5 phrases that will give you a loser
'08.02.2018'
Source: Lady.mail.ru
“I can't do it”, “I'm just a nothingness”, “Everything is terrible!” ... Sometimes you can regain confidence by simply rephrasing the “hopeless” phrase. How to do this, says a psychologist, journalist, author of a training course for beginner writers Yevgeny Peltek.
When you feel “not alone”, there is a reliable way to make it even worse - to formulate and pronounce what is happening in the “no way out” mode. After all, speech does not just reflect thinking. Words often lay a “route” for further action. And a good thing, if you give yourself instructions: less to believe in yourself, to diminish your opportunities and deny the very possibility of getting out of the situation, writes Lady.mail.ru.
However, this “thinking-speech-action” flywheel works in conjunction. So, changing one of the links in this chain can affect the rest. It remains to identify in his speech markers of low self-esteem and reformulate them.
The pledge of suffering: “I am inundated with work”
To understand what is wrong in this phrase will help the school course of the Russian language. In each story there is a subject - the main character (who does something) and the object (with which they do something). When the current character is in the spotlight, this is called a valid voice. When in the center the action object (just like in the phrase from the example) is a passive voice.
It turns out, when you talk about yourself in the passive voice, you actually assign yourself the role of ... the subject. In his own life. Without losing the meaning, this sentence can be changed to “The work failed me” and finally approve the “work” for the role of the main character.
How to change: to reformulate this sentence so as to return the subject (that is, you) the leading role in the sentence. “I got a job myself.”
So it turns out what happened! The author of the phrase regained the opportunity to act, and, therefore, can change the situation. Adequate self-esteem restored.
Summary: “All is lost!”
In the cartoon "Luntik" there is one annoying character - a leech. From time to time she gets out of her lake and starts screaming heart-rendingly: “Everything is bad, bad, bad !!!”. In seconds, the leech brings itself to a completely insane state. In the end, it turns out that she is either hungry, or frightened, or not slept. Having received the required, the leech instantly calms down and returns to its lake.
The characteristic technique that she uses in speech is a generalization. Instead of saying “I want to eat” and searching for food, the leech shouts that absolutely everything is bad. As a result, she can neither help herself nor calm down.
“Piyavkin lexicon” is sometimes used by quite reasonable people, whose self-esteem has been shaken at some point by stress.
Typical words for generalizing constructions: “everything”, “nothing”, “always”, “never”.
How to change: specify by answering the question “what exactly?”. For example: “The company closed my project”, “I quarreled with my girlfriend”, “Pie burned down”.
And now you are no longer a small grain of sand in a huge hostile world, but a person who recognizes the fact of changes in the intended plan and is able to decide what to do with it now.
All through “not”: “I do not know how”
Denial is one of the most insidious ways to undermine the inner feeling of confidence. Often the wording “not” indicates that a person secretly asserts the denied.
How it works? When we construct a sentence with “not”, then in fact we begin with the statement (“I can!”), And only then we substitute the negation (“I don't know how”). This happens very quickly, and it is difficult to consciously track such a twist of the mind. But emotionally, this transition is fixed immediately. It turns out such a double bummer.
The person from the example is probably afraid of the result, internally formulates the words of support, manages to experience hope and immediately stamps it with denial. By the way, the denial of "good" qualities works in the same way. The phrase “I'm not stupid” with a head gives a low self-esteem.
How to change: formulate the same phrase without negation. The statements “I am learning”, “Sometimes I behave foolishly” sound much more confident, and, most importantly, correspond to reality.
Consoling phrases: “... but I'm beautiful”
When something unpleasant happened, I want to support myself, to get out of unpleasant experiences, concentrating on something good. The so-called adversative alliances “on the other hand”, “yes ...”, “but ...” and such turns as “in any case”, “at least” followed by a “consoling” statement come to the rescue.
What's the catch? A comforting statement, as a rule, has nothing to do with the original phrase, which is designed to balance. This demonstrates a bias in self-esteem: the “unpleasant” sphere of life and the participation of the author in it depreciate, but the other, “good,” becomes hyper-valuable.
How to change: to separate phrases, having spoken each separately. Sometimes it is enough to replace the adversary union “but” with a connecting “and”: “I feel sad because of dismissal. And I am glad that I look good. ”
Self-flagellation: “Here I am a chicken!”
The phrase, built on this model, works flawlessly. Anyone can substitute into it their own heartly curse or neglectful treatment and in the blink of an eye reduce the adequacy of self-esteem to an arbitrarily small amount. And what else to expect from the "chicken"?
This technique is reminiscent of “generalization”, as it extends the failure in any case to all life spheres. However, here the author goes further and transfers the cause of failures from the outside world to the inside. Whatever happens: a collision in transport, dismissal from work, unexpected rain - the answer is already ready: "This is because I ...".
How to change: say what really happened. “I was inattentive”, “I failed the exam”, “I forgot the umbrella”. Speak the sentence in this form, and it becomes clear that the cause of failure is in specific actions and events, and not in a fatal personality defect.
Already easier, right?
