Change Our Working Vocabulary, Changes Our Beliefs
Change Our Beliefs, Changes Our Actions
Changing Our Actions, Changes Our Results
Linguists say an average person’s working dictionary is between 2,000 and 10,000 words. That is about ½ of 1% of what is available. They also say that there are over 3,000 words in an English dictionary that relate to human emotion. A tad over 2,000 of these is negative and the remainder positive. When I first read these statistics, I could understandably see how it is so much easier for me to speak and write using more negative words, than positive.
Studying this process over the past several years, shows me that we are aware of our language when it comes to writing, yet we aren’t very aware of our language when it comes to our verbal use in general conversations.
Words describe our experiences and even heighten or lower our emotions. They are even our trial and jury at times. One word can even mark us for life. Words determine our destiny, culturally, spiritually, physically and mentally. What I think I found was that we mentally want to use a larger working dictionary but there are several things that curtail the pattern. It isn’t the fact that can’t expand our vocabulary, most of us do – learn a new word a day is very popular. Learn a word, apply once or twice, place into storage, it’s gone and we’re onto the next word of the day. It never truly makes it into our working dictionary.
What does hold us back from expanding our working language? It could be laziness of language use. It is easier to say “cool” then to explain what we really like about it. Society teaches us to be short, sweet, write tight -- to use the least number of words.
Our hesitancy to expand our working vocabulary could be in consideration for not wanting to say the inappropriate words or to offend. I don’t think so though.
I think it’s something more. I think it’s because in order to expand our working vocabulary we’re going to need to think. Yes, I said, “think”. Who wants to put that much effort into a normal conversation. Is that lazy, yes and no. Is that a habit, definitely yes.
In order to enhance our movement to change our results, it is important to change our working language. Below is a list to help you begin your journey. Whether the words are personally, a brief moment in front of the mirror, or said between friends over lunch or the phone, it begins with intention. You will find immediate results when you change words that are pulling you back into words that turbo-charge your energy. They will change your emotional state and the states of others. Be careful with the word-a-day learning. The dictionary has more negative words than positive ones. Don’t get into the rhythm of using the negative, there are adverse consequences in the results that occur.
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