How often do you look back at your childhood and judge who you were, as you were in the greatest phase of learning in your life? Do you label your child-self one way or another or do you categorize those formative years as ‘a kid?’ Maybe you were like me, like most of us humans. Curious, mischievous, full of energy, full of wonder and craving your personal freedom more as each year passed.

I grew up on a farm in a small, rural Iowa community. Where taking care of each other was in our DNA. Where if you were a farm kid, you probably were in FFA or 4H or both. A community where every kid was needed to be an athlete to fill the team. Naturally then, I played all the sports. All the midwest ball sports! And today I’m thinking about the power of what people tell us and the labels / agreements that we accept as adults, as we had from a young age. I have family members that had labeled me as a ‘wild child’ or ‘crazy.’ As a farm girl naturally is, I wore backwards caps as my curls splayed out from every direction, rode horses bareback, dug holes and shot bb guns. Sure, call the kid wild & crazy…..maybe even unkept!

As I’ve grown, experienced, continued to use my curiosity, I still have that hole diggin’ shovel in hand demeanor. I’ve dug into those labels and things I’ve agreed to accept from another persons perspective. And have been thinking about the power that maybe I’ve given away to words.

One moment stands out: after high school practice, my coach told me my intensity was “too much for practice.” When I disagreed to ease up, he snapped, “can’t wait to watch you coach kids and fail.” In that moment I deemed failure to be the worst thing. His words sliced me. And I let them. My brain was an unboundaried sponge then. That single moment became a seed, one of those small comments that takes root quietly and grows into a story we start believing about ourselves. I carried those words with me for years before realizing this wasn’t my truth. Maybe you have a story that is similar.

If we let past words hold weight, they’ll continually reinforce themselves until you sit down and distill, “what is actually true for me NOW?” In this tech heavy, endless hustle, make more money grind of a world, who the hell has time for that you may ask? Well today I ask, “what happens if you don’t?” What if you don’t reckon with those unconscious untrue stories? How will that limit what you want to achieve? What kind of weight are you walking around with? All of those labels / acceptances weigh something. And I bet they’re not serving you in what you want for your future. Those old stories don’t just live in your head; they shape your choices, your confidence, your wellbeing.

There is a lot of research on the mind-body connection. If you’re interested more, I highly suggest the feisty Harvard professor Ellen Langer. She’s a leader in this field. How we talk to ourselves, how we interpret things, matters. She has a famous study of housekeepers. The jist is they take a bunch of house keepers and measure all sorts of baseline health markers. Split into two groups, they then tell one group that they “weren’t getting exercise while they work.” To the other group they said “you are getting exercise as you work, when you’re vacuuming you’re using this muscle group, when you’re making beds your using these muscles” and so on. What happened here shows the power of our mindsets, of WHAT WE BELIEVE TO BE TRUE. The first group was exhausted after work and couldn’t bare to work out after which resulted in all sorts of negative self talk. They got less healthy during the study. The other group lost weight and decreased their blood pressure. Neither group ‘worked out’ as we may define it. But the second group reframed and got healthier! Same work, different belief. This study highlights the perceived importance of what we believe to be true.

The labels you have accepted matter. If you say you’re old, not good enough, not strong enough, not smart enough, not good with people, not brave enough, not worthy, a failure, please consider that these thoughts directly affect you in more that what you realize. Your mindset matters. You can be whoever, whatever that you want to be. I may still wear a backwards cap and dig in the dirt but I don’t have to accept one’s definition of what that means. Please stop accepting those past stories. Please consider what you say to and about others. Your words & thoughts matter.

What have you accepted in the past that you need to let go of today?

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