When You Change Your Words, You Change Your Worth

Here’s a secret to improving your self-confidence you can start doing right now!

The Worst Four Letter Word

When you talk to yourself, do you tend to say what you don’t want or what you do want? Our tendency is to say things like, “I don’t want to be so stressed anymore” or “I don’t want to be overweight anymore.” We choose those words instead of words like, “I want to be more calm” or “I want to be thinner and healthier.”

Most people are really good at saying what they don’t want instead of what they do want…and that causes you a lot of self-created stress and a lack of self-confidence.

When you change your words, you change your worth.

Listen to Yourself

Begin to listen to the words you choose when you talk to yourself. Most people don’t realize how much their own words are working against them, until they start paying attention and making different choices.

When you change your words, you change your worth.

Did you know that the subconscious mind does not recognize the word ‘don’t.’ So when you use it, you’re actually reminding yourself of something that you would rather not! (I know, weird, right?!?)

When I work with public speaking clients, it’s not uncommon to hear them thinking to themselves, “Don’t be nervous, don’t be nervous, don’t be nervous.” But if the subconscious mind doesn’t recognize the word “don’t,” what they’re telling themselves over and over and over is, “I’m nervous, I’m nervous. I’m nervous.”

When you’re brain hears that, it thinks, “Oh, I know how to do nervous!” And, lo and behold, you end up kicking yourself into fight or flight; your breathing gets high and shallow, you can’t think clearly, and you just want to run out of the room.

Make a Switch

But replacing “don’t be nervous” with words like “I know my stuff,” or “I’m prepared enough,” or “take a couple of deep breaths” sends a completely different message to your brain, one that does not kick you into the fight or flight response.

This isn’t hard to do. As a matter of fact, you use these more supportive words with other people all the time. Think about it…when someone else is stressing, you tell them to ‘take a couple deep breaths’ and ‘go get ‘em!’ You would never tell that person they should just stop being stressed out and nervous, because that just makes things worse. You give them something positive to do or focus on instead

Begin paying attention to the words that come out of your mouth, as well as the words that sit in your head. Self-talk matters, and the great thing to know is you have total control over it. You are the author of your words whether they’re in your head or they come out of your mouth, but you can pick up that pen and rewrite the script anytime the lines aren’t serving you.

When you change your words, you change your worth.

P.S. What would you do if you were more confident? Check out my 16 week course, Owning Your Confidence, to learn how to shift your self-talk, body language, and mental-game so you can have less stress and more confidence.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash