What’s Your Mantra?

The way to change your life, Elizabeth Gilbert told Oprah, is to, “Get a new mantra.” She wasn’t talking about mantras in the spiritual sense, but as a personal motto or phrase that inspires you or expresses something you believe in.

Many mantras begin with the words “I am” and are a powerful force for shaping our lives. If we’re unaware of the mantras we’re thinking and saying, we may miss the connection to what we’re becoming. 

I was reminded of this when I received an e-mail from a man I’d met seven or eight years ago, but hadn’t had much contact with recently. I wrote back asking for an update and received a mantra-filled reply. Here’s a sampling:

I am still trying to make the best of an employed life and I find that I am not that happy. I am trying to make it work for the steady paycheck and health insurance. I do not believe that I can match my current income and benefits on my own, and I need to support the family.  Yet, it takes so much out of me, I have no energy to start anything outside of it.  Each day, I force myself  to be on time, force myself to comply to the ongoing, overwhelming requirements made of me, and come home exhausted.

Compare that to the mantras in Angela O’Brien’s message:

My business is better than ever right now and I have no fears about layoffs. I work as a private math tutor and babysitter and had to adjust my ego because I can’t tell people I have some lofty position.  What I have is daily freedom, joy, and independence. 

 I am learning to live on a lot less money and it is fine.  My motto is “there is always more than one (or two) answers”.  I am no longer sacrificing my health in order to have what society has always told me I should have.  My boyfriend is an independent massage therapist and his business has never been better, either.  We keep saying, “Wow, there’s no recession for us!”  I don’t have a big retirement account and neither does he, but we feel so confident in our ability to take care of ourselves that it doesn’t matter!  Self-bossing is the best!

See the difference? Pretty hard not to see it, but it’s a bit trickier to hear our own mantras and see how they are impacting our lives. Start by listening to the mantras that you are using to create your life. Are they a reflection of your dreams or your fears? Either way, consider adopting a brand new 2009 mantra for yourself. 

That’s what Sue Hibbetts, SupportBuddy on Twitter, shared with us on Sunday. She wrote, “At Jubilee Church the minister said, ‘What if your dreams are closer than you think?’ Today, my mantra  is, ‘My dreams are closer than I think!’”

And don’t just write a mantra for yourself. Your business deserves them, too. In fact, Guy Kawasaki says, “Forget mission statements — they’re worthless; instead create a powerful mantra for yourself.”

So write those mantras and, if you’re feeling frisky, share them with the rest of us. Or if you’ve already seen the power of a mantra, tell us that story, too.

The problem with getting bigger is that getting bigger costs you. Not just in time and money, but in focus and standards and principles. Moving your way to the biggest part of the curve means appealing to an ever broader audience, becoming (by definition) more average. More, more, more is rarely the mantra of a successful person. ~ Seth Godin

°°°°°°°

Join me at Follow Through Camp, May 15 & 16, and you’ll go home with a new mantra–and much, much more.