It's Time to Change Your Vocabulary

Raise your hand if you are guilty of saying “I can’t.”  “I can’t wake up early.”  “I can’t work out in the morning.”  Or maybe you find yourself saying “I don’t” or “I never.”  “I don’t have time to workout.”  “I could never go that long without eating.”  It doesn’t matter exactly what you are saying but I bet we can all raise our hands for being guilty of using these common words in our vocabulary.

My goal with this blog post is to get you to eliminate these words from your vocabulary.  At least as it relates to your goals.  I will first lead with this: I was the worst offender with using these words when I first started my health journey.  This is why I can write this post today!  My friend used to go to crossfit at 5am.  My words to her were “I could never wake up that early.”  Followed by “I can’t workout unless I eat first.”  There were other times in my life when I would say things like “I don’t have time” (and I literally had all the time in the world).  I was truly the queen of using these words, so as I progress into this blog post - please know this is coming from a place of love and a place of understanding.

The “I can’t” statements were negative self belief.  I didn’t believe in myself.  I didn’t believe there was another way.  I didn’t believe that I could do things differently than I had previously learned.  I didn’t believe that I could literally train myself to do something different.  According to Google the definition of mindset is “the established set of attitudes held by someone.”  This is exactly what I was experiencing - a negative mindset, an established mindset.  I had learned these things throughout my life - whether I saw it on TV or it was something learned at soccer practice or even from my brothers or parents.  These beliefs I had in my head were just my accumulated thoughts on life up to this point. The good news is that you can absolutely change your mindset.

Here is the one thing I know for sure - until you stop telling yourself you can’t do the thing - you will never do the thing.  One of my negative self beliefs was that I could never be a runner.  And I am writing to you now having run multiple half marathons and even one full marathon!  This is something that my previous self couldn’t even fathom.  It is likely you are even reading this now thinking that’s great for you but “I can’t…”.  With love, stop saying I can’t!  Here is what I want you to try instead.

1. Try thinking smaller!  As the girl who hated waking up early and then changed herself into a person that normally wakes up at 5am and has woken up as early as 4:15am, I can honestly say I did not just wake up two hours earlier one day.  Instead, I started 10 minutes earlier.  As I got more comfortable with that, then I added 10 more minutes.  I just kept adding time until I was getting up at my desired time.  I did not start running with the plan of running 26.2 miles.  I started with trying 3 (even that was probably a little ambitious but by then I had a good base of fitness).  Think smaller.  Rather than “can I wake up two hours earlier”, ask yourself if you can wake up 10 minutes earlier (or even 5 minutes or one minute!) or can I wake up without hitting the snooze button.
2. Try thinking differently.  What if instead of "I can’t workout in the morning", you allowed yourself to think of what the alternative’s are.  What would it look like if you did workout in the morning?  What could you do to make that successful?  Who else do I know that works out in the morning?  What are they doing?  Basically, all we are doing here is THINKING about alternative options.  What are the other options, who are people that do other options and what do they do that makes that successful?  Those are the questions to ask yourself.

By allowing your mind to not just think in black and white terms, or all or nothing terms, let’s allow our brain to think smaller and differently without any consequences.  Let’s just give ourselves the space to think and learn about other ways to do the thing, other than the established ways we have told ourselves.  This is starting to work the mindset muscle.  This is starting to train your brain to understand that there are always other ways to do things.

Your mindset is controlling everything you do.  It is controlling the way you think about yourself, your goals and your capabilities.  And so we must work on mindset first and foremost!  

Here are some additional things you can do to improve mindset and begin the removal of “I can’t” from your vocabulary.

• Gratitude!  Start each day with the smallest piece of gratitude.  Be grateful for a hot cup of coffee or the sun shining on your face.  Maybe it’s snuggles with your babies or fur babies or a fire in the fireplace.  Just express gratitude for the smallest things.  Here is a full blog post I wrote on gratitude if you want to learn more. 
• Catch yourself!  When you catch yourself saying “I can’t,” “I don’t,” or “I never” stop in your tracks and rephrase the sentence.  Maybe it is “I don’t want to wake up earlier.”  Maybe it’s I am not a runner yet, but one day maybe.”  The key here is to start to change your language from the words that hold you back to the words that leave the door open to possibility.  For example, cold plunge is such a big thing right now.  There are studies showing great effects on the body when you cold plunge.  I found myself saying “I just can’t do it.” The truth is, I’m just not willing to do it RIGHT NOW.  It is a totally different way of looking at challenging things.

You see, our brain is wired to protect us - so if something feels hard, if it pushes us outside of our comfort zone, the brain will immediately go into protect mode.  It will start to tell yourself that you “can’t” which is effectively taking away the challenging and scary part.  Well, if I just “can’t” then it’s not a threat and I will be safe.  We have to calm that monkey brain of ours and remind our brain that we are capable!

• Use affirmations! You’ll have to find affirmations that feel right to you, but you can start with something like “I am capable of whatever I set my mind to” or my personal favorite “I am a badass!” Put these somewhere where you will see them everyday and say them out loud to yourself everyday.  When I was training for the marathon I had a few affirmations in my back pocket for when it got hard and I wanted to give up.  I would be running down the road and I would say them out loud to myself.  It did the trick! 

Every successful person that you see had to find a way to enhance their mindset to one of belief in themselves no matter the obstacle.  Every successful person encountered obstacles that at first they thought they wouldn’t be able to overcome.  The way that they did it was by reminding themselves that they are capable.  They reminded themselves of the worst case scenario (which is never as bad as our brain wants us to believe).  They reminded themselves that it didn’t have to be perfect!  It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.  It can be small baby steps in the direction you want to go. 

 The way that I was able to go from a complete bear in the morning to someone who (mostly) willingly gets up early was by removing the phrase I can’t from my vocabulary.  Once I took that phrase off the table, everything changed for me.  I realized that I could start small.  I realized that I could workout in the morning before eating breakfast.  I realized that I could be a runner.  Then I realized that I could be a marathoner.  I am still realizing things today that the previous me would have never believed possible. 

You are totally capable of this as well.  Start small. Express gratitude. Speak kindly to yourself.  Once you do these things, your mindset will start to shift and your willingness to try to things will increase.  Once you do one thing and it works well, you will increase your confidence.  As you increase confidence you will continue to push yourself out of your comfort zone.  Soon enough, you will look in the mirror and be like “who is this new and fabulous lady?!”  I promise, it truly is that simple.  Go get it sister!! <3