It’s no surprise that this email or social media post allowed this to go through . . . but this one is the silent destroyer of dreams.
Don’t believe me?
I’ll prove it to you . . . and I challenge you to think about it . . .
The most toxic word in the English language is . . . CAN’T . . .
Now how is that toxic? We use this word all the time!
Of course we do . . . I can’t (enter finished statement here).
I can’t lose weight. I can’t save money. I can’t keep things organized.
What does can’t really mean? How we use it is really the most toxic and how it literally turns everything off.
Now literally there are only a few handful of things that we can’t do. We can’t fly without an airplane. We can’t breathe underwater without scuba gear.
When we use can’t improperly what happens? We shut off the area to our brain to help us problem solve. Instead I challenge you to replace the word with a different word or phrase, like either “I have to find” or “It’s not a priority right now”. I know that’s challenging because we have trained ourselves to hide behind can’t.
Let’s apply it with some real life examples.
When we say I can’t save money . . . well what happened? You stopped looking at your bank account. You stopped problem solving. You have told your creative section of your brain . . . nope we can’t do it so don’t put any problem solving efforts into it. Instead try “I need to see where the money goes . . . or I haven’t found a way to budget that works for me”.
Even when we say I can’t loose weight or get healthy . . . we subconsciously hide behind it. While there is always an exception to the rule those are few and far in-between. Here is the real question to ask yourself . . . is it a priority? I know that may sting a little . . . but when we are real with ourselves that’s where we move ourselves from inaction to action.
I did it when I stopped smoking years ago. Instead of saying I can’t stop smoking . . . I started by saying “Stopping smoking isn’t a priority for me right now.” See how different that sounds? It’s a change in mindset, and that starts the challenge.
How can you use this to make a change?
