The Most Bang-For-Your-Buck Change You’ll Ever Make!

If you change just a few words in your vocabulary, it will change your entire life—starting today. Go on, I dare you to try it.

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EVERYTHING WE humans create—every invention, every movement, every transformation—starts in one place: language. And not just language, because we could say animals have a form of language, but words. You see, words are what separate us from all other life forms. Animals react. We create. And we do it through the words we think, speak, and write.

The stream of thoughts running through your mind all day? That’s a stream of words. And those words shape how you see the world—what you believe is possible—and what actions you take.

Here’s an example: if you decide to go to gym, you think it first, then you might tell someone—you speak it—and only then do you go. If you take someone out on a date, you make it happen by inviting them. You use words. When you want to give someone a task, or agree to do something together, like build a house, or a website, it all starts with words. Without words, we’d get nothing done.

Now here’s the trap: most of us don’t know how much power is in those words we use. So we fill that stream with weak words. We say things like,

“I want to start a business.”
“I should work out more.”
“I must finish my studies.”
“I need to be better at relationships.”

These statements might feel productive, but they’re really just wishes. They describe an inner state, and seldom lead to an outward action. In other words, they don’t engage your power. They don’t move the needle. They leave you right where you are.

Speech acts: the power words

Here are the words that do change your life:

“I will.”
“I promise.”
“I commit to…”
“I am going to…”

These are what we call speech acts. They declare a future. They engage your identity. They demand action.

Try it out right now. What’s one thing you’ve been thinking you ought to do, and saying you want to, should, need to, or must? Say it again now. Can you see how little impact it has? It may even make you feel worse because that undone thing weighs even more heavily on you now that you’ve pointed it out to yourself.

Now change your words. Say, “I will…” or, “I promise…” or, “I commit to…” doing that thing. How does that feel? A little scary? I hope so, because that means you take your promises and commitments seriously. Most of us do, and that’s why we avoid these words, because we know what it means when we say them. It means we need to act, right?

So, can you see the immediate impact that this can have if, every time you’re about to say one of those weak words, you replace it with one of these? My guess is you’ll start to speak a whole lot less and do a whole lot more. That’s certainly one thing I’d expect to see.

You might also want to try it out with a friend or colleague next time they talk about the thing they’re not doing and how it’s frustrating them. For example, if they say, “I want to start writing again,” invite them to change their language. Say to them, “What if you change I want to I will?” They’ll probably hesitate and offer a bunch of excuses, which is only proof of how powerful that shift in language is. It’s also proof that they do take their promises seriously, and so it would make it all the more powerful for them to say it. If they don’t want to, don’t push it, leave it with them. But if they do say, “I will,” watch how their energy shifts. It will be like they’ve stepped into a new version of themselves. Believe me, I’ve been doing this with my clients for decades and it works!

From now on, try this:

1. Notice when you use weak words.
2. Replace them with power words.
3. Add a time by when you will do it. What by when.
4. Follow it up with immediate action—even a small one.

So, instead of saying, “I should meditate,” say, “I commit to meditating for 5 minutes today.” Then do it. Today. Or you might say, “I promise to study for five hours on the weekend.” What immediate action could you follow that up with? Perhaps a note in your diary. Or get your books out and place them on your desk.

The benefits of using speech acts

The more you do this, the more you’ll notice some powerful things start to happen. Firstly, you’ll procrastinate less—and complain less about procrastinating. In fact, you’ll wonder what you’ve been doing all your life! You’ll also be more conscious of the language you use, which will have a knock-on effect in other areas of your life—you’ll become more aware of your language in general. You’ll be more conscious of the language others use, and if you point it out to them—without being self-righteous, bossy or arrogant, please!—you’ll have a positive impact on their lives too.

You’ll notice yourself feeling more energised and more confident. That’s because making clear commitments and following through on them builds your self-belief. In addition, the actions themselves get you into the flow state more often, which is rewarding in itself. Plus, you’ll start to achieve goals, which has an even greater effect on your self-esteem, self-belief and self-efficacy. In short, your life will gain momentum—momentum you’ll enjoy and won’t want to stop. You’ll become someone who makes things happen and doesn’t just think about them.”

Before you check out, be aware, you can’t get a tool as powerful as this and not have a user manual. So, here are a few things you need to know.

The speech acts user manual (Pt 1)

Firstly, you don’t need to wait until you feel like it, either to make a commitment or to act on one you’ve made. As I’ve talked about in my other videos, your ability to act is independent of your thoughts and feelings. I’ve used the example of the bungee jumper who no longer feels like it and doesn’t think it’s a good idea anymore. They can still jump.

In the same way, you can align your actions with your commitment rather than with your thoughts or feelings. You start to attach your attention to what you said rather than to what you feel, and let that be your action trigger. We call this standing on your word or being your word. There’s a whole philosophy behind it, it’s called linguistic ontology, but we won’t go into that now.

Your thoughts and feelings belong to who you are now, which comes from your past, while your word belongs to who you are committed to be in the future.

The point is that your thoughts and feelings belong to who you are now, which comes from your past, while your word belongs to who you are committed to be in the future. In other words, your thoughts and feelings are invested in the survival of your old identity, keeping you the same, based on your past, while your word, remember, is an act of creation. It comes from your imagination, from the realm of possibility, from the future. After all, your imagination, and your ability to put that into words, is unlimited. So, it’s through your word that you create new possibilities for yourself. That’s why you want to follow you word and not your thoughts and feelings.

How to manage unruly thoughts and feelings

Now this doesn’t mean you should reject or suppress all your feelings or never listen to them. It’s just that they’re sometimes not useful. They belong to your habituated self, and they can draw you back. They want to protect you and keep you the same, they don’t always want to move you forward. So, when you focus on your word, it’s like when you focus on a task, and you get into the flow state. Your worries, concerns, even your feelings, can become like a radio that plays in the background. You can hear them, but you don’t tune into them, you tune into the task, to your commitment, your word, and you stay focused on that.

When you’ve finished the task, you can take a break, wallow in your feelings if you need to, have a party, whatever. But before you do that, evaluate what acting on your word, following through on your commitment, has done to your energy levels, your motivational state and your sense of self-efficacy—the belief that you can do the stuff you set your mind to. I’m sure you’ll find it’s had a massive positive effect. Then use that evidence to build a case for using powerful words and acting on them rather than using weak language, which happens when you’re hooked into your thoughts and feelings.

The speech acts user manual (Pt 2)

Secondly, you don’t need to know how you’re going to do something before you commit. Often, the solution arises out of the commitment. For example, imagine you overhear some people at a dinner party talking about climbing Kilimanjaro. If you’re not involved, then nothing much will change in your world the next day. However, imagine you swore a blood oath to climb it together within the next six months! What would happen the next day? You would probably feel quite energised by the decision – even if a little afraid. You’d also have a whole new set of thoughts, in the form of questions, like what do I need, what will it cost? You may decide to go online to research all of that, so the answers will arise out of the commitment. Then suddenly you’d notice that hiking shop in the mall that you’ve walked past a hundred times before. We can say, then, that solutions—the how—arise out of a committed decision—the what by when.

Oh, and one more thing, if you make a promise and you don’t keep it, don’t beat yourself up and don’t give up. Just acknowledge the fact, forgive yourself, and go again. You should be setting commitments that are a little—not too much, like 20%, out of your comfort zone—and managing to follow through on them about 80% of the time. Don’t play games with yourself, just use it in the best way possible, in a way that is good for you and makes sense.

So, what will you stop saying today? And more importantly, what will you commit to?

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