Self-talk is the act of talking to yourself either aloud or mentally. These are the messages that you are telling yourself all day long about yourself. Are your messages to yourself positive and uplifting, or are you constantly beating yourself down? Would you want to be around a friend who constantly says negative and derogatory things about you all day long? Of course not, so don’t do it to yourself.
Self-talk is so important, as these are the messages that determine whether you should keep trying or not
The messages you tell yourself will encourage and motivate you, or they will limit you because they are negative. For example, if you go to a work party and make a joke in front of 10 colleagues and no one really laughs, just a few chuckles from those being nice, what do you tell yourself after the party?
Do you drive home thinking “I should have just kept my mouth shut, now they think I am an idiot,” or do you tell yourself “No big deal, at least I put myself out there and tried.”
Version two of self-talk allows you to give yourself a pass to try again. To just be human and interact with others because we cannot all be on spot with humor and social interactions 100% of the time, but it is worth the effort to at least try. Self-talk is so important, as these are the messages that determine whether you should keep trying or not. The messages you send yourself can either help you succeed or they can hold you back and keep you paralyzed in fear.
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Here are 5 tips to help you provide yourself with good, positive self-talk in everyday life
1. Replace Negative Thoughts with Positive
Negative thoughts happen. It’s hard to provide yourself with positive thoughts all the time. However, you can start replacing negative thoughts with the positive. There is always a flip side or upside to any situation. It’s up to you to start finding the positive in order to begin changing your negatives into positives.
For example, if you sign up for a half-marathon race and make it to mile ten and then get a leg cramp so bad that you are unable to finish, you may mentally call yourself a quitter or consider the situation a failure. You can turn those thoughts around by telling yourself that at least you tried and you made it all the way to mile ten.
Remind yourself how you pushed through some tough hills on the course and you stayed committed to all the training that got you to be able to run in the race. Be positive when negative thoughts creep into your mind. Doing so will help you find the motivation to try again in the future. If you concentrate on the negative, you are mentally holding yourself back from trying again.
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2. Have a Purpose Higher than Self
Having faith in a higher power, along with involvement in a religious community, helps individuals have higher self-esteem. Self-esteem and self-talk go hand in hand.
Having a strong faith in a higher power is helpful in having positive self-talk. Research shows that teens who had “regular religious service attendance, a high subjective importance of faith and years spent in religious youth groups are associated with higher self-esteem and more positive self-attitudes.”
Having faith in a higher power, along with involvement in a religious community, helps individuals have higher self-esteem. Self-esteem and self-talk go hand in hand.
3. Cut Overly Negative People out of Your Life
Don’t spend time off work with negative co-workers. Don’t hang with negative co-workers in the break room. Keep the negativity to a minimum in your life by limiting your time with negative people.
Everyone can have a down day and be negative or moody. However, some people seem to have down days every day of their life. If you have some of these people in your life it may be time to distance yourself from them. Attitudes of the people you are around will have an effect on your own attitude.
If someone has a negative attitude they are likely to bring down those around them, especially if their negativity is pervasive over time and across a variety of situations. It is hard to cut family or co-workers out of your life; however, you can limit your time and exposure to these people.
4. Be Grateful
A great way to find the positive in your life and create positive self-talk is to recognize the things in your life for which you can be grateful. A study in Psychology Today showed that “young adults assigned to keep gratitude journals showed greater increases in determination, attention, enthusiasm and energy compared to the other groups.” Finding things you are grateful for in life on a daily basis helps to improve your attitude, which will help you have better, more positive self-talk.
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5. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
When you are constantly comparing yourself to what others have and what you don’t have, you can easily get down on yourself. It is easy to become negative about your life if you are playing the comparison game.
Instead, find gratitude in what you do have, rather than concentrating on what you don’t have. You can always find others who are better off than you or worse off than you. If is more important to concentrate on yourself and on being grateful for your own life and not making any comparisons.
This piece was first published in Life Hack.