Something that I have really started paying attention to in my life is how I tend to label myself, particularly emotions and traits of mine, as "good" or "bad."
As an entrepreneur (I never get tired of saying that!), I have run
across scads of other amazing and inspiring female entrepreneurs. One of them
is Stephanie from Personal Branding for Introverts. While
personality tests tell me I'm not exactly introverted, I definitely have some
introvert traits that run deep. My horoscope explains it with my sun sign being
Leo (typically extroverted/attention-loving) and my moon sign being Virgo
(which apparently tempers my Leo-ness with a bit of timidity). So I really
enjoy her insights on how to be confident and sell yourself and your services
as a businessperson. One
post in particular really resonated with me recently because
she talks about those labels we tend to assign to things.
Sometimes things aren't really good or bad. They just ARE what
they are. One example is how I was complaining to my business
coach that I am just too impatient as a person and that I was
feeling a lot of guilt over it. She said, "What if impatience didn't have
to be 'good' or 'bad'? What if it's precisely your impatient nature that makes
you a go-getter who has the gumption to run your own business and go after what
you want in life?"
I had never looked at it like that before, and let me tell you,
that was life-changing. Ever since, I've been trying to consciously examine the
things I assume about myself - whether inside or outside - and decide if it can
really be labeled so concretely or if it just is what it is. It's quite
freeing.
The very opener to Stephanie's post is:
Q: What
makes a personality trait good or bad?
A: The word you choose to
describe it.
Doesn't get much more
powerful than that, right?
Sometimes, simply changing a word you use to describe yourself
can make all the difference in how you view yourself - and, therefore, affects
your level of confidence and sense of worth. Merely converting "timid"
or "bashful" to "unpretentious" or
"non-aggressive" certainly puts things in a different light, no? What
if "loner" becomes "individualistic"? Stephanie offers
several more examples, in addition to these, of adjective conversion in the
post.
While the post is geared toward common adjectives that
introverts might use to describe themselves, the principle can really be
applied to so many ways we use to describe (read: judge) ourselves, whether
you're introverted or not.
What is a negative self-talk
adjective you commonly use, and what is the more positive equivalent you can
start using instead?
