Feeling Stuck? Watch Your Language!

Posted on 23. Oct, 2009 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Tools & Resources
1 comment

As a follow-up to Monday’s post on self-imposed labels and limiting beliefs, here’s a quick tip that’s simplicity itself:

Whenever you feel stuck or in procrastination mode, replace the word “can’t” with “won’t”.

For example, “I can’t picture myself ever being happy here” becomes “I won’t picture myself ever being happy here”. “I can’t learn how to speak the local language fluently” becomes “I won’t learn how to speak the local language fluently”.

Well, why won’t you?

Why are you not putting in the effort? How truly committed are you to making it work? What is really holding you back?

With “can’t”, you can hide behind all sorts of excuses. With “won’t”, you have to get to the root of the problem and face your own resistance.

Besides, plenty of expats have learned how to speak the local language before, so it’s not like it’s impossible – therefore it’s not a real “can’t”.

This little trick with words is nothing new or complicated, but you’ll be amazed at how powerful it is. I find it much more effective than overused and overly simplistic self-help stuff like positive affirmations – maybe it’s just me, but positive affirmations feel super cheesy to me and they fail miserably at shifting the way I think about my own limitations.

Have fun hunting down all those “can’t” and replacing them with “won’t”! And if you would share how that worked for you, that would be really great!

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Emmanuelle

Images by ~Jetta Girl~ (top) and BIGben. (bottom), both via Flickr Creative Commons