“Clarity isn’t just about goals. It’s about the meaning behind the words you use every day.”
Hey Rollers,
One of the things I’ve come to really enjoy about the topic of leadership is that, at its core, it’s not actually about other people.
The way you lead and communicate with others tends to mirror how you lead and communicate with yourself.
And just like when we communicate externally, it’s our responsibility to ensure the words we use are clearly understood, not assumed to be understood. The same applies to how we speak to ourselves.
So what definitions does the dictionary of your self-talk actually hold?
We tend to think we know what we mean by a word until we’re asked to explain it. That’s usually when things start to feel less clear.
Your self-talk dictionary is made up of the distinctions you keep. The way you define things. The meaning you attach to the words you use every day.
This is something I’ve written about before in a slightly different way. That was about vague goals being the enemy, but this feels like the practical extension of that idea.
It’s not only about avoiding vague language. It’s about being intentional with the meaning, your meaning, behind the words you use all the time. Words that shape how you think, how you act, and how you show up.
Because if the meaning is loose, the behaviour tends to be loose as well.
I’ve started paying more attention to a few words in my own life. Not trying to define everything, but choosing a small number that matter, because I say them often, and being very clear on what they mean to me. Not in theory, but in practice.
One of those words is space.
For a long time, I thought of space as something external. Time in the diary, fewer meetings, less to do. And while that’s part of it, I’ve come to realise that space is far more about what I choose not to fill than what I manage to clear.
For me, space is about not saying yes to everything. It’s about stepping away from the tendency to people please, and being more deliberate about where I give my time and energy. It’s saying no more often, so that when I do say yes, it’s to the things and the people that actually matter.
What I’ve also noticed is that by saying no more often, I’m not just protecting what’s already there, I’m creating room for something else to come in. Things that are more aligned, more intentional, and often better than what I would have filled the space with by default.
Space: choosing what not to fill so that what matters has room to exist.
Another word I’ve spent time with is ease.
I’ve always associated ease with something negative. It felt like a lack of effort, or a sign that I wasn’t pushing hard enough.
But what I’ve come to understand is that ease, for me, has very little to do with effort and a lot to do with how I experience myself in the moment.
It’s being comfortable in my own skin. It’s being able to just be, without the constant pull to be doing something or to be somewhere else.
When I can stack more of those moments, even briefly, there’s a noticeable shift. Things feel calmer, clearer, and more grounded, not because I’m doing less, but because I’m not carrying unnecessary weight into what I’m doing.
Ease: being at home in yourself, without the need to constantly prove or produce.
What I found is that once the meaning became clear, the right behaviour started to follow.
There’s been less negotiation, less overthinking, and less figuring things out in the moment.
This is where it loops back to leadership.
When your language is loose, your communication is loose.
When your distinctions are unclear, your direction is unclear.
And that shows up not just in how others respond to you, but in how you respond to yourself.
So this isn’t about learning new words.
It’s about knowing what it means to keep your word, especially to yourself.
Because it’s difficult to live by something you’ve never clearly defined in the first place.
Until next week.
Keep rolling.
Justin 👊
Take Action in 3 Minutes:
Think about three words that show up often in your life.
Write them down.
👉 Then define what each one actually means to you, in practice.
Not what it should mean.
What it does mean when you’re at your best.