Shortening

John takes advantage of the American custom of shortening just about everything and weaves it into a strategy to outgrow unwanted habits.

Grasshopper Notes are the writings from America's Best Known Hypnotherapist John Morgan. His podcasts contain his most responded to essays and blog posts from the past two decades. 

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Transcript

Shortening

Did you ever notice that Americans are the Kings and Queens of nicknames? I haven’t lived in other countries, but I can’t imagine anyone does this name shortening process any more than we do.

For example, Jessica becomes “Jess.” Christopher or Christine becomes “Chris.” In the world of turn-of-the-century basketball, star players like  Allen Iverson and Dwyane Wade became known as “AI” and “D-Wade” and, of course, there's Shaq.

Automatic Teller Machines automatically became ATMs. Individual Retirement Accounts are IRAs (although with the amount they’ve gone down recently, maybe they should be shortened to just plain “I.”). The list of truncating names is endless.

I'll offer you a strategy for interrupting and outgrowing habits that I've found very helpful. It involves shortening.

Let’s pretend that you begin to notice a pattern of thought or a behavior you have that isn’t working for you. You can interrupt that pattern, while it is happening, just by noticing it. This noticing acts as a wedge between the stimulus and reaction. The wedge creates a space for a new strategy to enter your awareness rather than the repeated one that isn’t working. For this interruption strategy to be effective, it has to be repeated to the point that it's second nature.

You can notice and interrupt by unemotionally and specifically stating just the facts. “I’m noticing that I’m having unsettling thoughts about my IRA going down.” “I’m noticing that I’m having repeated thoughts about being the next job cut in my company’s downsizing.” “I’m noticing I’m having the ‘fat slob’ conversation about myself in my head.” “I’m noticing I’m ending my sentences with a preposition.” You get the idea.

What I have found is that instead of stating the entire case, you can just shorten it to a generic, positive trigger word or phrase. Eastern philosophy aficionados call this word or sound a mantra. I've come to find out that all the detail isn’t necessary when noticing.

Here are two, two word phrases that have been very helpful to me in interrupting undesirable patterned thinking or behavior. They are “Patterned Thinking” and “Patterned Behavior.”

Anytime I notice myself in an unproductive thought loop, I interrupt by saying “Patterned Thinking.” It’s a generic, shorthand interrupter of that thought pattern. If I notice myself running a behavior that isn’t contributing to my well being, I interrupt by saying “Patterned Behavior.”

The more often you notice and interrupt an unwanted thought or behavior, while it is happening, the less often it comes around. This practice adds to your peace of mind and creates new options for you to consider and act on.

Efficiency experts are always seeking the fewest number of steps to accomplish a goal without losing quality in the process. This shortening process works for me and I trust it will work for you too. It takes some repetition for you to notice how effective this strategy is.

Who knows, maybe in a future podcast I’ll say the same things in fewer words.

All the best,

John