THE POWER OF SELF TALK
What is self-talk?
All of us have a continuous dialogue going on in our head as long as we are awake, or an internal soundtrack. It can range from the banal (“here is the butter”) to very emotionally charged (“I’m going to be fired!). We often find our mood changing depending on our external environment. But we rarely pay attention to the internal environment which can largely be governed by our internal dialogue. Experts realised how we talk to ourselves can change our mood, our confidence, our approach to a given task and also the work outcome.
How can self-talk affect us?
Imagine a person who constantly maintains a negative train of thought (this is too difficult/boring, I’ll never be able to do this, I’m a failure etc.) versus someone who tries to keep his thoughts more positive (I’m going to try my best, I might enjoy this, I keep getting better with time). There will be a distinct difference between their self-esteem, personalities and quality of life. People who have more negative self-talk are known to have higher body image issues, poor sexual confidence and poor quality of relationships with others. They also have difficulty handling chronic pain and other medical conditions. People suffering from depression or anxiety have a high degree of negative self-talk.
Hacks to improve self-talk
The most popular maxim in self-talk is ‘would you talk to your friend the way you talk to yourself?’. If the answer is no, chances are you have more negative self-talk and as a result end up being unkind to yourself. While an inner critic is sometimes essential, it needs to be brought out only selectively. So, what can be done to reduce negative self-talk and increase positive self-talk?
- The first step is to identify when our self-talk is turning negative. Only when we start clocking the negative talk, we will be able to understand how much of it we do and how frequently we do it.
- Challenge those thoughts! Think if what the negative voice is saying is really true or rational. Many times, especially under duress, our brain attaches unnecessary importance to outcomes that are very unlikely making them seem imminent and creating a sense of unnecessary panic or doom. Learn to recognize the irrationality of certain possibilities before being bogged down by them.
- Stop the negative talk! This can be done by various thought stopping techniques. One is to imagine a visual like a stop sign or a policeman blowing a whistle to break the train of thought.
- Research on top sports persons has revealed the power of positive self-talk which is a big part of sports psychology. One technique is to ELIMINATE ‘DON’T/CAN’T’ talk and only speak to yourself about what has to be done. Instead of saying “don’t mess up/you can’t do it” tell yourself “Go for it!/you can do it”.
- Thinking of yourself in third person gives yourself emotional distance from the situation and helps you deal with it better.
Harnessing the power of self-talk has big pay-offs. In words of Oprah Winfrey, ‘you don’t become what you want, you become what you believe’!
