The Element of Adopting the Right Verbs and Its Hope for Healthy Living

Verbs can make you or break you.

What are the verbs in your life?

Moan

Groan

Shout

Whine

Use

Abuse

Carp

Laze

Binge

React

Or are these the verbs in your life?

Create

Make

Solve

Help

Teach

Simplify

Grow

If you lie instead of speak the truth, you will not be trusted.

If you retreat when you should advance, life will pass you by.

If you are greedy when you should be content, you will take unnecessary risks.

If you are moody when you should be cheerful, you may find it hard to find company to do anything.

If you boast instead of humbling yourself, you will have few friends.

If you react rather than act in situations, people will keep things from you.

If you talk more than you listen, you will not have good relationships with loved ones or peers or subordinates.

If you always criticize and never praise, you will not build love or loyalty.

If you marginalize and don’t include, you will create enemies.

If you make excuses rather than accept responsibility, you will never grow up.

These are the facts.

These are the truths.

You have to know which verbs to make your friends.

You have to know which verbs to invite into your life.

Which verbs have overstayed and need to be evicted.

Because there are “doing” verbs and there are “undoing” verbs.

You should make room for only the “doing” verbs in your life.

Create

Help

Solve

Sow

Simplify

Grow

These are the “doing” verbs.

Whenever you have to act, imagine you are in a room in which there are two tables.

One is a big long square table.

On the big long square table are wooden word blocks.

Each brown wooden word blocks has a word on it which is spelled in white letters.

The word blocks on the long wooden table all have unproductive verbs on them. Verbs such as:

Lie. 

Cheat. 

Use. 

Wallow. 

Whine. 

Complain. 

Criticize.

Yell. 

Fight.

Your eyes move to the other side of the room.

You spy a small round table.

You walk over to the small round table on the other side of the room.

It has only the following word blocks.

Create. 

Solve. 

Help. 

Think.

Grow.

Imprint the image of this room in your mind with the two tables - one, big and long and piled high with all sort of negative verbs, one small and round all the way on the other side of the room with only these 5 positive verbs….

Create. 

Solve. 

Help. 

Think.

Grow.

Whenever you are in a situation, mentally enter that room.

First walk to the big long table and look at all the negative words scattered there.

Then reject them by walking to the round table.

Look at the 5 word blocks on that table.

Pick one for your situation.

Let your choices, decisions and behavior conform to the word or verb block you pick.

“But, Minoo….a lot of our activities are neutral – Eat, Sleep, Drive.”

That’s true.

“Driving” is not a situation.  Monkeys use their tails and limbs to swing from tree to tree.  We use our cars to swing from place to place.  That’s just locomotion.

 Cats clean their fur.  We clean our houses.

Koala bears sleep.  We sleep.

But even when it comes to these activities, there is an element of choice.

Quick what is the right choice on Spare the Air Days - “Drive” or “Bike”?

What is the right choice when a place you have to go to is within walking distance and you have time, “Drive” or “Walk”?

You can change your verb orientation.

Indeed if you want things to change, you will need to change your verb orientation.

You will need to believe in order to achieve.

You will need to learn in order to earn.

You will need to move in order to find your groove.

You should create a recipe for each of your goals.

Why a recipe?

Recipes are packed with verbs, this is why.

Every line of a recipe starts with a positive verb which is a call to act.

Take the recipe for Khichdi which I gave you in my post Top Recipe Secrets, which I will reprint here. 

Spring Kedgeree with Cashew Nuts 

Soak rice and masoor dhal in a little water for half hour separately. 

Drain rice and dhal. 

Heat ghee, butter or cooking oil in a frying pan and brown one onion with the curry leaves in the oil. 

Add the rice and lentils and stir fry for 5 minutes. 

Boil 4 cups of water in a large casserole dish and add the rice, lentils, chopped onion and curry leaves from the frying pan. (Note: the water must be at least three inches above the rice). 

Add salt to taste. 

Simmer the kedgeree for half an hour until the grains are cooked and the water is absorbed. 

Brown some onions and cashew nuts and add this to the cooked rice and lentils. 

Add chopped mint and coriander leaves. 

Enjoy! 

Look at the first words of each line of the recipe.

Each one is a verb….a verb that gets you doing something, in this case, towards the goal of making khichdi.

Some lines have multiple verbs.

Line 3 first instructs you to heat ghee, butter or cooking oil and then brown one onion.

Line 4 says you should add the rice and lentils and stir fry for 5 minutes.

For every goal you have, you should write a recipe.

Let your recipe start with a verb.

For example, my goal is to publish 52 posts a year on this blog.

What is my Blog-Writing Recipe?

Write one post every week.

That’s it.

It is a simple recipe.

The trick is sticking to it.

If we don’t follow a recipe, we will not get the result we want.

Each of my United States of Friendship posts contains a recipe associated with a friend.

In post 1, it is a recipe for Persimmon Bread which I associate with my friend Krysia.

In post 2, it is a recipe for Homemade Crusty Bread which I associate with my friend Gerri.

In post 5, it is a recipe for Kari Udang Dan Terung which I associate with my friend Nina.

In post 7, it is a recipe for Stuffed Bell Peppers which I associate with my friend Nadya.

If I followed the recipe in post 2 for Homemade Crusty Bread, would I produce the results of the recipe in post 1 for Persimmon Bread?

No.

If I followed the recipe in post 7 for Stuffed Bell Peppers, would I produce the results of the recipe in post 5 for Kari Udang Dan Terung?

No.

We have to stick to the recipe.

Or we have to at least stick to the recipe, more or less.

If you are a runner, you may have different ways to run.

You can run on a treadmill or on pavement.

You can run barefoot or in running shoes.

You can even run, walk, run.

I saw this video on Google Talks given by Jeff Galloway, a lifelong runner who says alternating running with walking during a run results in better endurance and less injuries.  You can view it here.

But if you don’t run at all, you only walk (like I do), you can’t call it “running.”

Yes, we have to learn to call a spade a spade when it comes to our verbs.

We can’t call walking running.

And we have to look at our recipes for everything.

What is the recipe for our relationship?

If there is no recipe, is it any surprise we may not have a good relationship?

Can we create a recipe?

The recipe can be:

Praise my spouse once every day.

Surprise my spouse by taking over an activity and doing it as well as them.

Do something they want to do and give my heart and soul to it.

Think about what will be a needle mover for that relationship.

I told you about what moved the needle in my relationship with my daughter in my post, It’s Called Motherhood 2.

In her book Smart Tribes, Christine Comaford says, “You can tell a person by their calendar, their credit card statement and their behavior.”

What’s on your calendar?

What’s on your credit card statement?

Do you see a recipe for healthy relationships, a satisfying job and a fulfilling life when you look at your calendar and your credit card statement?

Your calendar and your credit card statement will give you clues to the verbs in your life.

Dress

Preen

Indulge yourself

Get in financial trouble.

Is this what you see?

You can change that this very moment.

You can replace the verbs in your calendar with new ones.

Choose your verbs carefully.

Depending on where you are, and what you are facing, the most important verb may be to resist or to save, to exercise or to persist.

Remember whatever challenges you are facing, those who love you want you to thrive, not just survive.  So make those verb switches today.

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week….M…..a Pearl Seeker like you.  Thanks to Ajay for his comments on my last post, and thanks to the rest of you for your votes and pins. Much appreciated!