[Article] Nothing is good or bad

‘Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so’ according to William Shakespeare (Hamlet Act 2 scene ii)

I really think the Bard knew what he was talking about here. The way we think about things makes them what they are to us. Specifically, the way we describe things in words makes them ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in our minds. Or anything else – interesting, boring, useful, beautiful or inspiring.

In case you haven’t heard me say this before…

There’s always more than one way to describe a thing.

If the way you currently describe something means that you don’t feel good about it, how about experimenting with different words. Not to change the meaning, just to shift the emphasis.

For example, the complaint,

‘I’m not happy about that’ could be re-worded to, ‘I’m not totally happy about that’. How does that shift your thoughts?

Or the try this one: ‘I’m not good at that, I can’t do it’ transformed to ‘I haven’t discovered the easiest way to do it yet’.

In NLP this is usually described as re-framing. You could also call it taking control of your thoughts. I think of it as shifting focus using language.

But like I said, there’s always more than one way to describe a thing.

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