The Benefits of Word Choice

Tony Robbins advocates what he calls transformational vocabulary. He says, " . . . it gives you the power to change your experiences in life by taking the most negative feelings in your life and lowering their intensity to the point where they no longer control you. It also can be used to take positive experiences and increase them to even greater heights of pleasure."

Robbins tried a 10-day challenge where he first identified the most distressing emotions he experienced.  He found a new word to soften or add a ridiculous feeling.  Using them broke his pattern of thought and feeling.

He found a difference between saying you’re “mistaken” versus you’re “wrong.” The emotional volcano that kept building up inside of him instantly cooled. 

Shift your emotional patterns by choosing a different vocabulary when unwanted emotions arise.

Use a variety of word choices to avoid the negative. Change or adapt your habitual reactions and observe the  results. Give the bad emotion an outrageous or humorous tinge. 

When feeling sad change the thoughts to excite a chuckle. Let anger shift into moonbeams and frustrated turn into fadiddled. 

Use replacement words for negative emotions. Try for three words instead of the mood you're feeling. Let them flow without delay.  Rhyming will help to break a mood cycle.

Get beyond mood words with scents: lemon peel, cookies baking, favorite flowers. 

Add sound words. Get them to jingle, roar, and clang.

Think of exotic colors that brighten your mood: turquoise, aubergine, tangerine. 

Use expressive words to replace a feeling. If anxiety ambles into your mind, exchange it with a word like crinoline, magnolia, chocolate.

In conversations, try softening or questioning rather than condemning.

Collect words to use in frustrating circumstances.






Play with word selection and notice the benefits. 

The next time fear enters your word stream, just roar.