We all have self-talk. Self-talk is an inner dialog we have with ourself. We are doing something in the world and we are conversing with ourself on the inside about how we’re doing. In this self-talk we can even sometimes hear phrases spoken to us by our parents, teachers, or other significant mentors.
Sabotaging Talk
Depending on our upbringing, this self-talk can be very destructive. We can be doing something less than perfect and we’re hearing our father’s voice saying, for example, “You idiot! Why can’t you do anything right!?”
An article from psychology today, talks about how such negative talk can make you question yourself so much that you become paralyzed with doubt and uncertainty. In my experience, negative self-talk makes me stop in my tracks. I lose self confidence, I’m constantly in judgement of myself, and my self-view decreases.
Negative self-talk is even worse than this. When we have negative self-talk, we start to look for evidence to support our negative internal self-view. And we find it. We point out all the times where our negative self-talk is justified, and we gloss over all the times when the evidence contradicts this negative self-view. We give strength to our inner negative narrative.
It’s near impossible to be highly successful while having a lot of negative self-talk. We don’t put in a full confident effort. Instead we put in a half effort constantly questioning if we’re doing OK. We don’t try new things which would help increase our success. We shy away from doing anything that might elicit a negative comment either internal or external.
Supporting Talk
Having a positive self-talk, however, can be very helpful. When your inner dialog is filled with, “Way to go! You’re doing awesome! You’re good at this.” You start to look for evidence to support this. And you find it. Your positive self-talk produces more success, which in turn creates more positive self-talk. It’s a reinforcing cycle.
With positive self-talk we are more likely to take risks and try to new things. We go into new situations with self-confidence that we’ll do fine.
This powerfully illustrates the need for self affirmations. We need to replace our negative self-talk with positive messages, and even if our self-talk is mostly good, it still helps to reinforce our positive inner dialog.
Talk for Others
If you are leading anyone else, for example, you are a parent, teacher, boss, or other leader, the talk around and about people is so important. When the talk to and about your people is primarily negative, it doesn’t spur them on to better behavior and better results. It in fact, makes it worse.
In the realm of carrots and sticks, sticks don’t work as a long term method to get the behavior you want. Instead catch them doing something good and praise and reward that. Give your people a huge inventory of positive messages that they can internalize to help them succeed to even higher levels. Even good animal trainers know to use rewards rather than punishments to get the animal to behave.
What are you speaking to yourself? Are you speaking value and belief in yourself? What are you speaking into the lives of the people you’re leading, training, and upbringing? Are you expressing value and belief in them, or are you reinforcing negative self-talk?
