourself about that achievement. The only reason you may be lacking in an area of your life, is because of the thoughts, words, and language you are using in that area. If you are healthy and happy, it’s your language. If you are tired and unhealthy, your language. If you are in great relationships, it’s your language. If you are often in conflict, your language. If you are experiencing abundance, achievement, and joy in life, it’s your language. If you are experiencing lack, obstacles, and misery, again, it’s your language.
It can be a bitter pill to swallow to accept that you are 100% responsible for where you are in life. However, it’s incredibly empowering and exciting to know that in a heartbeat you can change direction. Simply, change your language. Yes, I did say simply change your language, which may make it sound that I am suggesting it will be easy. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.
From a young age, the primary gist of the language I used about myself was that I was not good enough. That idea was planted in my head by someone else’s language to me when I was a child. It was actually thoughtless teachers who didn’t understand the power of the concept I am sharing here. From that time on, I would talk myself out of things, tear myself down, and take myself out of the game. It was never about my ability, potential, or capacity, it was always about my language. Then because I often felt insecure and lacking in many ways, the language I would use towards others would reflect that, and impact them and their own self-language. Can you see the vital importance of this idea? I am talking about the language we speak to others, the language we speak to ourselves and, incredibly important, the ability to interpret the language that gets thrown our way.
In life there are things we can control, and things we cannot control. The greatest waste of time, and the most anxiety-causing and frustration-creating focus is on things out of our control. What other people do and say falls in that category. What we can control is how we use language, who we choose to associate with, and how we choose to interpret other people’s damaging language towards us.
If we believe that language determines life, and it does, then we need to take control. The greatest turning point for me, and it is reinforced in the book Willpower Doesn’t Work, by Benjamin Hardy, was when I changed my environment, in terms of the people I was associating with. I chose to hang out with people who supported and encouraged me, and that in turn helped change my own self-talk so I was using more empowering language with myself and others. Everything changed. I didn’t get smarter, more talented, more knowledgeable, or luckier. I changed my language, and my life changed.
Tell yourself you can, and you will. Tell yourself you are good enough, and you will be. Find others who will support that message and you will believe it even more. Then, when you start using that empowering language with others, you will not only help them, but in turn you will build more self-love to reinforce the empowering language you use about yourself. I hope this all makes sense. It is the thing that will most profoundly impact your life, and a thing that can be changed in a heartbeat. As you move forward in your day and life, be conscious of how you think and speak, and who you associate with. Make the changes you need to make because language is life.