You Are More Than Their Words

During a coaching session, a physician coaching client shared with me that her colleagues said that she was slow. Let us call her Dr. B. Dr. B asked for my help because she was spending many after hours in the evenings and on the weekends to catch up with her work.

Dr. B believed that she was slow to begin with, and she was convinced that was why she was working all those extra hours. Her colleagues’ words further convinced her that it was a fact – that she was slow at work. She felt discouraged, helpless and hopeless. Day in and day out, she kept working hard, and somehow, she was not able to leave work earlier.

Words are powerful – if we make them to be. Words have meaning only when we put meaning to them. Oftentimes we make the words mean so much more than we realize. In Dr. B’s situation, she was going home after hours, which was a fact. Her opinion about herself was that she was working too slowly, not efficiently. Then more than one colleague mentioned that she was slow. Dr. B convinced herself that it was a fact. She believed that she was working slowly, so slow that even with extra hours after seeing her patients, she still had notes to complete and many inbox tasks to tackle. So she felt even more discouraged and helpless. Whatever little hope that she had to become more efficient was fading away. What followed was that she was subconsciously moving slower, taking longer to make medical decisions. She was researching a disease topic more than she needed to. She “allowed” herself to leave work behind because she was slow. She was living the results of what she believed – all started from a few words.

Words are powerful and we get to choose which words to believe in. Words can build you up or tear you down. There are words from other people and there are words from yourself. The more you hear about the same thing, the easier it is to convince yourself that is the fact.

Other people think and feel differently from you, because they are unique individuals, and that is okay. They have their own opinions. They get to choose what to say. They may say things which intentionally or unintentionally hurt you. We cannot control what others say, but we can control how we handle and react to those words.

We can choose to question other people’s opinions. “You work slowly.” Is that true? What standard are you measuring against? Examine both sides – what evidence do you have that you are slow or not slow? If you conclude that, yes, I work slowly – the story does not have to end there. You do not have to make it a fact and go with it – unless you want to. You can choose to use other people’s opinion to your advantage. Instead of dwelling in inefficiency, ask yourself, what you can do to change that. Be creative about it. Use that opinion as a stepping stone to build something different, to result in a different narrative – because you want to, because it is possible.

You do not have to let other people define who you are. They have their own opinions about you and that is their business. You get to decide the words you use for yourself. Instead of believing that “I work slowly and that is a fact”, you can believe that “it is possible to be more efficient and I am learning to do that”. Notice what different emotions those two phrases generate. With the first phrase, it is easy to feel stuck and discouraged. With the second phrase, there is more hope and momentum. Choose words which are kind, loving and supportive for yourself.

Words are powerful if we let them be. We get to decide what words to believe in. We cannot control what other people think or say, but we can control how we react to them. You are more than their words. You are more than their opinion. You get to decide what you say to yourself.