Okay, so you looked. What does that tell you about the power of negative commands?
Negative Commands Don’t Work
Recently I’ve become fascinated by this subject. For instance, when you tell a child “Stop running!” they immediately visualize running, which is why they don’t seem to listen (at least not right away). They are also unsure of what to do since they have not been given an alternative.
By saying “Walk slowly” instead, you give the child an image of walking as well as an alternate activity to running. See how this works? (Those of you who study NLP are ahead of us all here, so please wait while we catch up.)
As a generally positive person, I did not think this was much of a problem for me, but I was wrong. It is amazing how it creeps into daily life:
- Diet: “I can’t have that dessert.” (I’m thinking about carrot cake now)
- Fitness: “Don’t be a couch potato” (Hey, what’s on TV tonight?)
- Money: “I’ve got to stop using my credit card.” (Credit card, credit card, credit card)
Transform Negative Commands into Positive Commands
Think of how you could be sabatoging yourself (or your loved ones) with these commands. Write them down if it helps. Then rephrase them so the visual you or the listener gets is the desired result instead of the bad behavior.
- Diet: “I want to eat more fruit.” (My mouth is watering for a juicy orange right now.)
- Fitness: “Get some fresh air!” (Just thinking about it makes me feel healthier.)
- Money: “I’m saving money for a nice vacation.” (Ooh, vacation is so much better than anything on sale)
It’s a small mental shift, but it has been proven to be a powerful one.
In my own life, I use the money one a lot. We’re on a pretty steep savings plan so we can travel around the world next year, and instead of bemoaning the fact that I can’t eat out or travel like I used to, I think of how much I’m going to enjoy a year of seeing the world. It makes saving the money almost painless.
If you’ve used NLP or positive rewording in your life, how has it worked out for you? If you haven’t used it consciously before, how will you implement it?
About Betsy
You’re absolutely right about our repetitive negative commands. I like to focus on what I <I>can do and not what I can’t. It keeps creative juices flowing and better ideas keep coming. Thanks for the post.
Hi, Laurie. You are right. When I’m positive my creativity just flows, and when I’m negative I’m usually eating a tub of ice cream.
Thanks for stopping by.
I once attended a training where we explored goal setting, giving feedback etc in a corporate setting. The trainer gave us an example of negative commands: "the other night", her husband had been babysitting on their kid, who had managed to grab the home keys and was holding them across the balcony on top of nothing, apparently just thinking "drop them, don’t drop them, drop them, don’t drop them…". The daddy saw this, froze at the balcony door and said to their kid "do. not. drop. the. keys! whatever you do, do NOT drop the keys!" Sure as hell the kid dropped them. What if he had said, jokingly: "Hey, let’s see how tightly you can hold on to the keys! no, tighter, tighter…come on you can do better than that!"
I have come to realise that you save yourself a lot of grief through positive commands especially when bringing up kids is concerned.
May, what a great visual! I’ve done this to myself countless times by saying "don’t miss the exit" when driving. And what do I do? I miss the exit. My friends joke about my lack of direction, but I’m going to see if I can turn it around by rephrasing the self-talk.
Stop being so smart, and don’t give me anything interesting or relevant to think about!
[in other words, great post - keep up the good work]
Ah, Mr. Genuine Curiosity pays a visit! Nice to see you here, Dwayne. For those who aren’t already following, Dwayne has a great blog all his great discoveries at http://www.genuinecuriosity.com/.