The Power of Words

Here's the deal. And this is what you really need to understand. And this might really blow some minds out there, but your words don't just describe your reality, they actually create your reality. Today we're going to be talking about the power of the words that you use. The words that you use and you speak, but also the words that you use inside of your own head. Because small shifts in your language actually shape your reality. And I'm curious, have you ever caught yourself saying something like, oh, I'm, I'm just so lazy or I always mess things up, or I can never do this right? If you've ever said something like that, it might, it might seem like it's just a harmless thing that you say, but here's the deal. And this is what you really need to understand. And this might really blow some minds out there, but your words, you don't just describe your reality, they actually create your reality. A lot of times we think we're just describing what's happened in the past, but when we describe what's happened in the past and we say, this is who I am, well then they're going to create the future that you walk into. And the way that you speak about yourself programs your brain to see the world a certain way. So if you're the type of person that says I always self sabotage, your mind takes that as a law and reinforces those patterns that keep you stuck. And so when you say something like that, you have to understand, your mind doesn't know the difference between you're joking or you're telling the truth, so it just stores everything is true. So if you say I always self sabotage, your mind's like, okay, well it looks like we're just going to keep on self sabotaging because that's who we are. But what if instead you just switched and shift your words just a little bit and you say something like, I've self sabotaged myself in the past, but I'm learning to break that habit. It's a tiny shift. Instead of saying, I always self sabotage, hey, I self sabotaged in the past before, but I'm learning to break that habit. I'm getting better, I'm evolving. Suddenly there's a little bit of space for change. There's a little bit of space for you to evolve and get better versus stay stuck. And these small tweaks in how you talk to yourself or you talk about yourself can make a huge difference in your life. They make a difference in what you believe, they make a difference in what you Feel they make a difference in what you actually perceive when you look out into the world and what you ultimately are going to or not going to create in your life. And so your words matter a lot more than you think that they do. Whenever I'm on a zoom call and I'm running a live or I'm in person with people and somebody says something, sometimes what I'll do is I'll just, I'll just stop in the middle of the sense. I'm like, hold on, I just want to reflect what you just said. Do you want to keep remind, like, do you want to keep reminding yourself about this? Do you want to keep believing yourself, believing that that's who you are? Do you want to shift it and then like, oh, I want to shift it. Okay, so what would be a better way of saying what you just said? Because your brain is always listening, even to yourself. And so you've got to be very, very careful with your words. And you also have to be very careful when you start using words that are like absolute words. One of the things I hear people say a lot is always, I always do this or never, I never do that. Or they speak to someone that they love and say, you never do this. When you say always or never, or words that are like that, you lock yourself in to an identity that leaves no room for change. When you say it to somebody else, you, you lock them into an identity that leaves no room for change. So the other day I was on a live and someone said, I always self sabotage. And I was like, always? You're telling me 100% of the time, all of the time, you always self sabotage? And they're like, well, no, I mean, not always. Okay, well then you can't say I always self sabotage. You've got to be careful with those words. I never wake up on time. Never, never in the history. You know, you're 41 years old, you've never woken up on time in your entire life. Well, you know, I wake up on time sometimes. Okay, well then stop saying that shit to yourself. You know, if, if somebody says something, if somebody says something like, I'm always terrible with relationships. That's one that I hear a lot from people. Your brain hears it and says, okay, well there's no point in trying to improve or you're always terrible at relationships, so you know, there's no point in getting to another one because it's just going to turn into another failure. So let me just keep self sabotaging you. You say something like, I'll never be successful. Your brain responds and says, well, if that's the case, why even try to put any effort towards, you know, growing this business? I'll always be overweight. Well, if that's the case, your brain just sits there and says, well, then let's not even eat healthy. Let's not even go to the gym, because why put in any effort? Doesn't make any sense. But when you shift your words and you shift what you say, you shift your focus. And I've. If you say something like, I've struggled in relationships in the past, but I'm learning how to communicate better, well, now you leave some space for opportunity. Your brain thinks, ah, we're not stuck, we're working on this. Okay, progress, not perfection. That's good. Or if you say something like, success has been challenging for me, but I'm figuring out what works, your mind starts looking for solutions instead of trying to look for all of the roadblocks. So your brain thinks, oh, I'm getting better every day. Like, we're working on ourself. That's a good thing. Versus, like, we're stuck. We're never going to change. And so you've got to break the trap of like always and never. When you say those words are dangerous because they paint a picture of your identity, of who you think you are is fixed, when in reality you're this being that's constantly evolving all the time. And so next time you catch yourself using absolute language, you need to challenge yourself. You need to challenge yourself. You need to take a step back and say, hold on a second. Is this a hundred percent true? Have I never done this before? Have I never woken up on time? Do I always screw this up? Is it a hundred percent true? A hundred percent? Pretty much every single time people go, well, it's not a hundred percent, but, you know, it's a lot. Okay, well then ask yourself the question, would I say this to a friend that I care about? And if not, how can I say this in a way, how can I reframe this in a way that allows for some sort of growth? So let me give you a couple of examples. If someone says something like, I always procrastinate, you would change it to something like, I've procrastinated in the past, but I'm getting better. See, it's a tiny shift. It doesn't seem like much, but it is a lot. I never follow through. Okay, you could say something like, following through has been a challenge for me in the past, but I'm improving It's a tiny shift, but do you see the difference? The first version reinforces a limiting identity of yourself, and the second leaves room for you to evolve. And the thing that's interesting about language is that language, language shapes your focus. So we can't focus on every single thing that's happening around us, but what we say and what we think shapes what we focus on. Your brain is like a heat seeking missile. It locks in to whichever thing in this world that you tell it to. Whatever you tell it to focus on, your brain's gonna focus on whatever you tell it. It's gonna search through your entire past and find all of the pieces of data to prove what you just said true. And so if you keep reinforcing the idea that you're lazy or that you're always behind, or that you'll never be in a good relationship, or that you'll always be overweight, your mind will look for all of the evidence in the world to support that. And I've given this example before in the podcast, but I think it's really important for people to understand. If you go into Google and you type right now, is coffee bad for your eyesight? There's a bunch of articles, there's a bunch of studies that prove, quote unquote, that that coffee is bad for your eyesight. But if you go into Google and type, is coffee good for your eyesight? There are articles and studies that prove that coffee is good for your eyesight. Which one's the truth? Well, whichever one you decide to focus on, I guess. And so your brain is kind of like cosmic Google. It's like sitting down at the computer and saying, I'm always, I always ruin my relationships. Well, then it's going to find all of the moments in your entire life where you've ruined relationships or messed up in some sort of way versus sitting down and saying, you know, I've messed up in relationships in the past, but I've also done really good things in relationships. Well, then it's gonna find all of the things that you did good in the relationship, the surprises, the time that you took your wife on, you know, vacation when she didn't realize it was gonna be coming up. And so your brain's gonna search for whatever you talk about, your, your words create your mental focus on yourself, on your world, on other people. You know, I was running a Zoom this week, two weeks ago in mindset 2.0, which is a 12 week course that I have, and one of the ladies said, rob, I'm just struggling Because I don't trust myself. So her words that she said out loud and what she was focusing on was not trusting herself. I was like, okay, well, why don't you trust yourself? She said, well, and then she started giving me all of the reasons why she shouldn't trust herself. Well, I was an alcoholic. And this happened, and this happened. And six years ago I went through a divorce, and. And this happened, and this happened. I said, okay, hey, I'm just curious. Is there anything that you've ever done in the past that can show you that you can trust yourself? And I thought she might just give me a couple small things, right? And she's like, well, you know, I used to be an alcoholic, and I've been sober for 23 years. And another thing is, I lost £120 a couple years ago, and I've kept it off for years. And I'm like, holy shit. You say you can't trust yourself, but you just told me you've been sober for 23 years. Do you know how hard that is for people? Would you trust somebody who's been sober for 23 years who can hold off an addiction? That's an amazing thing. You lost 120 pounds. You realize how many people want to lose five pounds and can't? And I was like. And as I said it, like, she started lighting up like, oh, my God, I'm looking at the wrong perspective. And so I said, do you see that you can trust yourself? And she's like, oh, my God, I can see that I can trust myself. But I was looking at the wrong thing. And it's because she had this identity, this. This narrative. I can't trust myself. Her brain was looking for all of the reasons why she couldn't trust herself. And when I said, are there any reasons you could trust yourself? Her brain immediately went and brought up all of the reasons in her past why she could trust herself. And so your brain will find and focus on whatever you tell it to search for. If you search for I can't trust myself, it will find it. If you search for I can trust myself, it will find it. So let me give you, like, a couple other examples, right? Let's say that you're a person who. Who struggles with self discipline. I hear this a lot. People say something like, you know, Rob, like, I'm just lazy. I never follow through on anything. And. And I always find a reason or an excuse to procrastinate. And if they say that, that's going to shape their reality. That's what they're they actually think about themselves. And, and that's going to shape the actions that they take in the future and the results that they're going to get in the future of their life. And so they label themselves as lazy, which means that they stop trying to change. They ignore past times where they did follow through so that they can reinforce a negative belief. And more than anything else, they start to feel hopeless, which makes it even harder to take action. So you see how that perspective is really not helping them in any sort of way. And what they miss out on is everybody struggles with self discipline at times. There's no perfect person. Like everybody, I would say pretty much everybody would rather be chilling and on their, on their couch or in their backyard or drinking coffee than having to get up and go do stuff and work and build a business, whatever it might be. And so they think, oh, I'm the only one that does this. I just struggle with this. No, everyone struggles with self discipline at different times. It's not a fixed trait. And motivation comes from action, not the other way around. So maybe it's just about getting a little bit of momentum on your side. And then if they could start looking at just tiny little daily habits, they can change, it will help build momentum over time as well. And so maybe a more empowering reframe for them would be something like, I've struggled with consistency in the past, but I am working on building better habits. I don't have to be perfect. And all of these small steps are going to add up over time. Right. That's just a simple reframe that they could use. So the way that we talk to ourselves isn't just a reflection of what is happening. It actually creates what we experience in the world. Another example would be, let's say that you're somebody or you know, somebody who says they feel unlucky with love, or they're, they're not really good in relationships, or they've struggled to find the right guy. And so they, they speak and they say stuff to themselves like, I always attract the wrong people. I always attract the wrong guy. There's no one good for me out there. Relationships don't work for me. And so they have this, this focus of like, I always attract the wrong people. Okay, there's no good people out there, no good guys out there, good women out there, whatever they say. And relationships just don't work for me. Well, then what's the point? Like, you just close yourself off completely. And so how it shapes the reality is now they expect to fail before they ever even go into a relationship. So they could be single right now. And they just think, well, next time I'm in a relationship, it's probably going to fail. Which makes them closed off possibly to potential partners as they come in. When they do get into a relationship, they might dismiss red flags or push away healthy connections because they just assume it won't work, doesn't feel normal for them compared to all of their past relationships. It doesn't line up with the way, oh my God, this person's too healed, this person's too healthy, they love me too much, I need to get out of here because this doesn't line up with the way that I see the world. And then they just get trapped in the same patterns because they don't believe that change is possible in their life because of their perspective. And so what they miss out on the past experiences that they've had in relationships have nothing to do with, with the future person that you're going to get into a relationship with. People think that it does, it doesn't. And so you have to understand, you become more self aware and you grow in every single relationship. They're going to miss out on that as well. And so maybe a more empowering reframe would be, hey, yeah, I've had challenging relationships in the past, but I'm learning through every relationship how I want to show up in the relationship. And I'm also learning what I want from a relationship. There are good people out there and I can build a healthy and fulfilling and loving connection with somebody. I just need to go out and find them. You see how that opens up possibility, opens up opportunity, versus just like slamming the door shut. And so your thoughts and your words shape your entire reality. Every time that you describe yourself, you're reinforcing an idea about yourself. It's not absolute truth. I want you to realize that's not written into the fabric of the universe, that who you think you are is actually who you are. If I were to ask everybody who knows you about you, they'd probably describe you differently. Each person would describe you differently than you describe yourself. And they would each describe you differently than every other person who describes you, which means who the hell are you in the first place? So if I'm going to reinforce some sort of idea about myself, wouldn't I want to reinforce an idea that I actually think is going to be conducive to help me grow my life and become better? Your identity is going to reinforce what you are or what you think that you are. So are you reinforcing a positive identity or are you just digging yourself a hole that's deeper, keeping yourself more stuck? If you see yourself as someone who never sticks to things, you'll unconsciously make choices that reinforce that belief over and over and over again. But if you see yourself as, you know what, I'm somebody who has struggled in the past and I'm learning and getting better at following through, well, now you'll start to see and act in ways that support your new identity. And so my challenge for you today and what I really want you to do, just hopefully you're driving to work or you listen to this in the morning on your run or whatever it might be, my challenge for you today is to try to catch yourself. Like just become aware. Notice how you talk to yourself in your head. And then notice how you speak about yourself to other people. Notice when you also use absolute language, things like always or never. Or you close the door and you say I can't. Because when you say I can't, that just closed the door completely. Or you say something like I am. And then what comes after the I am is something negative. Notice how you just catch yourself for a second. Just notice the way that you think in your head, the way that you speak out loud. Then what I want you to do is I want you. Step number two is to reframe it. Notice what you said. And if it's not the way that you want to think about yourself, it's not the way that you want to think about the world, shift it, reframe it, change it to a more empowering statement for yourself, a more growth orientated statement for yourself. And then what I want you to do is I want you to feel the difference. Like notice how what you speak and what you say out loud changes the way that you feel. And notice that when you speak empowering things to yourself, you open yourself up to possibility and opportunities instead of limitation. Because your words are extremely powerful. They shape your entire world, they shape your focus, they shape your beliefs, they shape your actions and they shape your reality. So you have to make sure that you choose them wisely and to speak to yourself in a way that moves you forward in your life. The true transformation. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. YouTube thinks you should watch this video right now. So go ahead and click it and watch it. And if you want to subscribe, make sure you hit that bell.