Have you ever caught yourself saying, "I always mess things up" or "I'm just lazy?" What if those words were shaping your reality? In this episode, I break down how the language you use—both out loud and in your own head—literally programs your mind. Discover simple shifts in your words that can open the door to massive personal growth and help you break free from limiting beliefs.Looking for daily motivation? Get free inspirational messages straight to your phone, plus exclusive podcast recommendations and updates on my free workshops so you never miss out. It’s simple: just send "Quotes by Rob" to this link 👉 https://my.community.com/robdial from your phone. Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube
Chapter 1: What is the focus of today's episode on the Mindset Mentor Podcast?
Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode.
And if you're out there and you want to learn how to reprogram yourself and create a routine to do so every single morning to get into your subconscious and reprogram yourself the way that you want to reprogram yourself, you can download my free morning priming routine. If you go to morningpriming.com, once again, morningpriming.com, and you can get it for free.
Today, we're gonna be talking about the power of the words that you use, the words that you use and you speak, but also the words that you use inside of your own head, because small shifts in your language actually shape your reality. And I'm curious, have you ever caught yourself saying something like, oh, I'm just so lazy, or I always mess things up, or I can never do this right?
Chapter 2: How do the words we use shape our reality?
If you've ever said something like that, it might seem like it's just a harmless thing that you say, But here's the deal, and this is what you really need to understand, and this might really blow some minds out there, but your words don't just describe your reality. They actually create your reality.
A lot of times we think we're just describing what's happened in the past, but when we describe what's happened in the past and we say, this is who I am, well, then they're going to create the future that you walk into. And the way that you speak about yourself programs your brain to see the world a certain way.
So if you're the type of person that says, I always self-sabotage, your mind takes that as a law and reinforces those patterns that keep you stuck. And so when you say something like that, you have to understand your mind doesn't know the difference between you're joking or you're telling the truth. So it just stores everything is true.
So if you say, I always self-sabotage, your mind's like, okay, well, it looks like we're just gonna keep on self-sabotaging because that's who we are. But what if instead you just switched and shift your words just a little bit and you say something like, I've self-sabotaged myself in the past, but I'm learning to break that habit. It's a tiny shift.
Instead of saying, I always self-sabotage, hey, I self-sabotaged in the past before, but I'm learning to break that habit. I'm getting better. I'm evolving. Suddenly, There's a little bit of space for change. There's a little bit of space for you to evolve and get better versus stay stuck.
And these small tweaks in how you talk to yourself or you talk about yourself can make a huge difference in your life. They make a difference in what you believe. They make a difference in what you feel. They make a difference in what you actually perceive when you look out into the world. and what you ultimately are going to or not going to create in your life.
And so your words matter a lot more than you think that they do. Whenever I'm on a Zoom call and I'm running a live or I'm in person with people and somebody says something, sometimes what I'll do is I'll just stop in the middle of the sentence. I'm like, hold on. I just want to reflect what you just said. Do you want to keep reminding yourself about this?
Do you want to keep believing yourself, believing that that's who you are, or do you want to shift it? And they're like, oh, I want to shift it. Okay, so what would be a better way of saying what you just said? Because your brain is always listening, even to yourself. And so you've got to be very, very careful with your words.
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Chapter 3: Why should we avoid absolute words like 'always' and 'never'?
And you also have to be very careful when you start using words that are like absolute words. One of the things I hear people say a lot is always, I always do this or never, I never do that. Or they speak to someone that they love and say, you never do this. When you say always or never or words that are like that, you lock yourself in to an identity that leaves no room for change.
When you say it to somebody else, you lock them into an identity that leaves no room for change. So the other day I was on a live and someone said, I always self-sabotage. And I was like, always? You're telling me 100% of the time, all of the time you always self-sabotage? And they're like, well, no, I mean, not always. Okay, well, then you can't say I always self-sabotage.
You've got to be careful with those words. I never wake up on time. Never, never in the history... You know, you're 41 years old. You've never woken up on time in your entire life. Well, you know, I wake up on time sometimes. Okay, well, then stop saying that shit to yourself. You know, if somebody says something like... I'm always terrible with relationships.
That's one that I hear a lot from people. Your brain hears it and says, okay, well, there's no point in trying to improve or you're always terrible at relationships. So, you know, there's no point in getting to another one because they're just going to turn into another failure. So let me just keep self-sabotaging you.
If you say something like I'll never be successful, your brain responds and says, well, if that's the case, why even try to put any effort towards, you know, growing this business? I'll always be overweight. Well, if that's the case, your brain just sits there and says, well, then let's not even eat healthy. Let's not even go to the gym because why put in any effort? It doesn't make any sense.
But when you shift your words and you shift what you say, you shift your focus. And if you say something like, I've struggled in relationships in the past, but I'm learning how to communicate better. Well, now you leave some space for opportunity. Your brain thinks, ah, We're not stuck. We're working on this. Okay, progress, not perfection. That's good.
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Chapter 4: How can shifting language improve self-perception?
Or if you say something like, success has been challenging for me, but I'm figuring out what works, your mind starts looking for solutions instead of trying to look for all of the roadblocks. So your brain thinks, oh, I'm getting better every day. Like we're working on ourself. That's a good thing. Versus like we're stuck, we're never gonna change.
And so you've gotta break the trap of like always and never. When you say those words, they're dangerous because they paint a picture of your identity of who you think you are as fixed. When in reality, you're this being that's constantly evolving all the time. And so next time you catch yourself using absolute language, you need to challenge yourself. You need to challenge yourself.
100%?
Pretty much every single time people go, well, it's not 100%, but you know, it's a lot. Okay, well, then ask yourself the question, would I say this to a friend that I care about? And if not, how can I say this in a way, how can I reframe this in a way that allows for some sort of growth? So let me give you a couple of examples.
If someone says something like, I always procrastinate, you would change it to something like, I've procrastinated in the past, but I'm getting better. See, it's a tiny shift. It doesn't seem like much, but it is a lot. I never follow through. Okay, you could say something like following through has been a challenge for me in the past, but I'm improving.
It's a tiny shift, but do you see the difference? The first version reinforces a limiting identity of yourself. And the second leaves room for you to evolve. And the thing that's interesting about language is that language shapes your focus. So we can't focus on every single thing that's happening around us, but what we say and what we think shapes what we focus on.
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Chapter 5: What examples illustrate the power of language on mindset?
Your brain is like a heat-seeking missile. It locks in to whichever thing in this world that you tell it to. Whatever you tell it to focus on, your brain's gonna focus on. Whatever you tell it, it's gonna search through your entire past and find all of the pieces of data to prove what you just said true. And we will be right back. And now back to the show.
And so if you keep reinforcing the idea that you're lazy or that you're always behind or that you'll never be in a good relationship or that you'll always be overweight, your mind will look for all of the evidence in the world to support that. And I've given this example before in the podcast, but I think it's really important for people to understand. If you go into Google,
and you type right now, is coffee bad for your eyesight? There's a bunch of articles, there's a bunch of studies that prove, quote unquote, that coffee is bad for your eyesight. But if you go into Google and type, is coffee good for your eyesight? There are articles and studies that prove that coffee is good for your eyesight. Which one's the truth?
Well, whichever one you decide to focus on, I guess. And so your brain is kind of like cosmic Google. It's like sitting down at the computer and saying, I always ruin my relationships. Well, then it's gonna find all of the moments in your entire life where you've ruined relationships or messed up in some sort of way.
versus sitting down and saying, you know, I've messed up in relationships in the past, but I've also done really good things in relationships. Well, then it's going to find all of the things that you did good in the relationship. The surprises, the time that you took your wife on, you know, vacation when she didn't realize it was going to be coming up.
And so your brain's going to search for whatever you talk about. Your words create your mental focus on yourself, on your world, on other people. You know, I was running a Zoom this week, two weeks ago, in Mindset 2.0, which is a 12-week course that I have. And one of the ladies said, Rob, I'm just struggling because I don't trust myself.
So her words that she said out loud and what she was focusing on was not trusting herself. I was like, okay, well, why don't you trust yourself? She said, well, and then she started giving me all of the reasons why she shouldn't trust herself. Well, I was an alcoholic and this happened and this happened. And six years ago, I went through a divorce and this happened and this happened.
I said, okay, hey, I'm just curious. Is there anything that you've ever done in the past that can show you that you can trust yourself? And I always thought she might just give me a couple of small things, right? And she's like, well, you know, I used to be an alcoholic and I've been sober for 23 years. And another thing is I lost 120 pounds a couple of years ago and I've kept it off for years.
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Chapter 6: How does language influence mental focus and self-trust?
And I'm like, holy shit. You say you can't trust yourself, but you just told me you've been sober for 23 years. Do you know how hard that is for people? Would you trust somebody who's been sober for 23 years who can hold off an addiction? That's an amazing thing. You lost 120 pounds? You realize how many people want to lose five pounds and can't?
And I was like, and as I said it, like she started lighting up like, oh my God, I'm looking at the wrong perspective. And so I said, do you see that you can trust yourself? And she's like, oh my God, I can see that I can't trust myself, but I was looking at the wrong thing. And it's because she had this identity, this narrative, I can't trust myself.
Her brain was looking for all of the reasons why she couldn't trust herself. And when I said, are there any reasons you could trust yourself? Her brain immediately went and brought up all of the reasons in her past why she could trust herself. And so your brain will find and focus on whatever you tell it to search for. If you search for I can't trust myself, it will find it.
If you search for I can trust myself, it will find it. So let me give you like a couple other examples, right? Let's say that you're a person who struggles with self-discipline. I hear this a lot. People say something like, you know, Rob, like I'm just lazy. I never follow through on anything. And I always find a reason or an excuse to procrastinate.
And if they say that, that's going to shape their reality. That's what they actually think about themselves. And that's going to shape the actions that they take in the future and the results that they're going to get in the future of their life. And so they label themselves as lazy, which means that they stop trying to change.
They ignore past times where they did follow through so that they can reinforce a negative belief. And more than anything else, they start to feel hopeless, which makes it even harder to take action. So you see how that perspective is really not helping them in any sort of way. And what they miss out on is everybody struggles with self-discipline at times. There's no perfect person like everybody.
I would say pretty much everybody would rather be chilling on their couch or in their backyard or drinking coffee than having to get up and go do stuff and work and build a business or whatever it might be. And so they think, Oh, I'm the only one that does this. I just struggle with this. No, everyone struggles with self-discipline at different times. It's not a fixed trait.
And motivation comes from action. not the other way around. So maybe it's just about getting a little bit of momentum on your side. And then if they could start looking at just tiny little daily habits they can change, it will help build momentum over time as well.
And so maybe a more empowering reframe for them would be something like, I've struggled with consistency in the past, but I am working on building better habits. I don't have to be perfect. And all of these small steps are going to add up over time, right? That's just a simple reframe that they could use. So the way that we talk to ourselves isn't just a reflection of what is happening.
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