Language is one of our most powerful resources, and how you use it can have a major effect on how your mind decides to move forward.

Words are important. We all know how we feel when someone says something to us that’s negative, and how we feel when someone is positive. Or when someone says something hurtful versus something that is kind or loving.

Our minds interpret words and react to them. Words have the ability to build us up, and they can also tear us down.

But it’s not just the words that others use; it’s the ones we use with ourselves as well.

And there’s one word that can completely change how your mind interprets what you say to yourself and what your mind thinks your potential going forward is.

It’s not something profound and strong like empowerment, or power, or courage…

The word is yet.

When you think you can’t do something, all you need to do to turn such a thought or statement from a disempowering or intimidating one to one of possibility and potential is yet.

I can’t do that.

I can’t do that yet.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

I don’t know what I’m doing yet.

‘Yet’ implies that there is a future point at which you haven’t arrived, a point where you have the potential to accomplish that which isn’t in your present set of skills. It leaves space for excitement and anticipation for what is to come.

Read the statements above again. Notice the difference in how you feel when you say one versus the other. One leaves no room for growth. The other is filled with possibility.

If you truly want to move ahead and get things done, why would you choose to shut yourself down by saying something to yourself that does just that? Telling yourself you can’t do something, or that you’re not smart enough, or that you’re not talented enough sends a message to your body, informing it that there’s no reason to make an attempt – it’s not capable.

So you can imagine how confused the body is if you actually try to learn or do whatever it is that you said it couldn’t…

The body will be much more apt to learn and try if it thinks there’s a possibility of gaining or attaining a higher level of skill. You already know this, because you know how you react to words that make you feel hopeful versus those that give you feelings of hopelessness.

Words matter. If you want possibility, then you have to create a world where possibility can exist. And you don’t need to go far – that world starts right inside your mind.