The Ugly Truth About Words – Frame Your Sentences Better

“Sticks and stones can break your bones but words will never break me” is probably the biggest lie I’ve ever heard.” Your choice of words counts. Always.

A fractured arm heals quicker than a bruised ego.

The words you use can make or break the outcome of your conversations.

How Important is Your choice of Words?

Alan, in the sixth grade introduced his best friend to his first ever girlfriend Eva. His best friend Silly Mouth exclaimed with shock “Dude, she’s too good looking for you man!”. Silly Mouth was then cut off from ‘feeling – insecure – Alans’ friend list who swore to never introduce his literally ‘better’ half to anyone again, thanks to Silly Mouth’s poor choice of words.

But Alan made a new friend, Smart Mouth, who when he met Eva, looked at Alan and said “Bro! You’ve got great taste in girls, cause she’s just as good looking as you are!” Smart Mouth was now ‘feeling – secure – Alans’ new best friend. 

Alan should’ve learnt a valuable lesson here from Smart Mouth, but when he grew up and was a married man, he fretted and fumed all day at work from a silly fight with his wife, and stormed into the door to scream “What do you know about anything I go through? You’re just a housewife!” 

He phoned Smart Mouth for advice from the car he was banished to sleep in for the night. Smart Mouth chuckled as he said “Brother, you should’ve just said “You do a fantastic job of keeping the house together, and I’d like to tell you more about my battles outside the house”

Damn it, he thought to himself, I pulled a Silly Mouth! 

I guess we can all be Silly Mouth at times, and the consequences of a poor choice of words can be lethal. 

Take a page from Alan’s book and think about the word choice and how you frame what you want to say. The ultimate purpose of communication is to get an outcome. Because the words you use can alter the outcome significantly. 

What is Framing?

Words create frames or images in the listeners mind which is why people say ‘reframe’ what you want to say or ‘frame your sentences’ differently. 

When someone says don’t think about a purple elephant what do you think of first?  A purple elephant.

It’s probably why when your boss asked you not to give him 100 excuses again for showing up late, you were thinking about the hundred and first excuse you could give him. Because ‘100 excuses’ was the frame he left you with. Perhaps if he said “I know you’ve been late because you have many things on your plate, but I’m sure you’ll come through for me”, you would be thinking about how to come through for him by being on time. 

It’s more convincing when you say “I’m an honest person” than when you say “I’m not a dishonest person”. The latter throws the listeners focus on dishonesty, which is negative.

This is powerful. This is why Governments across the world changed the words on Legislations from “Global Warming”  to “Climate Change”. It sounds less scary. Or why “Death Tax” was changed to “Inheritance Tax”. It sounds more just. Or why Julia Gillard, the former Prime Minister of Australia was said to have presumably lost an election when she introduced “Carbon Tax”. No one understood what it meant. Had she called it “Pollution Tax”, they say, there’s a possibility she would’ve won.  

30 seconds to think and then rethink about the words that come from your mouth, can drastically change what happens next.

The easy way to do this is to keep asking yourself what message your words are leaving the other person with. 

The 3-Step Process to Choose your Words Wisely

Here’s a 3 step process that you can practise when you’re having a conversation –

1. Reshuffle – rearrange the words or exchange them for other words that can change what the other person takes from it.

2. Reflect –  post conversation, think about how the other person reacted and if you could’ve maybe framed it better. 

3. Repeat – Frame it better. “Let me reframe that. What I meant to say is this…” 

Be conscious about practising this a few times everyday, and you’ll be well on your way to being better understood. 

Remember, the goal is to change the meaning of the sentence without changing the message! 

Now go forth and don’t be Silly! Wait. Let me reframe that. Go forth, and be Smart!

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Tell me about a time you realised the word choice you used could’ve been better?

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