“Language determines our behavior, every word we use is filled with many shades of personal meanings. The right word, spoken at the right time, can bring us love, money and respect, and the wrong words - or even the right words, only spoken incorrectly - can bring a country to war. We need to be very careful in conducting our speech if we want to achieve our goals and fulfill our dreams.”
Dr. Andrew Newberg, Words That Can Change the Brain.
Throughout human history, great leaders have used the power of words to influence our emotions, call us to their side, and shape the course of fate. Think Winston Churchill with his "finest hour" or Martin Luther King with his "dream" - we all know that beliefs are formulated in words - and words can change them.
And what about the ability that each of us has: to use words to stimulate change, to get us to act and improve the quality of our lives?
We all know that words are the means of expressing our experience and communicating it to others. But are we aware that the words we habitually use also affect how we communicate with ourselves and, accordingly, our life experience?
Over the past 35 years, I have had the good fortune to work with more than 50 million people, and have noticed the power of changing just one keyword in communication with a particular person: it instantly changes the way people feel - and their behavior, respectively. I assure you, simply by changing your habitual vocabulary - that is, the words you usually use to describe how you feel - you will instantly change how you think, how you feel, and how you live.
This is the power of what I call Transformational Vocabulary - consistently using the right words to improve the quality of life, today and forever.
According to the Compton Encyclopedia, there are approximately 500,000 words in the English language. However, the average person's working vocabulary consists of only 2,000 words - that's 0.5% of the entire language. And how many words do we use most often - how many of those words that make up our familiar lexicon? For most people, that's 200-300 words. Is it incredible? (For comparison, in the work of John Milton, there are 17,000 words, William Shakespeare - 24,000 words, of which 5,000 he used only once). Out of the total of 500,000 words, as many as 3,000 words are used to describe emotions, and 2/3 of them describe negative emotions.
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With such an amazing resource for expressing your feelings and ideas, why should you come to terms with the poverty of your vocabulary?
But for most people, the problem is not the number of words they know, but what words they use. Our brains work at high speeds, processing the meanings of things and helping us make decisions as quickly as possible. As a result, we usually use the same set of words. We use the shortcut too often - but often we emotionally impoverish ourselves by it.
For two decades now, I have given the audience, before which I speak in various countries of the world, one simple task: make a list of the emotions that you experience at least once a week. I give them five to ten minutes and ask them to write down not the feelings that visit them occasionally (once a month or a year), but only those that they constantly experience.
The irony of fate lies in the fact that no matter how many people were present at my speech - 2,000 or 30,000 - 90% of them write down an average of 12 words, of which more than half are negative emotions. That is, literally, out of 3,000 words in the language for describing emotions, most experience only 5-6 good feelings, and they experience bad feelings over and over again.
We feel happy and excited, then anger, suffering, sadness, or even depression, for example. Have you ever tried to analyze what words you usually use to describe your feelings? Do you think it is possible that when we experience negative feelings, they can be emotionally transformed by labeling them verbally?
The problem is that we don't usually use words consciously to describe our emotions. Any feelings that unsettle us, we habitually call words that we unconsciously attached to them, and the point is that the words that we attach to our experience become our experience.
Words affect the biochemistry of the body. When you use the word "devastated", you have a completely different biochemical effect than when you utter the phrase "I'm a little upset."
This effect is not difficult to see in conversation with other people. For example, you may be told "I think you are wrong" or "I think you are wrong" or "You are lying." Do you think your body's biochemical response will be different in these three cases?
The same thing happens when we talk to ourselves, only, unfortunately, this effect is more difficult for us to realize.
I first realized the power of words with which we denote our emotions, during one serious conversation, a decade and a half ago. I shared information with the interlocutor in the hope that it would help two of my business partners and me to move from words to deeds and prove the seriousness of our intentions. Unfortunately, instead of acting in good faith in return, the other side tried to use this information to pressure us into an agreement that was completely against us.
It was unpleasant to say the least. When, after the meeting, the two partners and I began to discuss this, I could not help but notice how differently we described these negotiations. I was upset and angry, but even with my own irritation, I was literally overwhelmed by the strength of the emotions of one of my partners. He was furious and said how furious he was with their behavior, he said, he had the feeling that we were "put a gun to our heads." He sat red as a beet and barely controlled himself.
I tried to calm him down - the power of his emotions shocked me, how much stronger it was than my anger and discontent. And I could not help but notice that my second partner, on the contrary, was as if completely untouched by this situation. I asked him: “You don't seem to be upset at all. Aren't you angry at all? " He replied: “No, perhaps. I'm a little dissatisfied with that. " I didn't believe it. "Not satisfied?" I asked. "Do you have any idea what these people have done?" He replied: “Of course I understand. Well, that annoyed me a little. " "Annoyed?" I asked. "What do you mean by that?" He replied: "Yes, it's not worth it to get very upset, according to my feelings."
I was amazed: each of us used words of such different intensity - “angry” versus “angry” versus “not happy”. How did it happen that I was “angry” and “upset”, one of my partners was “angry” and “furious”, while the other was simply “not happy” and “a little annoyed”?
The very word “annoyed” irritated me. I thought, "What a stupid word to describe what these people have done to us." It seemed just silly to me. I thought that I would never say that to describe my feelings … But on the other hand, I have never been able to maintain such calmness in a situation of injustice. And I thought: "And if it was possible, what would I feel?" I probably would have laughed at the very word "annoyed". How stupid it is.
Is it possible that the words we use to describe our experience actually become that experience? Do words have a biochemical effect? Over the past few weeks, I have begun to notice how certain people speak and how it enhances or softens their emotions.
And I decided to conduct a 10-day experiment: first I had to identify the emotions that I feel most often and which most irritate me, and then find a new word that would soften these feelings, or even how ridiculous that would break a familiar pattern of thoughts and feelings.
The first opportunity for this came after a long series of connecting flights, all of which were delayed. I arrived at the hotel at two in the morning, knowing that I had to perform at eight in the morning. And so, for 10 minutes I hang around at the reception while the employee searches for my name on his computer at a speed that would infuriate a snail.
I felt irritation accumulating inside, which was already turning into anger, so in the end I turned to him, feeling that I was boiling, and said: “I know that it is not your fault, but now I just fall off my feet and agree to any number, which you can find, because I already feel that this is all "annoying me a little." And the very use of the word "annoyed" changed the tone of my voice, and the whole situation began to seem silly. The clerk looked at me, puzzled, and smiled broadly. I smiled back: my template was destroyed. The difference was like between "you seem to be wrong" and "you are lying." The volcano of emotions that rose inside me immediately cooled down.
Could it be that simple? By simply changing the usual words with which we describe our emotions, can we change the usual pattern of our feelings and thus the quality of our life? Ten days lasted up to a month, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that it was a life-changing experience. I do not mean to say that there are no moments when you want to feel angry or even rage, but is it not bad that this can be a conscious choice instead of a blind habitual reaction?
Here's what I discovered: the key moment for changing your life, for the correct formation of your decisions and actions, is a qualitative change in your emotional patterns. And the biggest tool that can make this change faster is the conscious choice of the words you use to describe your feelings. Thus, you give yourself the opportunity to choose, instead of following the usual reactions.
I call this "Transformational Vocabulary" because it gives you the power to change your life experience by reducing the intensity of negative emotions to the point where they no longer control you. Conversely, it can be used to enhance positive experiences so that you can enjoy them even more.
If you think about it, it sounds a bit like idle talk, doesn't it? What is the meaning of the pun? But after trying it yourself, you will see that it works.
What would your life be like if you could take all the negative feelings and reduce their intensity? How much better would your quality of life be if you could reinforce each positive experience you have?
By Tony Robbins