Turning Negative Words Into Positive Ones
There's an old saying, "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me." The sad truth to this statement is that names can actually hurt people and the way we perceive it can make the biggest difference in our lives.
The worst type of name/title a person can be given is something negative that can bring down a person's pride which slowly reduces their confidence and self-esteem. Our brain is wired to experience joy and satisfaction from complements but when we are given mean or negative words; the mind in a sense "shudders," it shudders to the fear of being judged or not liked. It makes us feel insecure with our personality, outward appearance, and mindset. It can be detrimental to people who take words very seriously because it can have the potential to spark heated arguments of denial that no one wins in the end. In the book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" I read about the importance of creating Win/Win situations. It is the most prosperous state of a situation where both parties benefit in the end. Throwing a blind insult at someone is definitely a Win/Lose situation where one person feels good for bringing down someone's self esteem while the other learns to like himself less. The worst part about Win/Lose is that it has the potential to become a Lose/Lose. This is the worst case scenario when an argument or fight may occur that no one will feel happy about in the end.
The Solution
A very powerful skill that is important to develop is the ability to easily change our mindset about negative words or phrases. If you don't let it affect you, you can carry on with the rest of your day and use your time wisely the way you want to use it. Think back to when you were a child or even still a baby who could not understand english, if someone were to insult you, back then you wouldn't understand the meaning given to the word to take it seriously as a form of offense. You would just brush it off as if it was nothing and carry on with your own business. The best minds think like this in order to maximize their productivity. When Youtubers such as Thomas Frank or Ali Abdaal get negative comments on their videos, they don't let it affect their day or consider giving up on producing content. Instead, they try to extract a reason for the comment and if not completely dismiss it as if the comment held no value or truth to grow from. The reality is people throw a lot of words around that are a lot more exaggerated than they actually mean to say, (The phrase, "Think before you speak" is very important here), and they especially don't mean to verbally abuse you in anyway. They just noticed an error and wanted to get you to notice it too. If you take negative talk like this, you will easily be able to bounce back and get back to whats most important recapturing your precious time (which shouldn't be spent moping over the words of others) and you will also regain your self-esteem to constantly work on improving yourself towards success and your goals.
My Experience
Recently, I made a mistake that caused one of my close friends to call me "Crazy." In my mind, I see this term as very negative and I let it affect me for a short period of time. On the inside, I wanted to start an argument with my friend, dish out threats, or reasons why I'm not crazy. However, I held my pride in and accepted the fact that my friend just didn't want me to make mistakes like that again. I made sure to only extract the value in the words so that I don't overreact. I used to be called this word a lot during my years in undergrad because of how hard I worked at school. People would call me crazy for spending so much time on my work to get into graduate school as fast as possible. Here's two short google definitions of the word:
The worst type of name/title a person can be given is something negative that can bring down a person's pride which slowly reduces their confidence and self-esteem. Our brain is wired to experience joy and satisfaction from complements but when we are given mean or negative words; the mind in a sense "shudders," it shudders to the fear of being judged or not liked. It makes us feel insecure with our personality, outward appearance, and mindset. It can be detrimental to people who take words very seriously because it can have the potential to spark heated arguments of denial that no one wins in the end. In the book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" I read about the importance of creating Win/Win situations. It is the most prosperous state of a situation where both parties benefit in the end. Throwing a blind insult at someone is definitely a Win/Lose situation where one person feels good for bringing down someone's self esteem while the other learns to like himself less. The worst part about Win/Lose is that it has the potential to become a Lose/Lose. This is the worst case scenario when an argument or fight may occur that no one will feel happy about in the end.
The Solution
A very powerful skill that is important to develop is the ability to easily change our mindset about negative words or phrases. If you don't let it affect you, you can carry on with the rest of your day and use your time wisely the way you want to use it. Think back to when you were a child or even still a baby who could not understand english, if someone were to insult you, back then you wouldn't understand the meaning given to the word to take it seriously as a form of offense. You would just brush it off as if it was nothing and carry on with your own business. The best minds think like this in order to maximize their productivity. When Youtubers such as Thomas Frank or Ali Abdaal get negative comments on their videos, they don't let it affect their day or consider giving up on producing content. Instead, they try to extract a reason for the comment and if not completely dismiss it as if the comment held no value or truth to grow from. The reality is people throw a lot of words around that are a lot more exaggerated than they actually mean to say, (The phrase, "Think before you speak" is very important here), and they especially don't mean to verbally abuse you in anyway. They just noticed an error and wanted to get you to notice it too. If you take negative talk like this, you will easily be able to bounce back and get back to whats most important recapturing your precious time (which shouldn't be spent moping over the words of others) and you will also regain your self-esteem to constantly work on improving yourself towards success and your goals.
My Experience
Recently, I made a mistake that caused one of my close friends to call me "Crazy." In my mind, I see this term as very negative and I let it affect me for a short period of time. On the inside, I wanted to start an argument with my friend, dish out threats, or reasons why I'm not crazy. However, I held my pride in and accepted the fact that my friend just didn't want me to make mistakes like that again. I made sure to only extract the value in the words so that I don't overreact. I used to be called this word a lot during my years in undergrad because of how hard I worked at school. People would call me crazy for spending so much time on my work to get into graduate school as fast as possible. Here's two short google definitions of the word:
- Crazy: mentally deranged, especially as manifested in a wild or aggressive way.
- Crazy: extremely enthusiastic.
When people called me crazy I took it mainly as the negative definition or the first meaning. However, the second definition is surprising, its positive, its desirable, which leads me back to my solution: change your mindset. A negative word can be used to push yourself forward and can even be the word that takes off your career. For example, two dancers who have succeeded in doing this are Kaycee Rice "Weirdo" and Sean Lew "Lewser." These two dancers created their own brands off of these negative terms (people really did call them this) which kind of goes back to the idea that nothing is negative unless you make it negative.
I hope this article helps you in some way whether you are crazy or passionate about something. Don't stop because other people give you negative words, go for it! Remember not to take negative words seriously and only take the good out of each word you are given. This is a skill I am still trying to develop today to become a better person. The better person is the less reactive person. Don't react to criticism, only learn from it.
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