Believe it or not, what we tell ourselves day in and day out is eventually what we believe.
We use our beliefs to assess, judge and act on every situation, event and circumstance in our life. From new friends, jobs, happiness, success, our self talk has already decided how we feel and how worthy we believe we are.
Most of the time however, these thoughts are so automatic and engrained that we don’t even recognise how faulty they may be or how limiting they are.
For example, what’s the first thing you say to yourself when you see a luxury car:
Do you say,
- Oh I’ll never have that
- They must work really hard
- I don’t deserve that
- Everyone else can get that but I can’t
I’m the first to admit that in the past when I’ve seen a luxury car, I’ve said at least one of these things.
So how do you change your self talk so it’s more positive driven and more in line with what you really believe and deserve?
Here’s 5 ways;
- Become aware of your thoughts— start listening to what you’re saying to yourself in every situation. You have to recognise what you’re saying in order to turn it around.
- Challenge your thoughts – When you hear yourself saying something negative, catch it, and counter it with a truth or positive statement about yourself.
For example – You’re meeting a new friend (Self Talk – She probably wont like me , counter it with, I’m a great person to be around)
- Write down your thoughts. This way you’ll begin to see a pattern in your thinking and you can better assess and address the areas in your life where your self talk isn’t so good
- Do some research. Self-talk is a really challenging habit to change. So google some helpful hints and strategies you can use to keep you on track and either write them down or bookmark the page so you can refer to it again.
- PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE… like anything worthwhile we need to practice it until your positive self talk becomes the new habit.
Commit to change. If you start becoming aware of your self talk in one area, you’ll soon start crossing over to all the other areas of your life and recognise more destructive or limiting beliefs you tell yourself and you’ll be surprised at just how negative or unhelpful these thoughts are in your life.