Focus on More Helpful Thoughts

TED* Team · September 5, 2025

Not Just More Positive Ones

About ten years ago, I began playing pickleball, the sport that started right here on Bainbridge Island, Washington, where I’ve lived for 25 years. The pickleball community here is vibrant, encouraging, supportive, and fun. These qualities carry forward the spirit of the first families who created the game one summer 60 years ago: laughter, inclusiveness, and connection.

The very first day I showed up to play, I felt clumsy and awkward. I’d been hearing about pickleball but had no idea how to play. What I heard from other players weren’t empty platitudes like, “Oh that was a great shot,” when I knew it wasn’t. Instead, I heard genuinely helpful thoughts about learning the game, how the scoring worked and other quirky details that make the game so much fun.

I was an uncomfortable rookie who had a strong competitive streak. Others must have sensed that. Instead of trite positivity I received helpful tips. From that supportive culture I learned something important: helpful thoughts are the ones that keep us open, curious, and willing to try again.

My family tells me that I can find a silver lining in any dark cloud, and I like that about myself. But I have also discovered that when I say to myself, “just stay positive” I may miss very useful information by glossing over the truth of a situation and denying or minimizing struggles with a veneer of cheerfulness.

In contrast, helpful thoughts make room for the full truth of our lives. Here’s how I have come to see the difference:

• Helpful thoughts tell the truth. They acknowledge what is happening without sugarcoating it. “That presentation didn’t go the way I wanted, but I can pause, breathe, and continue.”
• Helpful thoughts allow us to feel frustration, sadness, or fear without judging ourselves. In parenting and caregiving, a helpful thought might be: “This is really hard right now, and it doesn’t mean I love my child (or parent, or partner) any less.” A “just stay positive” thought might be: “I should love every moment of this.” That only leads to guilt when reality doesn’t match the ideal.
• Helpful thoughts invite appropriate responsibility. They ask, “What’s the next step I can take?” rather than, “How can I force myself to be cheerful?” Or my favorite that I heard often from my parents: “Just smile and be nice.”
• Helpful thoughts are compassionate. They speak kindly: “I need rest right now, and that’s okay.” When in my overly positive mindset I can force happiness and deny feeling a full range of emotions.

This is what it means to live as a Creator in TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic)®. Being a Creator isn’t about pretending things are better than they are. It’s about telling the truth of your current reality, naming your feelings, and then choosing thoughts that move you toward possibility.

Sometimes when I am stuck in Victim thinking, neither positive nor helpful thoughts come to mind. Instead, I move into a full range of negative thoughts. I might say to myself, “This will never work out, why even try?” Or, “I am too tired to keep working at this. I didn’t really want it anyway.” In these situations, my usual positive self makes things worse by being a cheerleader and inauthentically reciting positive cliches.

To work with these Victim moments, I have created a helpful mantra as a reminder that I can focus on what matters when something goes wrong. A meaningful one for me that is easy for me to remember when in Victim mode, is a famous phrase from Julian of Norwich: "All is well. In the matter of all things, all is well.” It is a cue for me to pause, rest, take a walk or even nap, and treat myself well. As I do, more helpful thoughts such as these arise:

• “What is the situation?”
• “What is working?”
• “What is one step I can take?”
• “What can I see here that I didn’t see before?”

I still love my positive attitude and seeing the glass half full. Practicing helpful thoughts now, as my way of seeing life, has strengthened the truth of who I am as a Creator. It allows me to be more patient with myself, and willing to face the full range of reality with more honesty and courage.

Until next time, here’s to the Creator in you.