Episode 31: Did You 4:8 Today?

Your brain is kind of like a toddler—it needs gentle reminders to focus on what’s good. In this episode, I’m sharing the idea of “4:8-ing,” inspired by Philippians 4:8, and how this small, intentional shift in thinking can change how you experience your relationships, your body, and even yourself. Whether you 4:8 your mate, your kids, or your life, joy starts with what you choose to see. It won’t erase your problems—but it will change your perspective. 

Send me a message on instagram and tell me how your 4:8ing is going! 

Full Transcript:

You're listening to the Think New Thoughts podcast with Emily Ricks, episode number 31. Did you 4-8 today?

I'm Emily Ricks, and this is Think New Thoughts, a life coaching podcast to help you find more joy in your relationships. In each episode, I'll share a simple idea that will help you see things in a new way, so you can love God, your neighbor, and yourself more deeply than you ever have before. If you're ready to literally change your mind, I think you'll like it here.

Hi, welcome back to Think New Thoughts. Today's episode is called, Did You 4-8 Today? So I want to share with you what 4-8-ing is, and give you a couple simple ideas of how you can do it in your life as a way to experience more joy.

Tommy Newberry, who is a Christian life coach, came up with the phrase, the 4-8 principle. And it's his term for describing the concept taught in Philippians chapter 4, verse 8. So that's why it's called the 4-8 principle, Philippians 4, 8. In this scripture, the apostle Paul gives us an admonition. He says, finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.

So that's the admonition of Paul in Philippians chapter 4, verse 8. Think about things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, or worthy of praise. Tommy Newberry says this scripture is like a to-do list, but for your mind. So it's a to-think list.

We have a choice of what we think about. Otherwise, Paul wouldn't have worded his admonition this way. And it matters what we choose, because whatever we think about and dwell on expands in our minds.

Whatever we focus on today, we'll notice more of tomorrow. And what we think about and continuously focus on over time will be what we create and who we become in the end. So the admonition of Paul, the 4.8 principle, if we call it that, is that if there's anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things and choose to fix our minds on these things.

Tommy Newberry wrote a whole book called the 4.8 principle that's packed with awesome ideas about how to do this, how to discipline your mind and intentionally choose to think 4.8, to think about what is virtuous, lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy more in your life. And it takes effort to do this, right? If we don't set intention to purposely focus on, think about, and dwell on what is positive, most of us default to fixating on the negative. Tommy Newberry calls this 8-4 thinking because it's the opposite of Philippians 4.8. He says, if Paul had given us the opposite advice, it could sound something like this.

Whatever is untrue, dishonest, unjust, impure, ugly, negative, vicious, or worthy of criticism, think about these things. But we don't need advice to do that because that's pretty much what our brains do naturally on their own. I feel like brains are kind of like toddlers.

A toddler wants to eat soap, yank the cord of my curling iron while it's hot, bang toys on other kids' heads, and wipe their runny nose on the couch. So a toddler needs constant reminding and instruction and guidance to eventually learn to not do these things. And your brain is the same way.

It's designed to solve problems and keep you alive, which is great. But because of that, it wants to think about and worry about what is untrue, dishonest, unjust, impure, ugly, negative, vicious, or worthy of criticism. That's what comes naturally is 8-4 thinking.

But over time, if you choose to, you can provide reminders and instruction and guidance to your brain, just like you would with a toddler to teach it how to think 4-8 instead. So here's one really fun way you can choose to live the 4-8 principle or follow the admonition of Paul. If you're married, you can 4-8 your mate.

Tommy Newberry has a marriage retreat that my husband and I have been to twice now, and it's such a cool experience. We've loved it. It's a weekend all about setting really clear intention in a variety of categories, and then focusing on the good in your marriage and in your life.

When we left the retreat, he gave us a 10-day challenge to 4-8 your mate every day for 10 days. So 4-8-ing is a verb. It's something you can do.

It's an action you can take. And if you choose to 4-8 your mate, there's a lot of ways this can look. It just means thinking about and dwelling on what you love about this other person.

You can 4-8 your mate by telling them out loud what you appreciate about them. You can 4-8 your mate by sending a text, just saying what you're thankful for. You could 4-8 your mate by giving them an extra long hug when they come home and expressing gratitude for something.

You can 4-8 your mate by making a list of things you love and appreciate about them and taking a few minutes to simply read it and just think about those things. My husband and I have both started intentionally 4-8-ing each other regularly and it brings a lot of joy to our marriage. It feels amazing to get 4-8-ed and hear what someone else loves and appreciates about you.

And it also feels amazing to be the one 4-8-ing. You get to feel gratitude and love when you're the one focusing on what you love and appreciate about someone else. It's such a small but beautiful thing.

If you're not in a relationship with someone who's going to be 4-8-ing you, I invite you to just 4-8 them and see how you feel and what changes for you when you make it a point to think about and focus on what is noble and good and praiseworthy about them. If you're not married, or even if you are, you can also apply this same idea to anyone in your life. Like if you're struggling to not lose your cool with one of your kids, 4-8 them.

Spend intentional time thinking about what you love about them. Focus on their strengths and what you appreciate. Tell them those things.

Or if you're annoyed with an extended family member, 4-8 them. Intentionally choose to focus on what you love about them, what their gifts are, what they enjoy, what they're good at. You will feel full of love and gratitude and goodness anytime you are 4-8-ing someone else.

It's a choice. You can do it anytime. You can also 4-8 yourself by answering questions like these.

What do you love about yourself? What do you love about your body? Isn't it super easy to 8-4 think about your body and focus on what is ugly, negative, or worthy of criticism? But instead, if you want to follow the admonition of Paul, tell your body what you love about it, what you appreciate, what you're so glad it does for you every day, how thankful you are to be able to breathe and talk and smell and taste. Just imagine what it would be like if you said, thank you body for keeping my heart beating every day without me even knowing. Thank you so much body for digesting my food without me even having to ask.

I appreciate that. I'm so grateful to feel the wind on my face on a bike ride, or be able to feel the drop in my stomach when I ski really fast. Body, you are the best.

If you want to feel more joy in your life, I challenge you to focus on what is lovely about you and about your body. Dwell on that. Think about it, write about it, pray about it, and express gratitude for it.

And what about your internal traits? Your toddler of a brain wants to focus on your weaknesses and your shortcomings and your failures. But if you were to really truly follow the admonition of Paul, wouldn't you focus on, think about, and dwell on your strengths and God's strength, which is worthy of praise that will help you keep learning and growing and improving? You step into the joy zone when you choose to 4-8 yourself. You're a child of God with divine potential.

That is praiseworthy. I invite you to dwell on that and not on what might be impure, negative, or worthy of criticism about yourself. Here's another little thing you can do if you want to train your brain to think 4-8.

You can write down something you're grateful for each day or a couple things. I spend five minutes every morning writing down a few things I'm grateful for in my life. I started doing this when I was a teenager.

When I was 14, I had a youth leader at church who taught a lesson and gave us each a little composition journal with a promise. She said, if you write down something you're thankful for each day, you'll see the hand of the Lord in your life. And I decided to take the challenge, started writing down a few things each day that I was thankful for.

And this small and simple thing became a blessing in my life. Having a gratitude practice can be like a Where's Waldo book. You sit down and focus your mind to look for one thing, Waldo.

There are a million other things on the page. There's other people, there's stuff that's red, there's stuff that's white. There's all sorts of stuff going on on a Where's Waldo page.

And you see those things, but if they're not Waldo, you scan on past until you find him. The guy wearing red and white stripes and glasses and white hat with a red pom-pom. And then you're like, yes, there he is.

I found him. 4-8-ing can be kind of like that. Sometimes you really have to slow down and maybe even squint to find Waldo, to find what is virtuous, lovely, or of good report.

But I promise you it's there. Okay. So how are you feeling about this idea of 4-8-thinking? Do you feel a little cynical? Here's how I imagine some of you might be thinking about this episode.

Like, okay, Emily, but life isn't all sunshine and roses. I have real problems and simply thinking positive isn't going to erase them. And you're right.

Your problems won't go away when you choose to 4-8 your life. But the joy we feel, this is what Russell M. Nelson says. The joy we feel has little to do with our circumstances and everything to do with the focus of our lives.

So if you choose to 4-8, your problems won't go away, but the joy you feel will increase as you focus on what is virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy. I know life isn't all sunshine and roses. Paul knew that too.

He didn't have an easy life. Paul was unfairly accused. He was confined in prison.

He faced persecution and hostility for preaching the gospel. And yet he still taught us to dwell on and think about what is uplifting. I think in our hardest times is when it's actually most important to choose to 4-8, to focus on and think about and dwell on what is true and worthy of praise.

I was curious about the timing of when I was given that first gratitude journal. I pulled it out this week to see. I got that journal on March 15th, 1998, along with the challenge to write down one thing each day to be happy about.

And this invitation came at a time in my life when I was facing some real challenges. Just three months before that, my family had gotten in a car accident and my 17-year-old sister Lindsay was killed and my mom broke her neck. This was a time of pain and heartache and fear and uncertainty and doubt and tragedy and loss and loneliness.

That's when I needed to 4-8 more than ever before. I went back and read the entries in that journal this week. It started on March 15th and there were simple things like writing a poem with my friend, taking a nap, eating fettuccine for dinner, going to a choir concert, listening to a John Bytheway talk, or having a deep conversation with a friend.

I wrote down the names of people that I'd had fun with or who had said nice things to me. I wrote down silly inside jokes I made with my friends. I wrote down really simple, not earth-shattering things.

And as I looked back on those entries this week, it was very clear to me that choosing to 4-8 didn't take my problems away, didn't take away the struggle, didn't take away the challenge, didn't take away the pain, and yet it helped me to find God in my life during that time. And I'm thankful for that youth leader who gave me that journal. And I'm thankful to myself for taking on the challenge and choosing to write down a few things each day that it brought me joy.

So 4-8-ing isn't about having a perfect life. It's not about pretending that hard things don't happen. It's not about magically evaporating challenges into thin air by thinking positive.

But it is about choosing where to focus. The Where's Waldo page of your life is going to be filled with really hard things, things that are challenging, things that are unjust. There will be stuff in your life that's unfair, that's impure, and that's worthy of criticism.

But what will you choose to look for? What will you choose to focus on? I want to invite you to 4-8 your mate, 4-8 your home, 4-8 your body, 4-8 your kids, 4-8 your life. And as you scan through the mess and the chaos of your Where's Waldo page and really truly look for what is beautiful and good, I believe that you will find it. If you try this, if you're already doing it, if you're struggling to do it, send me a message on Instagram @EmilyRicksCoaching and tell me about your experiences.

I'd love to hear from you. Thanks for joining me today.