The 7 Dirty Words Holding you Back: Introduction

Our words: Should, Only, Just, Must, Always, Never, Except…be on guard for the dirty words: times when we are low on energy and looking for a quick and low effort expression of thought, these little rascals may creep in.

George Carlin wrote and delivered a historic comedy bit about the “7 words you can’t say on television” in 1972. Search the inter webs for it, it’s an absolute gem – perfectly constructed by a genius who was one of the best ever at balancing 2 aspects of his prodigious wit – raunchy and satirical. I would definitely not turn up the volume for this one… it’s not safe for work, small children, or those who are prone to offense from vulgarity. Of course, this essay will have nothing whatever to do with any of the 7 dirty words; rather I am going to write about some alternately dirty words that get said all the time. These you absolutely can say out loud; on television, in polite company, even at church and unfortunately probably do say on a regular basis.

I’m going more “coach” in this post than “mentor”. I’m not going to drop knowledge from the point of view of subject matter expertise; instead I’m going to ask questions

Our “Why”

Why is the uttering of these particular words unfortunate? These words are signifiers of bias, thinking traps, limiting beliefs, and lack of perspective. When thoughts are expressed using these words, and actions taken following the expression, we are typically not at our best. These words narrow your field of thinking; they help you remain “stuck”. Remember our humble mission here is to help you dear reader, and those whom you may serve, to optimize and fully realize the whole of their potential.

I want you to get “unstuck”.

To that end, we are warned all over the internet, in self-help books, by political pundits and societal engineers to be wary of bias, blindspots and a standardized list of logical and rhetorical fallacies and traps. We are told again and again that these fallacies, traps and biases are anathema to critical thinking – and to righteously purge them from our discourse and cognition. If we fail, we will be 1) not critically thinking in the truest sense and 2) prone to manipulation and acceptance of dubious conclusions.

Remember if we can restate feedback as “Stop Sucking, Be More Better”, it is safe to presume that feedback is of poor quality.

 The unfortunate thing about these admonitions are often that they are poorly actionable- you get lists of thinking traps, and then you are told “don’t use them”. Little is said about how to recognize them – but folks are admonished to “think better”. Remember if we can restate feedback as “Stop Sucking, Be More Better”, it is safe to presume that feedback is of poor quality. It may be correct, i.e. you may suck at something, and need to be better. But feedback of poor quality fails in advising you on the next step and the proper path to get to the destination “better”.

The Words

In contrast, I offer you not a full, comprehensive, descriptive list of all failures in critical thinking which lacks any instructions on how to take action. Rather, I offer you 7 little words, all of which are signifiers of personal limiting beliefs and biases. The first step in dealing with these biases is awareness- but we will not stop there. Each word will be followed up by a key question to ask yourself, and also reframing language to free you from the yoke of psychic oppression wrought by these instruments of rhetorical paralysis.

Our words: Should, Only, Just, Must, Always, Never, Except 

Of course other people use the dirty words, but the primary goal of our adventure together is insight and optimizing your self. Straighten up your house before inviting guests…

Since this is our introductory foray into exploring how these words bias, limit and restrict our thinking and self talk, I’m not going to delve into each one. Let’s just start by marinating in each one to build awareness. Full disclosure- I’m going more “coach” in this post than “mentor”. I’m not going to drop knowledge from the point of view of subject matter expertise; instead I’m going to ask questions that help open up new lines of thinking, gain perspective, shine lights on blind spots and facilitate the real important next level of questions: Why is that a thing I do? What can I do to start doing that thing differently?

How To Begin

So what’s our first step? How about we stop and think of instances where we’ve used these words. I want to emphasize that the point of the exercise is to focus on when you have spoken or thought them, not on instances when others have. Of course other people use the dirty words, but the primary goal of our adventure together is insight and optimizing your self. Straighten up your house before inviting guests…

Side note: if any of you clever types have searched this post for instances where I typed the words, you’ll find they only occur in the list. And in support of transparency, their absence is because I searched for the words prior to publishing and edited/replaced them. I was actually pleasantly surprised that I only had to remove a couple of occurrences, but rest assured it is very easy to slip into using them. The words themselves are sneaky and ubiquitous…they seem to crop up without much effort.

Our words: Should, Only, Just, Must, Always, Never, Except 

This seems to me to be a good pearl to be on guard for the dirty words: times when we are low on energy and looking for a quick and low effort expression of thought, these little rascals may creep in. Another key feature of the circumstances of the use of these words is that they tend to be used in situations which are emotionally charged. The nature of the emotions is not as relevant as their magnitude; incredibly happy, sad, frustrated, triumphant doesn’t seem to matter as much as “incredibly” matters.

Do these pearls of watching for times of “low energy/high emotion” resonate? If so, take a moment and recall an instance of using any of the words. Close your eyes and immerse yourself in the recall effort. Try and remember the preceding events, the surrounding conversation, the place, the other people, your mood; the more vivid the detail the better. How were you feeling when you used them? How do you feel now recalling the experience?

Does my earlier description of what these words signify ring true or hollow for you? Did you find that these words limited your perspective and oversimplified your thoughts? Did they help you resolve and deal with emotions, or did they tend to amplify and magnify emotions? In my life, when using these words in response to emotions that are on the edge of control I’ve felt quite a bit like I was trying to put out fire with gasoline…

Do these words help you promote nuance in your thoughts, assessments and responses?

I think I want to pause here, summarize and give some time and space before the next installment of this series: I think that’s prudent; the individual analysis of the impact and signification of the words, as well as strategies for each will have vastly more utility if some time is spent becoming more aware of your own mental state preceding, during and following their use.

Why is that?

In part because it acknowledges that these words didn’t happen by accident, and their use isn’t accidental either. Similar to the brain’s bias to be more concerned about avoiding threats/fears than achieving success these words are part of deeply ingrained heuristics to make quick and dirty sense of our surroundings. They probably served us well in processing and generalizing our experiences so that we could easily communicate those general take home points to the rest of the tribe. However, much like negative emotions, fears and anxiety, they are most useful in their place. Like any tool, when used as intended, they offer facilitation of task. A hammer does a great job with a nail, but a lousy job opening jars. Sure, you could use a hammer that way, but is it the best tool for the job? When trying to communicate that fire is dangerous (think of the discovery of fire, or the first time you educate a child about how to exist near one), the words “always and never” seem to have utility. Well, they seem at least to have more utility when promoting fire safety to children than in settling conflict with your spouse, coworkers, neighbors.

So, Summary first, then task before next post in the series to follow.

Summary

1. There are some commonly used words that seem helpful at first, but are actually red flags for bias, thought errors, and remaining (rather than resolving) getting “stuck”
2. Our words: Should, Only, Just, Must, Always, Never, Except
3. These tend to be used during low energy, high emotion states.
4. These words tend to lead to oversimplification, overgeneralization and lack of nuance, complexity and specificity.

Now that you are armed with these ideas, be on the lookout for these dirty little words!

The goal by next blog post: become aware of the energy level and emotional state that precedes the use of the words to the point where you can catch yourself thinking the words before speaking the words.

As always, I would love your thoughts. I know there are pieces of the puzzle that I am missing, and just like I aim to provide you with some missing pieces to your puzzle, you have the pieces I’m missing.

Until our next dirty word post, be well.