Five words you should stop using when you talk about food

The New Zealand Herald:

Words matter, perhaps more than you realise. How you describe something expresses your underlying attitude about it, but the words themselves reflect back at you, shaping your thoughts and actions and impacting your success. A lot of research has been done with athletes – they achieve better results when they talk to themselves with positive, motivational language.

But this wordplay goes beyond sports to everyday performance. One study published in Psychological Science revealed the effect a small turn of phrase can have. In the study, participants who were asked to write the words “Will I” during what they thought was an unrelated handwriting task did better later at problem-solving and were more motivated than those who wrote “I will.” So approaching a task with the mind-set of a question or challenge had a more positive impact than using a declaration.

Read the whole story: The New Zealand Herald