The Words You Repeat

ChatGPT Image Jul 28, 2026 at 02_03_19 PM.png

CHANGING WHAT YOU TELL YOURSELF

Your mind is talking to you all day.

Some thoughts are fleeting. Others have been repeated so many times they’ve become familiar background noise.

I’m behind.
There’s never enough time.
I need to get more done.
I’m not good at this.
Something always goes wrong.
I should be further ahead.

You may not even consciously notice them anymore. But familiarity doesn’t make them harmless.

The words you repeat become part of the atmosphere you live in.

Spend your day telling yourself you’re behind, and even a productive day can feel rushed. Keep reminding yourself there isn’t enough time, and ordinary responsibilities can begin to feel urgent. Repeat that you’re not good at something, and you may approach it already expecting yourself to struggle.

But the same is true of words that support you.

I have time for what matters.
I can figure this out.
Things have a way of working out.
I’m proud of how I’m showing up.
There is good here too.

Repeated thoughts influence what feels familiar, what you expect, what receives your attention, and the energy you bring into your day. They can create pressure or possibility. Urgency or trust. Criticism or encouragement. Resistance or gratitude.

You can’t always choose every thought that enters your mind. But you can start noticing the ones you repeat—and become more intentional about which ones you continue giving a voice.

Choose Your Words, Choose Your Focus

The thoughts running through your mind influence where your attention goes.

When you’re thinking about what’s missing, your attention is drawn to what you don’t have. When you’re thinking about everything that needs to be fixed, you notice more problems. When you’re expecting things to go wrong, your mind is more likely to register the things that confirm it.

Your thoughts give your attention a direction. And what holds your attention becomes your focus.

What you repeatedly focus on begins to take up more space in your experience. It becomes easier to notice and easier for your attention to return to.

But there’s another reason the good can be so easy to overlook:

familiarity dulls appreciation.

There are countless things that go right in an ordinary day that you barely register. The lights turn on. The water is hot. Your car starts. The thing you need is where you left it. You get where you’re going safely. Someone does what they said they would do. Your body does thousands of things without asking for your attention.

When something happens reliably, you begin to expect it. It becomes part of the background of your life rather than something that receives your attention.

The words you repeat can bring your attention back to what you’ve stopped noticing.

You could begin with one simple phrase:

This is working out for me.

Use it when the parking spot opens up exactly when you need it. When you remember something important just in time. When an appointment becomes available sooner than expected. When something you thought would be complicated comes together easily.

Instead of registering that worked out and immediately moving on, you reinforce it:

This is working out for me.

Or use:

Yes. Thank you.

Not only for the things that feel significant. Use it for what has become so ordinary that you rarely think to appreciate it. The hot shower. The safe arrival. The person who showed up. The body that carried you through another day.

Yes. Thank you.

The practice is in the repetition.

Each time you give words to what is working, what you appreciate, or what you’re glad to have, you give those things more of your attention. What once disappeared into the background begins to register again.

And as your focus changes, so does the experience you have of what was already there.

You begin to notice how often something works out in your favour. How much goes right without asking for your attention. How much of your life is already worthy of appreciation.

Choose the words you repeat, and you begin to choose what gets more of your attention.

Assume Something Better

This is working out for me and Yes. Thank you. are easy to say when something goes your way.

But what about when it doesn’t?

You’ve had moments that didn’t go the way you wanted—and later realized they led somewhere better.

A disappointment redirected you.
A plan falling apart opened another door.
Something you resisted at the time eventually made sense in a way you couldn’t have seen while you were living it.

Hindsight gave you the ending you couldn't see in the moment.

But when you’re in the middle of something not going according to your plan, and you don’t know yet where it’s leading, the mind can be quick to assume that the outcome won’t be in your favour. It starts deciding what this means, what happens next, and how it's going to affect you.

This is a disaster.
Of course this would happen today.
I can’t deal with this right now.

And those thoughts don’t stay in your head. Your body responds to the story your mind is telling. Your jaw tightens. Your breathing changes. Frustration builds. You become more reactive. Your body starts responding to an outcome that hasn’t even happened.

And that response doesn’t necessarily stay attached to the thing that started it.

Once you’re tense or frustrated, that feeling can become the emotional backdrop for everything that follows. The person driving the speed limit in front of you is suddenly irritating. A small inconvenience feels like one more thing. A harmless comment lands badly. Something you might not have noticed on another day becomes more evidence that nothing is going right.

The meaning you give an experience can shift the entire trajectory of your day, shaping how you meet whatever comes next.

And it all begins with one assumption.

So what if, instead of assuming it won’t work out in your favour, you assumed it would?

The delay could cause a problem—or it could put you exactly where you need to be. The rejection could close a door—or redirect you toward an opportunity you wouldn’t otherwise have found. Those red lights could be making you late—or changing your timing in a way you may never know mattered.

You don’t know yet.

Stuck in traffic?

This is working out for me.
Maybe this delay is changing my timing. Maybe I’m being guided to arrive exactly when I’m meant to.

Someone cancels plans?

Yes. Thank you.
Maybe this has opened space for something else. Maybe there’s a reason these plans weren’t meant to happen today.

Something you wanted doesn’t work out?

This is working out for me.
Maybe I’m being redirected. Maybe what I wanted would have taken me somewhere that wasn’t right for me, or something better is opening that I can’t see yet.

Your day takes an unexpected turn?

Yes. Thank you.
Maybe there’s something in this change of direction that I’m meant to experience, notice, or find.

You’re doing what the mind was already doing: taking what you know and imagining where it could lead. You’re simply choosing a different direction.

You don’t have to know which explanation, if any, will turn out to be true. The point is that the worst outcome was never a fact either. If the story hasn’t been written yet, you don’t have to spend the time in between rehearsing the version you fear.

Yes. Thank you adds something else: gratitude before you know what there is to be grateful for. You’re trusting that what looks like an inconvenience, disappointment, or change of plans may still have a place in a life that is working out for you.

Instead of Why is this happening?, you leave yourself open to:

I wonder where this is leading.