A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.
Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"
The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way." What he had written was: "Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it."
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Both signs were saying the same thing, however, each gets very different results.
Communication gurus will tell you that it is not what you say that is important, it is how you say it. How true!
"You don't have to shout to get your point across if you use the right words."
~Harvey Mackay~
~Harvey Mackay~
Like anything else in this world, words are also not created equally. Some words possesses greater impact than others while others are more mild for a reason.
Not only do you use words in our daily communication with one another, you also employ them when your communicate with yourself, in your self talks.
That is to say, your choice of words do have a great impact on your well being and your relationships with others.
Two sentences may mean exactly the same thing. However, the variation of your pitch, tone and the choice of words which made up your sentence will affect greatly how well your message is received by the other party.
By the same token, the quality of your self talk is as important, if not, more important than when talking to others.
Studies have shown that on average, a person have thousands of thoughts going through his/her brain everyday. That is to say, the regular receiver of your messages is none other than yourself!
Notice how much self talk you actually indulge in everyday. In most cases, you will be talking more frequently to yourself than to others. Thus, if you are not choosing your words carefully, your well being may suffer as a result.
Start taking note of your self talk today. Are you including too many of the negative words inside them? "Cannot", "Should", "Must", "Need to", "Have to" etc may need to be revised accordingly.
Words have great influence over your mental and emotion health. When you are sad or angry, try downplaying those emotions.
Instead of using words like "furious" or "depressing", replace them with less impact words like "less cheerful" or "not so happy".
Another easy way is to add a word to downplay those words that bring about negative emotions within you. Examples like "slightly", "a bit", "kind of" etc.
Like in the story above, you are not lying to yourself. You are still expressing your anger, sadness or irritation, just in a more subtle and empowering manner.
Try it for yourself. You will be really surprised by results you can achieve just by making a simple tweak in your words.
