LilButtCheeks

Another post about life philosophy, oh yes, we’re going in and we are going in strong. I think at this point, even if you haven’t played sports, you have probably heard that you should never use the word “can’t”. I agree with the sentiment. If you want to do something, like truly do something, your perception of yourself is your greatest enemy. The only reason nasty comments from other people plays as heavy a role, is because we give them authority to rule our own self belief. But this post is not about the word “can’t’.

This post is also not about the words “never” and “always”. Now these two words are important also. Speaking in absolutes is very rarely a good or even logical idea. I have like many fallen to the all too common “YoU aLwAys … [insert irrational statement here]” or “YoU nEvEr [insert false statement here].” They are emotional words and they are simply illogical. Nobody “never” does something or “always” does something. It just doesn’t make sense. Your friend who said something out of pocket last week doesn’t “always” say out of pocket things, they just say them a lot. One makes more sense than the other and is less of a turn off when you’re actually trying to have a productive conversation. If someone can pickup on the loose ends of an argument its the person you are insulting. So avoiding these absolutes is paramount to being patient in a verbal conflict.

Now as I have said twice now, I haven’t gotten to what this piece is really about. These few paragraphs were all written for the sake of talking about avoiding the word “don’t”. Now there are probably some people who have heard about this idea and it wasn’t until I read a book call Ten Minute Toughness that I heard about it. Earlier I implied that sports are one of the more prevalent ways we learn about not using the word “can’t”. Well this is no different because Ten Minute Toughness is a sport’s psychology book, who woulda thunk it? Now sure I recommend the book, but this principle is the one that I have held onto for about four years now since I read that book. Even in writing this, I haven’t used the word “don’t” in any of my statements and that’s because it is so important to me. As you can tell, I have a skill for drawing out papers so let’s get on with it.

When I was six years old I had my time on the soccer field, and let me tell you, it was not pretty. My most embarrassing moment was when I was standing right in front of the goal, we weren’t even allowed to have goalies the nets were so small, and here I was right in front of it. I was six, so you best bet that I was a small little guy and yet I took up the entire size of that tiny little aluminum framed box. This little girl broke past my team and all I could think was “don’t let her score” and guess what? She kicked it right in between my legs and scored. Did I actually think that? No. But it did actually happen. I never played soccer after that year. I went on to more realistic aspirations, like becoming an NFL legend. And that’s how I ended up here, running cross country and track. I digress.

The point is that “don’t” is a prime example of negative self talk. It is a focus on failure rather than success. When we focus on what we shouldn’t do, we tend to do it anyway. The believers of reverse-psychology would say to just instead tell yourself not to do what you should do. Like when your mom or dad said “don’t do the dishes [wink wink].” Nobody was falling for that. We recognize a fake statement. When we are giving a presentation and we think “don’t mess up” that is valid because we could actually mess up. It is a real possibility. It is something that we want to avoid. The concept is really less in not using the word but more in the focus that we place on certain actions and when we use “don’t” then we place our focus and our mental energy in what not to do, so much so that when we actually have the opportunity to do the right thing, we haven’t even rehearsed what that could look like because we were so focused on covering the left and right sides of the goal that we forgot our legs gave an open door to the net and then boom, what could’ve been a prodigal six-year-old becomes just another failure on the pitch.

All of these words have an importance to that one true concept, that our vernacular places emphasis on where we should apply our mental energy. We only have so much, it isn’t unlimited. In the same way that we need to sleep for sore legs, we need to rest our minds to remember what we learned and to rejuvenate so that we can do it again tomorrow. Avoiding “can’t” gives us the opportunity to have real, positive self talk, and boosts our willingness. Avoiding “never” and “always” keeps our minds sound and can even be what separates us from getting completely angry. And finally, avoiding “don’t” allows us to instead focus on what we should do, because if we do that, the mistakes won’t have such a negative role. We can move on and actually have an idea on how to react when an opportunity for success presents itself.

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Until next time, stay well stay swell.