3 Words to Determine Your Direction

Go-went-gone for past-present-future results

Words have meaning and tense of a verb means “time.” Go is present tense. Went is past tense. Gone is past perfect tense. Going is the participial form to indicate ongoing action in the present.

Choose your words

When parents are helping young nonverbal children to speak about what they want instead of whine or cry or get angry and demanding, they say, “Use your words.” Words have meaning.

Asking, “What do you mean?” is another way of saying that perceptions are not the same from person to person. Clarify. Give examples. Define.

For example, using equine instead of horse may confuse a child. What’s that word mean? If that is done intentionally, children can learn more vocabulary words in a fun way instead of memorizing a list of words and definitions from an assignment at school.

Your history is recorded whether you like it or not. God sees your motives. He reads your heart.

That would cause more accountability, too.

Etymology is “the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.” What words or phrases or terms float aimlessly through your head? The meaning can and does change over time. A term that was used even 100 years ago is not what the same word means 100 years later.

You can write

Confidence in writing is gained through practice. Practice means that you repeat again and again. “Practice makes perfect” may be a misnomer — what’s that? Practice what you want to perform. Practice who you want to be. Practice boundaries that prevent missteps in thinking and actions.

Make some lists. Here’s a guide recommended by others. Check out the dog items. Think about what interests you in the morning and the evening and in between. Make the obvious visible by getting it out of your head and onto paper to objectively examine it. You can do it. Yes you can!

Back it up and clean it up

Verbs of action mean that you are moving in a direction to do something. In this usage, back and clean are both verbs. Why do this anyway? One step or two? Both are needed as you learn words, use words, choose words, and write words. Writing down snippets of ideas and thoughts along the way helps you to know what to keep and what to throw away.

Whether or not you backup your files, or back them up in the cloud, or transfer them to another drive, all the information that you think, say, and do is recorded in history, your life, your being — you.