In this episode, we discuss how the words never and always are meaningless words and how they can harm you as a person when they are used.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how never and always are meaningless words. If you ever her the worlds always or never in a conversation or in writing, your BS detector should go off because always and never are meaningless. They are either used as words to attack you or they are words used by someone who has been defeated.
Let’s start with the attack version. In conversation, someone might say you always do this or you never do this. This is a cognitive distortion that reinforces negative emotions or thinking to help the person feel better about themselves. If you’re in a relationship and the person says you never take out the trash, it’s really a plead from the other person that says that I’m feeling overwhelmed by the trash and I want you to take it out. Instead of saying it that way, the person said it in a way that attacks the other person. To make them feel like they are not adequate for not taking out the trash. This then can make the other person want to put up a wall for defense and will just shut themselves off.
I remember being in a relationship with someone who would use always or never statements, which were not true. There would be times that I would do the thing and times I wouldn’t, but it makes the situation seem that I’m always doing the wrong thing or that I’m never doing the right thing which is not the case. It might not be to the preference of the other person but it wasn’t communicated in the right way. So when I hear never or always, I’m always skeptical because I know they are meaningless words.
If a restaurant says that they always do this one thing with their cooking, I can’t just accept that claim because always means forever and forever isn’t always forever. Same with never. So by realizing that these words can cause damage, I know what to look for in a conversation. You might even say that you will love someone forever but a lot of marriages end up in divorce. Things change and we as people just have to decide what do we want to deal with as people. That old thing might not be needed anymore.
The other way that never and always is meaningless is when it comes from a place of defeat. In sports, we might say that this team will always beat us until the day comes when that doesn’t happen. Or it can come from internally we say that we could never do something. Just like the Confucius quote, he who says he can, and he who says he can’t, are usually both right. If you say you can’t do something, or something will always be like this, so why try, you already accepted a position of being powerless. When you give up your power, then you already lost.
I don’t like to use words like never or always in my vocabulary for that exact reason. Instead, I like to ask myself, what if? What if this happened, what would then happen? I thought I could never speak in front of a crowd of people or write a book, but then I started having a growth mindset and started to ask myself, what if. I sucked at the beginning at a lot of different things but I will never get past those things I use never or always statements that will keep me down as a person.
There have also been countless examples in history where people thought things would never happen or that they would always stay the same, and then something happened and it changed the way we see the world forever. Things might not change overnight but they can change with time and persistence. I know that I can’t accept hearing always or never because they are meaningless. Once you remove these barriers from your life, then that’s when you can start living. I think life is about exploring to see what you can accomplish and you can only do that if you don’t put a barrier on your performance.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, remember that always and never are meaningless words. By knowing this you can take advantage of a situation. If people are coming from a position of defeat, then you can work in the background until you get your breakthrough. If it’s coming from a position someone attacking, you can just remind yourself that the other person is just trying to make themselves comfortable with their negative emotions or thinking by putting the blame on something else than the root cause. Understand this lesson and you will make it far in life.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode.
Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
