Terminology

How often do you say "I"ll try to....." or "I should......."? Maybe you think to yourself "I'll try to eat breakfast" or "I'll try to take a walk after dinner". Or perhaps you told a friend "I should really start exercising" or "I should eat more fruit".

It's time to learn new terminology. Trying to do something means that we think we're going to fail. If we were really confident, we'd say "I WILL.....". I WILL eat breakfast tomorrow or I WILL take walk after dinner is more powerful and convincing, even when we say it to ourselves. Whenever a client tells me that they will try to do something, I ask them to break it down into steps that they WILL do. It may take a few days or weeks before they get to their final endpoint, but in the meantime they're making progress and doing something positive.

We use the word "should" when we're not convinced that taking a certain path is really the best course of action. Of course we know lots of things we should do: clean the bathroom, water the plants, call a friend. But we won't actually do these things until we want to do them. Replace should with want: I want to begin an exercise plan. I want to eat more fruit. Then figure out exactly how you're going to follow through with these plans.

Every time you catch yourself using the word try, replace it with will.

Every time you say the word should, replace it with want.

You'll take control over your actions and make progress on activities that are meaningful to you.