Change Your Vocabulary, Change Your Life

(Photo by Nick Tober)

“God I am so pissed off”

“Why do terrible things always happen to me”

“Today is going to be amazing”

“My life is like an adventure, I’m not sure what’s going to happen next”

When we get stressed we tend to lash out and use very negative and descriptive words in order to better express our distress

Similarly, when we are ecstatic and joyful we tend to use more positive words to describe the way we are feeling

What is interesting is that what type of vocabulary we use in a given situation can have massive influence on the way we perceive it, and changing your vocabulary can cause radical positive change in your life

Here are some ways changing your vocabulary can instantly change your mood and drastically improve your quality of life

Ever been in bad situation and got so irritated and pissed off that your vocabulary became reminiscent of a Quentin Tarentino movie?

“##$%% THAT $%% #$%%%”

Everyone has done this before; sometimes you just lose control of yourself and your tongue 😉

Stress, anger, and frustration can all lead us to adopt a negative and powerful vocabulary from time to time

What I have noticed is that in times of intense joy or intense anger, now only does HOW you say something effect how you feel about it, but more importantly, WHAT you say can be one of the biggest determinants in how you react anything that occurs in your life

For example, say you talking with a stranger and they say something that angers you, even though it was completely unintentional on their end

Your mind will instantly begin racing like a hamster spinning in a cage of a million reasons why you should be pissed off at this person

In your head might say, “Wow this guy is a real asshole, who the #$^% does he think he is”

You might even call him a “Dick, Loser, Punk” or any other explicative that I’m sure we could all come up with 😉

What important to not here is the use of vocabulary

Saying an explicative like, “S$%^, F&*^, etc” instantly gets most people into a more irritated and pissed of mindset

What if we took that same situation and replaced the nouns and verbs used?

“Wow this guys is really inconsiderate; I wonder why he is acting so rudely towards me”

How much more calm on a scale of 1-10 did that sentence just become?

It easily went from a 9 to about a 4

The same can be said for using the right terminology in a positive light

Consider the simple notion of someone asking you how your day is going

This is one of the most used phrases in the English language, and it also has some of the most predictable of answers

If you asked 100 people how they’re doing today, at least 80 of them will say something along the lines of “I’m fine” or “I’m good”

While these responses are neither good nor bad, the fact is, they do not help us get into a more positive state of mind

Instead use the power of vocabulary

The next time someone asks you how your (insert noun) went or how you are doing, use a powerful adjective to describe it in the best possible light

“My day is going gloriously”

You may have read that and laughed and maybe even thought that sounded stupid

That’s good, that means that the response is at least getting your body and mind involved on some level, which is far superior to the mundane response of “I’m doing fine”

Use whatever words you like

Awesome, kickass, stupendous, amazing,

Any words that motivate you will be best suited to use in a conversation with someone or when you are thinking about any given situation

As you can see, the words we use in day to day life, both in person and in our heads drastically influence they way we act and feel

By effectively changing our vocabulary, we can change our lives

The next time you find yourself getting in a bad or negative mood, shift your vocabulary in order to change they way you feel about it

The situation it’s the worst thing that could ever happen to you, it’s just an inconvenience

And the next time everything is going good, your wrong, its going gloriously 😉