But — baaad; And — goood!
It’s very hard to discuss becoming our best selves without bringing up negative self talk and the need to avoid it. For the most part, it’s very easy to identify that negative self talk. It’s the loud insistent nagging voice that tells you how wanting you are in any and all areas.
While it’s unhealthy, the good news is that it’s obvious enough that we know when it’s happening. Over time, with practice, we can set up an alarm so that we catch it in the moment and being replacing it with positive, or at least neutral, self talk.
However, there is much more insidious way we negate ourselves and our possibilities. It’s the simple word BUT. Whether it’s a continuation of your own sentence, or a rebuttal to someone else’s suggestion, it is probably the simplest way we have come up with for keeping ourselves from moving forward.
One of the reasons it is so dangerous is because we become oblivious to it. I wonder how many times a day we say it and don’t hear it?
Some of the ways it comes up:
- “I want to go back to school, but I don’t have time.”
- “I would like to get to know her better, but she probably wouldn’t like me anyway.”
- “Wouldn’t it be nice to read that book and learn about that topic?” Unfortunately (variant of but!), there’s too many other things to do.”
How to avoid the negative impact? It’s a three-step process.
- Set an alarm so that you hear the word ‘but’ each and every time you (or those around you) say it. Let me repeat, each and every time. While this sounds tough, the truth is that with the proper intention and practice, you will soon be hearing ‘buts’ all around you.
- Stop being amazed at just how frequently you do say the word but. When I did this for the word ‘should’ many years ago, I spent a lot of wasted time paralyzed by how often I was saying it. Remember, if you could have done it differently, you would have. Forgive yourself and move on to step 3.
- Repeat the entire sentence that you just said. Only this time, replace the word ‘but’ with the word ‘and’. For example in the first example above, the sentence would become “I would like to get to know her better and she probably wouldn’t like me anyway.”
With the word ‘but’ the sentence is a dead end. No point taking it further cause it’s a definite no-go. That same sentence with the word ‘and’, however has a different impact. I find myself asking, “Hmmm.. I wonder why? Lots of other people like me. I’m really a pretty great person. Maybe I’ll give her a chance to reject me herself”.
See the difference? No matter how mutually exclusive the sentence might sound, in fact the addition of ‘and’ opens the door wide open. Now you can take it to the next step and walk through it!
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