The Importance of Catch Phrases

There are certain phrases that, when I say them, instantly give me a happiness boost.  These little catch-phrases or mantras are so helpful for me when I need to redirect my thoughts from worry or negativity.  I find that when I really examine my thoughts, I'm often pretty hard on myself.  If I'm not mindful of my thoughts, I won't even notice myself thinking negative things like, "I'll never get this all done." or "I'm so drained."

But once I'm mindful of the little phrases that are running through my thoughts, I can pretty easily replace the judgmental or worried thoughts I might have with my little mantras.  (Social skills guru Michelle Garcia Winner calls this "using my inner coach.")

Here are some of the cheerleader-ish phrases my inner coach tells me:

You can do this.

No biggie.

Do your best and be done with it.

Respond with a blessing.

Do it now.

Be silly; have fun.

It'll be fine.

You will succeed in everything. 

I think that mantras are really helpful, but first we have to will ourselves to be mindful of our thoughts to really figure out what phrases are flying through our heads making us stressed or anxious or sad.  Are we letting un-guarded thoughts mess with our mood?  If so, let's guard our thoughts!  Let's only allow those thoughts that build us up inside our minds. 

And now, because I'm tired of hearing myself think, "I'm so tired," every day at work, I'm going to get myself to bed.  And tomorrow, I'll say, "I got enough sleep," which will make all the difference.



What phrases boost your confidence or happiness just by thinking them?

Think About What You Think

This morning, one of my sweet little third grade students, upon hearing me say, "No biggie!" when she got glue on my table, said, "Ms. Ragan, you always say no biggie!"  And then she laughed, got a tissue, made a silly face, and said, "No biggie!" as she wiped off the glue.  

The funny thing was, that even though I was obviously being made fun of by a third grader, it touched my heart that she noticed a little mantra I use regularly.  "No biggie," is a phrase I use whenever something goes wrong, to keep from stressing out.  I think it's a very useful phrase for kids who are experiencing anxiety or dealing with low self-esteem.  I also like the phrase, "Accidents happen."  Happiness guru Gretchen Rubin calls these little phrases "mantras" or "catch-phrases," and my happiness commandments are examples of ones I like to tell myself regularly.  

Researchers point out that positive thinking using positive self-talk like these little catch-phrases can be beneficial for health by staving off stress.  Staff from the Mayo Clinic write that we need to catch the negative thoughts we're thinking and replace them with positive thoughts.  We can do this by looking out for negative self-talk like 

filtering (only noticing bad stuff, filtering out the good stuff), 

personalizing (attributing bad things that happen to ourselves rather than circumstances), 

catastrophizing (blowing things out of proportion in your mind), and 

polarizing (thinking things are either good or bad, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good).  

I recently read about a trick to help yourself be more mindful of your thoughts:  use doorways as visual reminders to think about what you're thinking.  So, every time you walk through a doorway, check in with your own thoughts and see whether they're positive or not.  I think I might try this for a week or two.   

Anyway, once we recognize the negative thoughts we're having, we can work on replacing them with positive mantras, catch phrases, or happiness commandments.  Here are a few of mine (and by the way, they seem so cheesy when I write them down!!)

No biggie.

Accidents happen.  

You did your best, and that's all you can do.

It is what it is.

Try, try again. 

You will succeed in everything.  (I got this in a fortune cookie once.  It really helps.)

Baby steps.  

Do your best and be done with it.

Breathe. 

Consider the saints. 

You can do it.  (This one is said with some strange accent and cracks me up when I think it.)

Be light.    (from the quote, "It's easy to be heavy, hard to be light" by GK Chesterton, which I first read in the Happiness Project.)

What are your catch-phrases?  What little phrases do you tell yourself when things go wrong, or just as motivation on a regular day?  Or am I the only crazy person who thinks these phrases make a difference?  

Words Have Power

As I was driving the icy roads between the thousands of speech sessions and IEP meetings I juggled today, with a crazy long mental to-do list that was in serious need of being written down, and therefore, with a pretty huge degree of worry that I'd forget something important, I realized something.

My stressed out moments weren't making me as insane as normal.

And I think I figured out why.

Instead of my normal thoughts like, "I'll never get all this done." or "How in the world can I meet all these deadlines?", my brain was saying little phrases from my happiness project, like,

"Do what needs to be done."

"Do your best and be done with it."

"Do it now."

"All you can do is what you can do."

Now, I'm trying not to get too "Dr. Phil" on you, but the power of these little phrases really struck me. They're actually changing my response to stress somehow. This is kind of groundbreaking for me.

So now I'm off to battle a mountain of paperwork. But somehow, thinking of it as "Doing what needs to be done" makes it a little more noble and a little more manageable.


What phrases keep you motivated when you're overwhelmed?