Below is a short discussion inspired by Marisa Peer on Episode #949 of The School of Greatness Podcast.

The language we use can have a deep and lasting impact on our lives. When we dwell on the negativity of our situation, our actions and responses can reflect this negativity. On the other hand, if we change our thinking to a more positive mindset, we can shift our perspectives on our situation and respond better.

Marisa Peer, British nutritionist, hypnotherapist, and author, talks to host Lewis Howes on The School of Greatness podcast about the power of words, changing your thoughts, and telling yourself that “I am enough.” When we actively choose the words to define ourselves and how we think and feel, it creates a shift in our perspective. With this shift in perspective, we can make a change in our lives.

How do we do this? Marisa says: lie, cheat, and steal.

• Lie to your mind. Use positive words to tell your mind good things about yourself. Tell yourself that you are worthy. That you accept and affirm yourself. When you tell yourself that enough, it will start to become true.
• Cheat fear. Don’t let the negative thoughts take over your mind. When we train our minds to use positive language, we overcome our fear.
• Steal back the phenomenal confidence you were born with. Embrace your imperfections and flaws. Remember that no one is perfect. Be yourself, just the way you are.

The words we say to ourselves have the power to create both positive and negative change. Choose the right words to express a thought, and the entire thought can change. We can use these thoughts to create a positive environment in our minds. When we stop telling ourselves we are flawed and inadequate, we learn to accept ourselves. And when we do that, we begin the positive change in our lives.

the distilld lessons

These are the distilld lessons from Episode #949 of The School of Greatness Podcast.

Marisa Peer tells us that when we actively choose the words to define ourselves and how we think and feel, it creates a shift in our perspective. When we do this, we can make a change in our lives.

The language we use can have a deep and lasting impact on our lives. There are ways you can use this to your advantage.

Take control of your thoughts to take control of your body. In stressful situations, we can use our thoughts to override our primal reactions: fight, flight, or freeze.

We can use positive language instead to produce the exact opposite result. Acknowledge our own distress. Tell ourselves there is a way to move past this. Then, the mind and the body will choose a fourth reaction: to flow.

For us to be able to flow, we need to first understand the way we think and act. Take a moment to be introspective.

Reflect on your childhood. You may have had some needs that went unmet when you were young. This casts you in a certain role that you play until adulthood.

There are four roles we embody in response to unmet childhood needs: to be constantly sick, brilliant, overly caring, or rebellious. Which of these do you identify with?

Part of changing our mindset is to recognize the role that we have been playing. We must acknowledge our unmet needs when we were young and choose to want to reconcile them.

When we discover what role we play, only then can we leave that role behind. We remind ourselves we are much more than those roles. We must move past them.

All of this comes back to our thoughts. Thoughts are our personal language. They are how we communicate with ourselves.

Feelings are the body’s response to these thoughts. To change our feelings, we must first change our thoughts. To do this, we speak to ourselves with positive words.

We need to overcome the lie we have been telling ourselves that we are inadequate and flawed. Perfection is an illusion. Therefore, we can never be objectively inadequate and/or flawed.

Marisa has a simple strategy: lie, cheat, and steal. Lie to your mind, cheat fear, steal back the phenomenal confidence you were born with.

Simply allow yourself to be who you are. Tell yourself you are enough. You'll be giving yourself the freedom to live your own truth — perceived flaws and all.

Applying it

• Change how you speak to yourself. Changing thoughts ever so slightly can affect everything else in your life. “Your thoughts control your feelings, your feelings control your actions, and your actions control your events.”
• Lie to yourself. During this coronavirus outbreak where many of us are on quarantine, we could tell ourselves we’re “safe” at home. This way we’ll react differently from how we would if we told ourselves we were “stuck” at home.
• Look out for each other. We are wired to need attention, care, and love. Keep others around you from adopting unhealthy coping mechanisms.
• Work on your addictions. Counter them with “hypnosis” of your own: tell yourself each day that you don’t need to smoke, you don’t want that cake, or you don’t want to gamble.
• Actively be aware of the language of your thoughts. Negative thoughts are born from fear. Tell yourself better lies so you can cheat fear and steal back the confidence you’ve always had.

For a more in depth conversation, the distilld lessons (extended) are here.