I don’t know about you but I’ve got a dirty mouth. Hey, I’m just being honest. Sometimes I go around saying curse words way too much. It’s a really bad habit to have and I know that I need to overcome it. You can relate to what I’m talking about, right? We say them out loud and sometimes only whisper them under our breath. The worst thing is when they accidentally slip out!

Have you ever said a curse word at an inappropriate time?

I know I have. Here’s a story; one time I was walking into the mall talking on the cell phone. And as I entered through the doorway the phone conversation began getting emotional. Suddenly, I blurted out a four letter word as two little kids were strolling by! Oops!

I was embarrassed and felt like I should apologize to the parents. And just as I was about to say “Excuse me…” I heard the parents blurt out four letter words to each other! That was a reminder that this problem was bigger than just me so…

I know that you can relate.

It’s fair to say that it’s not the type of language we want to use, agreed? So instead of denying that curse words exist, the best way to solve a problem is to be up front out about it. I’m going spell out 4 curse words in this article with hopes of doing three things:

1. Admitting to our foul language
2. Defining what they mean
3. Telling you why we should correct it

The following are 4 different four letter curse words that I’m going to spell out for you. For each one, I’ll let you know why they matter to me and why they should matter to you too! Kid’s hold your ears…

Can’t (Cultivating a Negative Thought)

When we have goals to accomplish, telling ourselves “we can’t” sabotages our plans. It cultivates negative thoughts and, eventually, those thoughts germinate negative beliefs that pull us in the opposite direction of where we want to go.

We should rid our mouths of this word so that we don’t sabotage ourselves. There already exists too many things that can derail your plans, don’t make yourself one of them. Start talking about what you can do instead.

Wait (Wasted and Inactive Time)

I wrote an entire article about this one and how this one syllable word ruined my business. Waiting is a waste of time and situations that have the word “waiting” attached to it almost always represent meaningless activity or wasted time. Just think about it. How many of you have worked on a really slow computer? I bet every time you tried loading a page the hour glass popped up and you had to… wait. What did that do for you?

Nothing!!

Instead of waiting, keep yourself engaged in activity that is constructive. Don’t catch yourself waiting in vain, living your life like it’s a slow computer. Replace waiting with a wise use of your time.

If-if (Ideas Forever Incubating Forever)

Notice the key word… forever. By telling ourselves “if-if” we allow for things to take forever to happen in our lives because we make completing our goals dependent upon excuses. Ultimately what happens is that your ideas take forever, your projects take forever and you drive yourself nuts in the process.

Ideas are like eggs. And when we say “if-if” we end up with ideas that we incubate yet never hatch. That’s why they incubate forever… all we’ll do is sit on it. We don’t need indefinite time lines on the objectives we want to accomplish. Replace “if-if” with when and eliminate the excuses.

May-b

Yes, I know it’s misspelled but I needed four letters. Anyhow, the acronym for this one might as well be spelled as “unreliable”. May-b is indecisive and untrustworthy.

Just imagine that you go to a nice restaurant for the evening and there’s a valet parking service available. You drive your car up to the valet service and step out of the driver’s side looking like a stack of one-hundred one-hundred dollar bills and you feel great! As you stand up, you tell the valet, “You’ll keep my car safe until I come back, right?” and as he steps into your driver’s seat he says, “May-b!” Would you let him drive off?

No. He sounds like he’ll probably crash your car!

So you shouldn’t drive your life around with a “may-b” either. Just like a May-b from the valet driver will crash your car, a May-b towards your life will sabotage your ambitions.

Why are these curse words?

I’ll tell you exactly why these are curses for us. Get ready because I’m going to drop something really heavy on you!

They are curse words because they curse our plans and speak death to our goals.

Action Step – Speak Blessings not Curses

Here are the action steps for us to clean our mouths. We’ll speak blessings not curses for the next 30 days. Very simple, yet very challenging:

1) Replace can’t with can – talk about what you can do

2) Eliminate wait time – take constructive action whenever you find yourself in the waiting room

3) Replace if-if with when – eliminate excuses and get it done.

4) May-b not – don’t even consider saying may-b anymore