The Power of Words

We have a whole language around weakness.  If I said the words schizophrenia, insomnia, arachnophobia, ADD, multiple personality disorder; you would directionally know what these terms mean.  Which is pretty incredible when you think about how scientific these descriptors are.  A study in America in 2005, by Robert Schrauf, found that 60% of our time our language is focused on expressing negative emotions, 30% positive and 20% neutral.

 Words are powerful.  Very powerful.  Yet seemingly, something so small too.  It's like the rudder on a sailing ship that changes direction of such a large object one small step at a time, or the bit in the mouth of a horse, that can turn the whole animal.  Words can be uttered in a second, but take a lifetime to recover from. Another good analogy is like toothpaste coming out of a tube.  It is almost impossible to put the toothpaste back in.  So it begs the question; when you describe yourself or someone else, what words are you using?

 One of the big objectives of Strengthsfinder is to give us language around what we are good at.  I like this strengths language because it is "clean" i.e. simple to understand.  So when I say the words ACHIEVER (Stamina for working hard), POSITIVITY (Energetic and optimistic), MAXIMIZER (Place the talent where it can thrive), ADAPTABILITY (Responsive), directionally you will know what these terms mean. 

 A final thought is that we don't even need these terms.  A good friend of mine, Personal Development teacher Amanda Fleming talks about it as "spotting the brilliance."  Something we all can do, and especially as we find it so hard to see it in ourselves.  A good example of this struggle with self-awareness is often in job interviews.  People are asked questions like "so, tell me your strengths?" More often than not we struggle through our response to this question, or if you've been on the receiving end you get generics such as "team player", "productive", "efficient."

 So what language are you going to choose to describe the people you know?  Or yourself? There is an added bonus with this strategy - if you like someone, it will increase the chances of you being liked. Who doesn't want that?