Did you know that the way you talk to yourself has a really big impact on your general well-being and what you are able to do each and every day? As a Muslim, I have learned to find ways that balance my love and honour for my faith, my desire to be better and my love for learning about personal development in a way that allows me to embrace tools and techniques which are cutting edge, yet in my opinion, have their foundation in Islam. For example – have you ever thought about the words that you hear in the call to prayer? Some of the words translate from Arabic into English as ‘Come to Success.’ Kinda amazing right? Hearing that positive message five times a day and knowing what it means will remind you that you are on your way to success.

So, using the right language with yourself will have an incredible impact on your mindset. I am not telling you to use ‘mantras,’ or statements that others have told you to repeat but I do want you to figure out what works for you and then at the end of this post I challenge you…

How does it work?

For a long time, people thought that language did not impact how we think. Stanford University and MIT have been re-thinking this whole idea and have found that language is a unique human experience and that the words we use play an important part in our view of the world and how we understand it. Professor Boroditsky says “In English,” she says, moving her hand toward the cup, “if I knock this cup off the table, even accidentally, you would likely say, ‘She broke the cup.'” However, in Japanese or Spanish, she explains, intent matters.

If one deliberately knocks the cup, there is a verb form to indicate as much. But if the act were an accident, Boroditsky explains, with a smile as she translates from Spanish, the speaker would essentially say, “The cup broke itself.”

This then begs the question – does how we use language change the way that we think about incidents and happenings in life?

Professor Noam Chomsky who is an MIT linguist takes the view that all languages share the same deep structure of thought and that thought has a universal quality separate from language. Did you know that babies think before they learn to speak, so thought is not dependent on language? But language changes thought and then one reflect on each other which is really important.

Let’s put it this way – watch five-year-old girls talk about how beautiful they are. They are so confident in themselves that they will tell you, unprompted ‘I am beautiful just like mummy.’ Chances are if the mummy is in the same room she is thinking ‘Of course honey you are beautiful but I’m not.’ All of this is conditioning because of course, the mummy is beautiful it’s just she no longer uses that language for herself and her confidence in herself is lower, as is her self esteem. I have been observing this for years. It happens in pre teen years when a shift happens and girls become less confident in their appearance and then the language shifts to so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Thing is, we can change that and I know if you are here reading this then you care about how you speak to yourself. There is one other thing I want to share before I move onto some statements you can say to yourself daily. Dr Robert Holden encourages people to look in the mirror and say ‘I love you’ to the reflection of themselves in the mirror. Sounds really hippy, right? But I tried it once and it actually felt really strange and really good at the same time. I challenge you to try it for yourself and see what happens!

Let’s now move to three things that you can do to speak to yourself in the way that you deserve.

1. Love yourself. Make the decision to be kind to yourself and every time you think a negative thought or say negative words change them. Don’t catch yourself saying ‘I’m so stupid.’ Replace it with ‘Gosh, I need to work on that a little more’ or ‘I’m going to try that again.’
2. Dare to dream. You can do anything you want to, you just need to dare to dream. It’s incredible how often no one else is getting in our way, it’s us, we don’t believe we can do it so I challenge you to dare to dream. That crazy idea you have, ask yourself how can you make it a reality?
3. Put it out there. When you put your dreams or aspirations out there you will be amazed at how God supports you in making it a reality. It is even more powerful when you pray for it. I know from personal experience that when I have a crazy idea or want to do something that is beyond me and I follow the two step process of expressing the thought and praying for it, every single time it has happened or I have got something even better.

I challenge you to think about the language that you are using to talk to yourself and change it for a day. Let me know what happens.

Remember it’s the difference between ‘She broke the cup’ and ‘The cup broke itself.’