All words have power.  Read the following two sentences and notice how you react to them.

“I wonder why I can't get my life organized?”

“What specific step can I take today that will leave me more in order?

Think for a moment about the two sentences.  What do you notice?  Do they make a different impact?  How and in what sense?

The two sentences were from emails sent to me by two different people I was mentoring.  Each was an extract from a personal journal.

One of the persons, less than one month later completed a major revision of his office files that he had “been needing to do for 15 years.”  The other took another nine months to move to a similar point.

You can probably tell which was which.  But do you understand exactly what the words give away?

The first journal entry asks an open-ended question.  The second demonstrates three ways words can create a call to action.  Use language that way and you unleash your own effectiveness and that of others.  But the words in each are equally powerful.

The key to having a way with words is to understand that:  all words have power.  All words.  Vague words are no less powerful than specific words

Specificity:

Non-specific suggestions, directives and initiatives fail.  Vague language has power.  It produces vague responses.  Specific language directs.  It makes clear what is to be done.  Everything in the first sentence above is indefinite, non-specific.  By contrast the second sentence speaks of today, real progress, and fully implementing.

Concreteness:

While some of the language in the second sentence is abstract, compared to the first it deals with more tangibles.  Concrete action calls for just that.  Abstract words have power:  the power to direct you toward abstraction rather than action.

Urgency:

What it is about the second sentence that creates a sense of urgency?  Decide for yourself.

Note that both statements were posed as questions.  But they functioned nearly as directives.  They produced exactly what they specified.

Now what kind of language do you think will make a difference in what you accomplish?  You already have a way with words.  Using the right words the right way greatly improves your ability to consciouly direct your behavior toward outcomes you decide to seek.