If you do not know me that well, you may not know that I am an existentialist. I believe that every experience or situation we encounter affects our lives. Unfortunately, not every experience or situation may have a positive effect on our lives. However, this depends on the way you look at the situation.

Below is a diagram of words I have decided to rid my vocabulary of:

Whenever I begin to feel feelings such as regret, perfection, being wrong, making a mistake, being weak, or saying the word, “should,’ I stop myself and try to look at those feelings in a positive way. Take the word weakness for example. Instead of saying, “I have a weakness for cookies,” try changing the sentence to, “My limitations are cookies.” This way, I am not saying words that have negative connotations but rather opening my mind up to recognizing what I’d might need to work on personally.

Regret/Mistakes may have you feeling sad about your past and may prevent you from letting go. For me, I try not to regret the past. I look at my past as a learning opportunity. I learned that I may or may not have liked an experience I had and now know that I do not want to encounter that experience again. But I learned about myself during that situation and it is hard for me to regret learning about myself.

Weakness may have you feeling as though you are incapable of doing something that you may have never done before. Weakness may also make you feel as though you are unable to do something better than someone else. Many of us, are not gifted to be able to sing on Broadway, however, we enjoy singing at church, loudly and off key. Some people are gifted to do math quickly in their heads, while the rest of us are still looking for the pen and paper to write the problem down. These things do not make us weak. To me, they are my limitations. I do not sing well, and struggle with doing math, and these things limit me from becoming a professional singer or mathematician. However, one of my strengths is that I am able to Google professional singers or mathematicians and ask someone else who’s strength is singing or mathematics to help me with my limitations in singing and doing math. We all have our own strengths that may help others who have their own limitations.

Perfect is a word that has people feeling inadequate because they are unable to do or be everything. Ladies, have you ever felt that you have to work to put food on the table, be a good wife to your husband, take care of your kids and make sure they never forget their backpacks, bake the best pie for the church bake sale, set an example, and be someone that everyone looks up too and depends on? Do you ever feel bad when you burn something in the oven and you all of a sudden feel like crying? Men, do you ever feel like you have to go to the gym and lift to get someone to glance your way, or have a good paying job that will provide everything your family needs? How about making sure you do everything right in your job because if you don’t, you might get fired and might lose your income? In today’s society, there is competition and people are striving for perfection. In schools, kids are competing for the GPA that will make them stand out to colleges while other kids are struggling just to complete last night’s homework. When people compare themselves to others, they begin to develop a “perfection complex” that stumps them from accepting themselves as they are. I may think that the left blue color below is the perfect blue, however, someone else may think the right blue color below is perfect. We all see things differently and my idea of perfect is different from someone else’s. This to me, shows that perfection does not exist.

Should/Wrong are both words that cause people to feel as if their way of doing something differently from someone else’s is not good enough because it was their idea and not the other person’s. “Should” implies that you have to do an activity in one way and one way only. “Wrong” implies that you did not do an activity as someone else says you “should” have. Both words cause people to feel bad about their decisions. For me, I try to limit myself from saying “should” (and that’s hard) and saying “wrong.” Instead, I’ll say incorrect for “wrong” and depending on the topic, I try to rephrase my sentence without “should” in it.

There are many negative words out there that have affected me and my life. How I over came these negative words was by changing the way I think and how I look at negative situations and experiences. Instead of saying they are negative situations and experiences, I have chosen to say that everything is an opportunity to me.

In the last few months, I have gained some of my 90-pound weight loss back. I feel bad about the weight gain and feel bad that I was unable to continue to maintain my weight. However, instead of continuing to feel bad about the choices I made that contributed to gaining weight, I decided to look at it differently. I am looking at my weight gain by saying that it is an opportunity for me to remember the feelings I had when I was 90-pounds heavier. Feelings such as feeling heavy and unable to move or having a hard time standing up after sitting on the floor or feeling breathless after walking up one flight of stairs have reminded me of why I began losing weight to begin with.

Our minds are amazing! It is incredible how repetition and constant practice can change how our minds work. It is, however, hard work. It takes dedication, commitment, and determination to change our minds. Losing fat from our body or getting a new job sometimes is easier than changing the way we think. I want you all to know, that changing the way we think IS possible. Anything is possible. It just takes work and patience. I promise, opportunities give us strength, education, and understanding. I believe in every single one of you who are reading this post. I know you are able to do whatever you set your mind to. Now, you just have to do it!

LET’S ALL STAY POSITIVE!