Words are powerful. They have the ability to build someone up or tear him down. And that someone includes you too. The words you say to yourself can either motivate you toward your goals, seriously hinder or stall your progress, or prevent you from even starting on your journey. “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can change your brain,” says Belinda Anderson, life coach and author who leads women’s wellness retreats in Fiji and Bali. Read on to discover some of the words and phrases you should eliminate from your self-talk vocabulary and what to tell yourself instead. Mind you, none of these words are necessarily bad in and of themselves, but the way we tend to use them can turn them into devastating tools of mental self-destruction. So try eliminating these words and thought patterns from your day—for just one day to start—and see if you don’t feel better about yourself afterward.
1. Fat/Ugly
Women may be notoriously guilty of saying, “I look fat today,” but it’s human nature to be self-deprecating. But in order to form a better (not to mention more accurate) self-image, it’s important to get rid of negative adjectives. “You don’t want to associate with negative terms,” says Beverly Flaxington, The Human Behavior Coach and author of “Self-Talk for a Calmer You.” “Catch yourself using self-defeating talk and make a conscious choice to change the talk. Instead of ‘fat’ you are ‘getting healthier,’ instead of ‘ugly’ you are ‘beautiful in my own way.’ You may not believe these things if you use overly positive language, so I advocate for using something more neutral to replace negative terms.”
2. Just/Only
How many times have you caught yourself saying, “I only ran three miles today,” or “I just did a yoga DVD” (as opposed to an intense gym session)? It’s time to put a stop to that. “Avoid thinking of any day as test of your character,” says Emily Balcetis, associate professor of psychology at New York University. “Whether you run three miles or only three blocks, today is not a statement about you as a person.” Instead, take every day as a chance to progress a little bit further. “People who approach challenges and goals with a growth mindset rather than as a test of their fixed nature don’t see setbacks as failures but as opportunities to develop skills and learn better habits,” she says. So even if you didn’t run as far as you wanted to on a given day, tell yourself that, regardless of how many miles you logged, any run is better than no run and that you were able to make time in your busy schedule to do something good for yourself.
3. Too Much/Not Enough
It’s easy to think that we’re either too much of the wrong thing or not enough of the right thing. But that just reinforces the embedded presupposition factor of the brain, says Noah St. John, author of “Book of Afformations” and founder of SuccessClinic.com. “If you ask yourself, ‘Why am I not enough?’ your brain naturally starts to search for the answer, acting like a computer or Internet search. You find whatever you’re searching for.” Rather than presupposing you’re not good enough, St. John recommends “afformations” (no, that’s not a typo), which reframe your questions to lead your mind to search for better answers and avoid the endless repetition of the commonly prescribed “affirmations.” In this case, try asking yourself “Why am I enough?” You’ll set your brain on the right path and you’ll be delightfully surprised with what your mind can come up with. To paraphrase Henry Ford: “Whether you think you’re wrong or you’re right, you are.”
4. Can’t/Won’t
Saying things like “I can’t eat that pizza” and “I won’t lose weight if I don’t work out” is actually working against you. “When you are trying to make change happen, stay away from negative language,” says personal and career coach Beverly Flaxington. “It is important to fill the mind with the positive ‘what do you want’ ideas and not confuse it with negative terms. The mind will drop the ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t’ and will focus on what you do not want to do.” Plus, many times those can’t and won’t statements simply aren’t true. Instead, focus on what you can and will do. Tell yourself things like “I can have one cheat meal a week,” “I have plenty of healthy and delicious snacks to keep me full” or “I will lose weight because I’m sticking to my workout routine.” The one exception to this, of course, is actual physical limitations. If you truly can’t eat something because of food sensitivities or do something in the gym because of an injury or physical handicap, your mind may naturally remind you as a protection mechanism. Still, it’s important to focus on what you can do instead of what you can’t.
5. Failure
Calling yourself a failure is a surefire way to ensure that you fail in whatever you do. In that sense, you are your own self-fulfilling prophecy. “You want to be the most positive coach to yourself that you can possibly be,” says Kate Cummins, Los Angeles-based licensed clinical psychologist. “So by doing that you take ‘I’m no good’ and change it into ‘I am good, and I’m going to do this’; or ‘I’m a failure’ into ‘I have failed in the past, but I have also won, and I will win this time.’” But, at the same time, you don’t want to lie to yourself. “Make sure you leave room for disappointment,” Cummins says. “If your expectations are perfection, you are setting yourself up for failure. Forgive yourself, be patient with change and give yourself room to grow.”
6. Lucky
Sure, some days you might feel lucky—and that’s great! But you should never use luck as an excuse for why you can’t do something or to discredit someone else’s accomplishments by saying they’re lucky. “There is such a thing as luck,” says author and personal development coach Noah St. John, “but you need to marry luck with hard work.” A quote (erroneously) attributed to Thomas Jefferson states, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” But St. John also warns against the temptation to compare your life to the lives of people you follow on social media. So while you’re envying someone’s abs or arms, don’t tell yourself that they’re just lucky, remind yourself that they had to work hard to achieve the body they have and that if you work hard, you can achieve your goals as well.
7. Tomorrow
If you keep pushing things off until some distant tomorrow, you’ll never get them done. The common trap is to say, “Oh well, I didn’t eat well today, so my diet starts tomorrow.” But that allows you to keep delaying and to never really start. Instead, pick a concrete and realistic start date and stick to it. “Keep yourself accountable. If you don’t do it tomorrow, when will you do it?” says author and personal development coach Noah St. John. More than just a start date, though, you need to have a reason to keep you motivated. “You need to have a ‘why to,’ not just a ‘how to,’” says St. John. So whether that’s losing weight to lower your blood pressure and risk of diabetes or to quit smoking so you can set a good example for your kids or get fit so you can feel great in your bathing suit next summer, pick a reason and remind yourself of it daily.
8. Stupid
Just as you want to avoid calling yourself a failure, you really should avoid negative adjectives in general. “The mind is a heat-seeking missile—it will move rapidly in the direction you point it,” says personal and career coach Beverly Flaxington. “If your thoughts and beliefs are constantly negative, then failure is what you’ll get. You want to think, self-talk and out-loud talk only about what you want. Drop the negative viewpoints entirely. They are destructive.” So if you find yourself fixating on what you perceive as your negative aspects, choose to intentionally turn your thoughts around to focus on your strengths and abilities.
9. Should
“Saying ‘I should’ve gone for a run’ makes you feel guilty for not going on your run,” says life coach and author Belinda Anderson. “Instead, say ‘I intend to go for a run’ or ‘I choose not to go for a run today.’” The latter options are more empowering and give you back the decision-making authority. The word “should,” on the other hand, makes whatever task you feel like you should do seem tedious or undesirable. When you tell yourself that you’re choosing to do something—whether that’s going to the gym, quitting smoking, going to bed earlier or spending more of your time volunteering—your mind automatically reframes the task as something that you want to do, rather than something you’re forcing yourself to do. So replace “should” with words like “choose,” “intend,” “desire,” “want” or “could.”
10. Never
The old adage “never say never” is especially true when it comes to meeting your goals because it’s a toxic word that will sabotage your progress. “When you are trying to lose weight, for example, if your automatic thoughts are saying, ‘I’m never going to reach to my goal weight,’ and those are the words circling in your head, it will be almost impossible to lose weight because you’ve already set yourself up for failure,” says clinical psychologist Kate Cummins. Sure, it may take you a while to reach your goal weight, quit smoking or reach whatever personal development goal you’ve set for yourself, but it will happen with patience and persistence. “Instead of focusing on this negative self-talk, remember to tell yourself positive things,” Cummins says. “Write loving notes to yourself on your mirror like, ‘Hey there, healthy and slender woman,’ or ‘You got this—keep up the good work!’”
11. Busy
Think you’re too busy to go to the gym or spend more time with your kids? Think again. If you tell yourself, ‘I’m too busy to do it because...’ you’ll always make yourself right, says author and personal development coach Noah St. John. “But you’re making excuses for yourself,” he says. “How much longer are you going to listen?” Figure out what your excuses are (like being too busy), and then start asking yourself the right kind of leading questions. Instead of “Why am I so busy?” ask yourself, “Why do I have so much time to do what I need to do?” St. John suggests. Even though you won’t feel like you have a lot of time at first, asking the question will lead your brain to seek the answer. The answer might be, “Because I have good time-management skills” or “Because I eliminated something nonessential from my schedule and replaced it with something more important.” Keep asking those types of “afformation questions,” and you’ll surprise yourself with the answers.