When talking through with clients at my office in Telford on how we interpret life from the outside through our 5 senses and what we choose to filter.  I always recollect a time when I generalised a situation and upon reflecting what seemed a simple action and how it changed my behaviour.  Only from becoming an Neuro Linguistic Practitioner and NLP4Kids licenced practitioner based in Telford, Shropshire have I become more aware on the language I use.

 Here’s what happened… few years ago I was in the fortunate position to be able to take my daughter to school.  Now I say fortunate as it had been years since she started school that I was the parent who rarely got a chance to do this due to my job which heavily relied on grandparents and my partner. So, when it became my turn, this is what started to happen….  Now, to understand this I need to let you know a few things to put it in to context.  Firstly, I dislike other people being late, certainly in a working environment, like attending meetings, all be it online or in person.  (that’s why I love the 80’s film Clockwise starring, John Cleese as a rigid and obsessively punctual headmaster who, in his frantic attempt to reach a conference on time) I would take on the view if I can make it on time so can you.  

And here is the reason why I used to think this way.  It would take a lot of effort by me (more than others who are neurotypical) because I now understand that I experience time blindness, yes this is a thing, for those who are not aware of the term time blindness this can be experienced by anyone but typically it can be a trait of  people who have ADHD.  As I type I’m not sure what the time is and heavily rely on bottom right hand screen on my laptop, mobile alarms, calendar prompts, and of course my friend  Alexa!  So, my point being, is that people who were late at work would make me think, perhaps they are not as work conscious, perhaps they don’t value or respect others, or don’t have a good system in place for time management… (this is coming from someone who outside of work would regularly be late for meeting up with friends, be the last one out of the door as a family, running for a flight and embarrassingly  shouting out loud ‘’hold the gate’’, so you can see how consciously and perhaps over compensating with my idea of ‘being on time for things.’

So, when I used to take my daughter to her  primary school which was a 15 min journey for drop off, I started to say to myself I’m always late, always being the pertinent word , always is a generalised term and can be  used when we want to make things  simpler in a more manageable way; for example describing a situation, other generalised words can be all the time, everyone, everywhere, never… you get the idea.. now don’t get me wrong these are not negative words BUT they can be if used in an unhelpful way.  So, there is me saying to myself, my inner voice, I’m always late taking her to school, thinking it whilst brushing my teeth, searching for my car keys, and even when I was sitting at a set of traffic lights – this inner self talk became a habit.  So, this went on for a few weeks and then I met up with some other mums and out it pops out of my mouth into the world to hear.  

I shared with them I’m always late, can’t remember what else was said but it was a conversation on being late.  So, this was now unconsciously embedded in my head and this is what happened next.  When I used to wake up for school runs my alarm went off  I would roll over and guess what….snooze the button, yes snoozed because guess what I’m always late’ so what’s wrong with a 5 min snooze away. 

Now, let me tell you, that kind of self-talk is the equivalent of handing your inner saboteur a megaphone and a cheerleading uniform I started to have to put my foot down in the car , maybe miss  brushing my hair, or even dare I say not even brush my teeth (don’t worry I did that when I got back home). 

Now looking back, I may have been the mum and daughter who would be last one or two going through the school gates, but I was factually NEVER (another generalisation) late.  And I can provide evidence on this.  I was never one of those parents who had to do the ‘walk’ of shame through the front reception entrance and sign into the visitor’s book and let her be taken by the receptionist into school. Not once! However there were times where it was a close shave due to my ‘always late belief’

As Henry Ford so wisely observed, 

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.” 

And in my case, I had firmly convinced myself that I just couldn’t make it on time, despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s a cautionary tale that should make us all pause and reflect on the power of our inner dialogues and the dangers of oversimplifying our experiences using generalised language.

Who can you catch this week using generalisations that are not quite true and not useful to say and how may that change their thoughts and behaviour?

If you would like to find out more on how I help children, teens and young people understand how our words shape our thoughts, behaviours and emotions. Book a 15min discovery call here >>>>