Change The Labels

They define everything, even destiny.

Labels are everything. They set the tone.

After a conversation with a group of friends, I stepped into myself and I thought about how crazy it is that the labels we put on things, on people, on places, on situations are what define those things, people, place, or situations.

Now this is even beyond perspectives. In a way, it is about perspectives, but it goes deep beyond that.

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When we paste a label on something, we begin to relate with that thing through the label we have placed on it.

If you go to the airport, you'd notice how, during check-in, there are some luggage that would be labeled as 'fragile', mostly on the request of the traveler, and there are some luggage that would be without the 'fragile' label.

The items labelled as fragile would be wrapped in bubble wraps or any form of soft padding, while the ones without the label would simply be stored away carefully at the belly of the aircraft.

The difference between the two items is that they were labeled differently. One was labeled as fragile, the other wasn't labeled, so automatically, it was mentally labelled as 'not fragile'.

Here's another instance. For people who have spent some amount of time in the hospital, you'd know there are two major categories of patient rooms in the hospital. There are the rooms simply labeled as 'Wards’, and there are rooms labeled as ‘ICUs’ (Intensive Care Units). And many times, we behave differently when we are on floors with rooms that are simply Wards than we do on floors with ICUs.

What triggers this difference are the labels the hospital has placed on the rooms. Minus the labels, they are simply just rooms with patients or without patients!

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In the two instances above, we see how much labels affect our lives, our behaviors, our thoughts, our actions, our habits, and invariably our future! And many times in life, unlike in hospitals, we are the ones responsible for the labels we place on everything we interact with. The only difference between a deer and a dog are the labels 'wild' and 'domestic'. To think that dogs are even more dangerous than the former. See what labels can do to our world?

The labels we place on things such as tasks, jobs, projects, inanimate objects are what defines their importance in our lives and our attitude to them. If we think a simple task or project is very difficult even before we attempt it, we already put the 'difficult' label on it, and it will always be diffucult to us, no matter how ordinarily simple it actually is.

If we think we can't do a job, or we are not good enough for a position, the truth is, we will fumble and flop, because our mind do not tally with our position. We have put the 'not possible' label on the job and so we will be a disaster in that role.

You simply have to change the labels. If you label a task as simple, no matter how difficult it is in reality, you'd get it done, because according to the label, it's supposed to be simple. You'll always find a way, because far be it from you not to get something this 'simple' right.

Same way we handle our relationships. The labels we place on people go a long way to affect our relationship with them, and this applies to every level of relationship in our lives. From our parents, to our siblings, to our bosses, to our colleagues, to our friends, to out neighbors, and even strangers. We interact with them based on the label we have attached to them.

If we believe someone is difficult, or poor, or dumb, or angry, or ugly, or lacks compassion, or we simply believe we can't get along with someone, we wouldn't! If we take other people's labels and place on people we have even barely interacted with, those labels shape the way we think and the way we relate to them.

The same applies to certain places, workplaces, situations, etc. Have you experienced a place labeled as 'dangerous' or 'toxic' by other people, perhaps because of just one single incident, and you have attached that label to that place all your life even though you've never been there before, only for you to go there or live there or work there and discover that the label had been wrong all along!

The labels we place on different phenomenons in our lives influence our behaviors, attitudes, habits and invariably our lives, and the beauty is that we can deliberately change labels, we can deliberately attach our own labels to a project, a person, a situation, and start behaving according to the label we have attached to it. Label a 'wicked' boss kindly, and you'd begin to see how gracious that boss can be. Label a 'difficult' project as simple and you'll see yourself smashing records. Label an ‘important’ person or task ‘unimportant’ and you'll see how your attitude towards them will change.

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These labels, dear reader, also apply to us. The label you have attached on yourself influences your life, perhaps even greater than anything else you label.

If you label yourself as incapable, you will be incapable. If you label yourself as proud, so you will be.

If you put on the mental label that you're not smart, you are not good with relationships, you're clumzy, you destroy everything, you're not good enough, you are not deserving, and on and on and on, your life will be treated by you and other people according to the label that you have put on yourself.

On the flip side, if you label yourself as courageous, intelligent, firm, decent, diligent, capable, good enough, careful, deserving, etc., your actions and the actions of others toward you will align to that label.

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Labels are everything, and they set the tone for the attitude and habits of you and everyone else.

Do you not like the events of your life? Do you not like the work you're doing? Do you not like the situations you are experiencing? Perhaps it's time to change the label. You have control over that much.

To your growth,

Abiola Okunsanya,

Handzinspired. ✨