The Power of Positive Language

Yesterday, you noticed water dripping from a pipe under your sink. This morning, the plumber arrived right before you left for work. He agreed to repair the sink and leave the bill for later payment. When you arrived at the office, there was a message to call the plumber at your home.

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Write down what you are thinking that the plumber wants to tell you...

Now take a look at what you wrote. Was your most immediate thought positive or negative?

In our daily lives, we so often engage in flea thinking. With a small (even tiny) piece of information, we jump to negative conclusions. We jump to negative thinking. We leap to negative outcomes. Read about some of the negative jumping that clients recently have shared.

An employee was invited to go to lunch with several peers after a four hour morning meeting. Instead of checking in with her boss to see if going to lunch would be okay, she jumped to the conclusion that he would say no, and that he would insist that she needed to return to work. She fumed about his decision—the decision that she assumed that he would make.

A teenager was invited to go to a party with several others. Instead of assuming that the invitation was based on their interest in her company, she jumped to the conclusion that they invited her out of pity and said no to the invitation. Then she spent the evening hurt and angry about being left out—hurt and anger that had its seed in her assumption about others’ intentions.

A mature adult held onto her anger towards a friend for several weeks because she thought that friend no longer valued their friendship. She jumped to the conclusion that this friend no longer wanted to spend time with her. She quit calling or emailing this friend, hurt that the friend was not initiating communication. She later discovered that her friend had been under huge work pressure for several weeks with hardly a spare minute for even her family.

Far too often, our leap to negative thinking and subsequent negative feelings weakens us and makes us victim to our circumstances.

Consider this exercise. You can prove its truth by doing it with a friend or family member. Ask your partner to hold up his non dominant arm to his side and straight out from his body. Ask permission to push his arm down, but ask him to resist you the best that they can. You will discover the amount of strength that he has to your pushing.

Now ask him to focus and repeatedly say, “I am stupid, I am stupid, I am stupid……..” About the tenth time you hear it, trying pushing his arm down again. You will be able to easily push it down.

Take a moment for light conversation and to relax the arm.

Then ask that your partner hold out the non dominant arm again, anticipating that you will be pushing down on it again. This time, ask him to focus and repeatedly say, “I am smart, I am smart, I am smart…………” About the tenth time you hear the phrase, try pushing down his arm one more time.

YOU WILL BE AMAZED BY THE PHYSICAL STRENGTH OF YOUR PARTNER FROM FOCUSING ON MORE POSITIVE LANGUAGE.

Negative language, whether directed at yourself or others, weakens the body and the spirit. Positive language, grounded in truth, strengthens the body and the spirit. Your thought life consistently makes a difference to your feelings and responses. The lesson is to identify strategies to get over your negative thinking, and move on to more positive, powerful thinking for greater strength, whatever your circumstances.

In our GOMO!^® model, the need is to Get Over any habit of negative thinking and Move On to positive thinking that heals and strengthens the way that you think about yourself and others. (To learn more about the GOMO!^® process click here!)

“Every tomorrow has two handles. You can take the handle of worry or the handle of enthusiasm and more positive thought. As your choice goes, so will your day.” --Unknown

By Susan B. Wilson, President, Executive Strategies