Words Have Power (MKE 10)

Reading scroll 3 in The Greatest Salesman In The World, by Og Mandino has really hit home for me this week. I’ve enjoyed scroll 1 and 2 and have gained tremendous insight from reading them, but 3 has resonated with me the most so far. “I persist until I succeed” has become my new mantra or affirmation that I concentrate on throughout the day.

My thoughts on my success have increased along with my commitment to achieving that success. Before I would say to myself “Yeah, I want to make personal training a career.“  But, it was usually a fleeting moment of thought. Now, making this goal a reality is all I’m thinking about and working towards!

There is a paragraph on page 65 of The Greatest Salesman In The World that I read multiple times because it speaks to me so strongly. It says:

I will never consider defeat and I will remove from my vocabulary such words and phrases as quit, cannot, unable, impossible, out of the question, improbable, failure, unworkable, hopeless and retreat; for they are the words of fools. I will avoid despair but if this disease of the mind should infect me then I will work on in despair. I will toil and I will endure. I will ignore the obstacles at my feet and keep mine eyes on the goals above my head, for I know that where dry desert ends, green grass grows.

Og Mandino

Such a powerful message that is. I let that seep into my mind so that it grows in strength and reinforces my commitment to accomplishing my desired goals.

In sports or in life you may hear a coach or teacher say that a person is weak in a certain area when trying to explain why someone is having trouble. I believe often a “weakness” is perceived as something that will never get better, or only minimally. I like to say “There are no weaknesses, only challenges.” To me, a challenge is positive in that it can be overcome. 

As a martial arts instructor I try to accentuate the positive whenever I’m teaching a student. I do the same in my own life. I don’t like to use negative terms when addressing problems. If we think of something as a negative, it will always be perceived as a negative. As we have learned, our thoughts manifest in our bodies, So, if we use negative terms to address the problem, our bodies will respond to it in a negative way (such as through poor performance in sports or martial arts or even through illness or depression). Haanel teaches us to recite the affirmation “I am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious and happy.” All positive terms when spoken release a chemical response (those feel-good peptides) that connect our thoughts and our bodies together. 

All of this goes back to my “think, visualize, act” principle. And the language you use reinforces it all. If you think and visualize using negative terms, you will get negative results. If you think and visualize using positive language, the results will be what you desire. 

Using powerful positive language helps me persist until I succeed.