Reinventing Yourself

From Steve Chandler’s “Reinventing Yourself”

 Our energy and mood are created by the language we think with. The language impact is stronger than drugs, as medical tests with placebos have revealed for years. (“One pill makes you larger. The other makes you small.” Whatever the doctor says about the pill actually influences what the pill seems to do. )
People who are productive and fulfilled in life use a different language than the people who are struggling.  You can always tell where a person’s from by listening to the language he or she uses. Some people come from ownership, and some from visualization.
Owners use the words “I can” a lot, while victims favored “I cant.” Owners had goals, projects, and challenges, whereas victims had problems, hassles, and nightmares. Owners said they were busy, and victims said they were “trying to make a living.” Owners looked to see what they could get from an experience, while victims tried to get through it. Owners would plan things and victims would wish things.  

We don’t have permanent personalities; we have shifting patterns of thought. And patterns can be interrupted and finally replaced with other patterns. In baseball there are some hitters who can hit as easily from the right side of the plate as from the left. That wasn’t natural. It wasn’t who they were. No one is born that way. But they put new patterns in place and became switch hitters, now effortlessly and gracefully hitting with power and precision from either side of the plate.

It’s called Pattern Replacement. You can replace any pattern of behavior (or thought) with another. All it takes is relentless practice. You are not stuck. I am not stuck. We are not lost in the fabrication of who we are.


“Some people use language to describe the lives they lead, and other people use language to create the lives they lead.” –Becky Robbins

Behind every action is a thought formed in words that paint a picture. What do you want to paint?