Recognizing the power of language
Friday, May 1st, 2009
Last time, I wrote about the role of mindset in owning your thing. As important as “owning your thing” is to success, for me, language is a key element as well. What I say, even when I talk to myself, is absolutely relevant to my motivation and success. As a writer, words are important to me and I choose them carefully. Many people believe, and I agree, that language creates and reinforces feelings and behaviors. I’m always careful to use language that agrees with my target mindset.
For example, my neighbor, who’s a talented singer and recording artist, just put some new material on his MySpace page. He calls his act Voodoo Abstract. He has a very ethereal style that I can’t even get my head around sometimes. It’s clear that he’s serious about his work and that he has a great voice. However, I learned about the new tracks through a bulletin that was entitled “Some More New Shit!!!”
Now, I’m only talking about myself, and what works for Danny is what works for him, but I would never refer to music that I’ve labored over as “New Shit.” I just doesn’t inform my target mindset. I personally use that word to refer to things I don’t like much. (Such as the punk band I heard on Record Store Day…) Besides, there are innumerable ways that my music can be devalued on its own once I release it into the wild. I don’t have to help that along. Not that Danny is devaluing his music, but for me to use that word for new music I’ve created, one of the most meaningful things in my life, wouldn’t feel good to me at all.
I have a couple of other musician friends who routinely proclaim what lousy guitarists they are. Perhaps they don’t play as well as I do, but I always wonder what they’re after in reinforcing their limitations when they talk about what they do. It seems like they’re joking, saying things like, “I don’t need that great a sound for my lousy guitar playing,” and “well, we all know that I don’t have very much to work with here.”
Of all the instruments I play, I always say that electric bass is the principal one. After that is guitar, then keyboards. I work at it, and my new album has been requiring greater and greater keyboard skills, but my limitations on that instrument are the most noticeable to me. It’s only natural, since I’ve spent the least amount of time with it. However, I never talk as if I’m not a keyboardist, because in truth, I am. I refuse to talk about my skills at the keyboard as if they are not constantly developing. If I were to talk regularly with others about my limitations, I believe that I’d be serving to cement those limitations in a certain way. What a self-defeating thing that would be.
The first step to making something real is to state it. If my friends have frustrating limitations on their chosen instruments, but play regularly, it’s safe to say that they are probably improving, at least on the songs in their repertoires. Therefore both of the following statements they could make would be true:
- “I’m a lousy guitar player.”
- “I’m a guitar player.”
Option 2 is better. It affirms the skills they have acquired, whatever they are, and more importantly, doesn’t trap them in a state of defeat.
Unless of course, they have no desire to be anything but lousy at guitar and are quite pleased with the fact that they will never dedicate themselves to the instrument. In that case, I believe the following statement would be most appropriate.
“I’m a guitar owner.”
Really? I have a few myself. :~)
