What You Say to Yourself!

How many people will you speak to today? How many people will you speak to this year? How many people will you speak to in your lifetime? There is no question that you will impact the lives of many people with the words you choose to say. You speak to so many people that it is hard summarize the overall message you will say to all of them.

It is quite powerful and yet we may not put a lot of thought into the overall message we give in the time we have to converse.

Beyond what you say to others there is something perhaps even more important—what you say to yourself. Most people don’t put a lot of thought into what they say to themselves, but if you want to change your world you may want to pay attention to what you say to the person that you will spend your whole life with.

We work with people on self-leadership. It starts with self-awareness and paying attention to what you say to yourself could be a way to make a significant change to you and your life.

People spend their lifetime speaking to themselves. Sometimes it is out loud and sometimes it is just in their head. What they are saying to themselves is based on their experiences, a lifetime of programming and often has been influenced by significant others in their lives with various habits of how they talk to themselves.

You can be influenced by a lot of people in your life, but few will have as much influence as you.

So, what are you saying to yourself?

At the beginning of each year, we ask people we work with to choose one word as their theme for the year. This year I chose the word “Extraordinary”.

Near the end of last year Shelley and I read the book “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks. To change our beliefs that limit us, the author suggested a mantra that could help. I have said this to myself thousands of times since reading the book: “I expand in abundance, success, and love everyday as I inspire those around me to do the same.”

These have proven to be very important words to me, and I truly think they have gone a long way to make my year more extraordinary. Over the years, I have been working toward this kind of thinking in many ways, but the expanded self-awareness is that I have also been working against it. For me it was time to expand.

Abundance

We can see the world as a place of abundance or a place of scarcity. I have been given a lot in life, but I can say with no uncertainty that I was given a strong education in seeing scarcity. My parents went through the Great Depression, and through various circumstances raised a family with very little money.

Of course, I allowed the concept of scarcity to move to other things like time, possessions, how I felt about myself, sleep, vacations etc. I have changed my views on these things during the past 25 years but some of the old programming shows up from time to time. My expanded view of abundance had made a subtle change in me that I can feel. When you have a feeling of more than enough, it changes how you operate. For the past 4,062 days, I have written down 10 things each day that I am grateful for. This was one way of focusing on abundance vs. scarcity, but I have learned that there is more than enough and when you realize that you are less reluctant to ask for what you need. It also seems that when you spend less time fearing scarcity you don’t need as much. When you have a scarcity mindset and use scarcity language, small problems can seem monumental. When you have an abundance mindset you can always find someone who has a solution or can help you think of one.

Success

When you expand in success you can have bigger successes and experience more of them. Most importantly, you get clearer on what success really is. You get to decide what success is for you. It is common to not be successful at what other people have convinced you of what success is. Success could be defined as the accomplishment of pre-determined goals. The question is whether they were your goals or not. Some people don’t dream or set goals in the first place because they fear falling short or conversely fear accomplishing the goal. You can truly expand in success when you let go of your fears. You can also expand in your success when you learn you don’t have to do it alone. Success and failure can become habits. We support people in creating the habits for success.

Love

Of the three words, I think love might be the most important to me. Like most people I have a need to love and be loved. I used to think that everyone should love me and holding on to that belief kept me from feeling successful on a few occasions. Expanding in love to me means, loving the people I love more deeply. It means doing the things I love and loving the things I do. I am getting better at loving the people that are easy to love and having love for the people that are not so easy. I love myself enough that I have become more careful about whose influence I will accept.

What you say to yourself matters. It has the power to shape your world. What do you want your world to be like? What you say to yourself will make a difference on whether or not you get there.

Even if you are not there right now, use what you say to yourself to move in that direction.