Let's talk about the voice in your head!

Self-talk, What is it?

• The internal narrative you hold about yourself.
• Our self-talk can have a much bigger influence on the way we see ourselves, and the world around us.
• A mix of conscious and unconscious beliefs and biases that we hold about ourselves and the world generally.
• Self-talk can be positive or negative.

Negative Self-Talk

• Focus on preconceived ideas that we’re ‘not good enough’ or ‘always a failure’ or ‘can’t do anything right’.
• Our brains are hardwired to remember negative experiences over positive ones.
  • We recall the times we didn’t quite get it right more than the times we do.
  • Replay these messages in our minds, fueling negative feelings.
• Negative self-talk tends to fall into one of four categories:
  • Personalizing – Meaning you blame yourself when things go wrong.
  • Polarizing – Meaning you see things only as good or bad, with no gray areas or room for middle ground.
  • Magnifying – Meaning you only focus on the bad or negative in every scenario and dismiss anything good or positive.
  • Catastrophic – Meaning you always expect the worst.

Positive Self-Talk

• It’s not about narcissism, or deceiving ourselves into thinking things that are inaccurate.
• It’s more about showing yourself some self-compassion and understanding for who you are and what you’ve been through.
• Positive self-talk sees our internal narrative switching to ideas like ‘I can do better next time’ or ‘I choose to learn from my mistakes, not be held back by them’.

What Does the Research Say?

• From sports professionals to losing weight, to combating depression: changing the way you talk to yourself can have a proactive roll-on effect in behavior changes.

10 Examples of Positive Self-Talk Statements and Phrases

1. I have the power to change my mind.
2. Attempting to do this took courage and I am proud of myself for trying.
3. Even though it wasn’t the outcome I hoped for, I learned a lot about myself.
4. I might still have a way to go, but I am proud of how far I have already come.
5. I am capable and strong, I can get through this.
6. Tomorrow is a chance to try again, with the lessons learned from today.
7. I will give it my all to make this work.
8. I can’t control what other people think, say, or do. I can only control myself.
9. This is an opportunity for me to try something new.
10. I can learn from this situation and grow as a person.

From negative to positive self-talk

• Identifying Self-Talk Traps
• Utilize Positive Affirmations
• Check-In With Your Emotions Regularly
• Don’t Be Afraid to Create Boundaries

[ The following is the full transcript from this week's post. This is a health blog with a focus on weight loss. Please consider that all episodes are unscripted, direct to camera, with focused talking points. ]

Today, I want to talk to you about something called self-talk and how that impacts our lives.

I want to go over a few things with you, and hopefully, this will help you reach your ideal performance.

So, first off, what is self-talk?

Well, in our minds, we have this dialog that is constantly running. We are kind of just talking to ourselves. And that has a huge impact on our behavior. And we do not realize how much of an impact it does.

But the reality is that the internal monolog in our mind is really affecting a lot of things in our life.

The good news is we can actually impact that, to help us really reach our full potential.

Self-talk can be positive, or it can be negative. Unfortunately, often people's self-talk, the internal dialog, is a negative one. And that's kind of focusing on the negative things in life, such as blaming yourself when things go wrong. Or simply thinking “I can't do it.” These thoughts have an impact on your behavior.

And one of the challenges is often, as we are having this negative self-talk, we actually do it more and more, which really adds fuel to the fire.

Unfortunately, our brain is somewhat kind of hard-wired to focus on that negative, it is kind of a protective mechanism.

And when we have this self-talk that is negative, it is one of four categories:

We personalize it. We blame ourselves for everything that goes wrong.

The self-talk may be polarizing, meaning that either good or bad right or wrong. There is no great. There is nothing in between and it is telling us it is either yes or no and often that is not the case.

It also can be magnifying meaning that maybe there is just a little bit of negativity in whatever outcome or whatever we are behavior or display and that self-talk magnifies that and we really kind of blown out of proportion of what it is.

And then it can also be catastrophic. Meaning that self-talk is kind of telling you the worst thing that is going to happen, and it is always focused on negative content.

Like I said, unfortunately, negative self-talk is something we are all very much doing. We may not be consciously aware of it, but it is something that is going on.

One of the things we can do is switch that negative self-talk into positive self-talk. And what that really means is, it is not about lying to yourself or making yourself try to believe inaccurate things.

It is just showing compassion to yourself.

What I mean by that is statements like, “I could do better next time.” Or “I choose to learn from my mistakes, not be held hostage by them.”

So, it is a matter of taking that talk, because it is going on in all our heads, and turning it into kind of a compassionate statement, to allow ourselves to continue to grow.

Is there any evidence to support this?

And the actuality is there has been tons of research on this. From people that suffer from anxiety and eating disorders to the performance of professional athletes.

And they have found that that internal dialog has a huge impact on your behavior, which then also has an impact on outcomes.

It is important that we understand the self-talk that is going on, and how can we use it. Both, to minimize the hardships were experiencing, but also to maximize the benefit. And that is the transition, from negative to positive self-talk.

A couple of things on some general, positive self-talk statement would be phrases such as:

“I have the power to change my mind.” That is something you can simply tell yourself.

“Attempting to do this took courage, and I am proud of myself for trying.”

“Even though the results that I obtained was not what I hoped for, I did learn a lot about myself.”

These are just some examples of that self-talk.

Today is not intended to give you a list of things to say. It is intended to help give you tools to continue your journey to health and wellness and to realize the impact your self-talk is having on you.

So, there is the positive self-talk, related to what it is we are doing, and we may not have negative self-talk yet.

So, we can start with positive, that is great. But often, we've already kind of got a negative story, or negative dialog running in our head.

Is there a way we can transition from that negative self-talk to positive self-talk?

There is kind of a couple of things you can do. First, identify the self-talk trap, and that is having an awareness of this dialog that is going on in your head.

And there are often situations we get put in that are going to inherently lead us down that path of negative self-talk.

For example, if you are an introvert, and you must go to a social event or something when there is a lot of people around, you may inherently start to have that negative self-talk and that's one of those self-talk traps.

That is when you need a pause and put positive thoughts in your head.

So, looking for the self-talk traps is one thing, the next is to utilize positive affirmations.

I am a big believer in affirmations, I use them myself. That is my mindset is now, I know I am going to encounter difficulties during the day. That is part of life, so let us try to start off right.

So, first thing in the morning, when I get up, I practice these positive affirmations. For lack of better words, I pump myself up, I say that I got this, I can handle this.

As you use affirmations you begin to get more into the right mindset. But also, that it becomes tools you can draw on.

In the midst of a difficult situation that you can then use those kinds of little statements to help kind of re-affirm and get you to transition into positive self-talk.

The next thing that can help, is just checking in with your emotions.

When you find yourself in an emotional state, take a moment to just pause and analyze those emotions and analyze where is this emotion coming from and kind of dissect it, if you will.

And, and you will learn that when you check in with your emotions, often you can influence those emotions.

When we feel like we are having that emotional response. We deem it as not something we can control. And the reality is, it is something we can control, but it does take practice.

Checking in will give you those tools to transition from negative self-talk to positive self-talk.

Finally, do not be afraid to create boundaries.

The reality of it is, as we all have people in our lives, that tends to kind of bring the bad out in us.

And if you have those people in your life that, whenever you around, you are really in this negative self-talk state. It is probably time to minimize their impact on your life. And one of those things might be removing them from your life, unfortunately.

But the reality is, we want you to be the best you that you can be, and self-talk plays a huge impact on that.

The people you surround yourself with can be either uplifting and positive or help bring you down.

It is important that you set those boundaries, and really try to surround yourself with the right environment. So that you can truly reach your full potential.

We all have this dialog that is going on in our heads, and it is important to have an awareness of that. Because a lot of this is the kind of the subconscious or unawareness level.

And as we can bring that up into awareness then we can impact more. Both in the context of removing those negative thoughts, but also substituting positive thoughts that allow us to continue and grow.

I hope you find this helpful, and we look forward to talking with you on a future date.

Thanks,

Kelly Cox MD, FACEP

Member, American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine