The Mindset Junkie: The importance of self-talk

Admit it, you talk to yourself, don’t you?

Of course you do, but do you even realise it or what it is you are even saying to yourself? I bet that you don’t, because for such a long time I didn’t either.

I hadn’t a clue what nonsense I told myself every single day of my life, not until I needed to listen.

We all speak to ourselves, that’s a fact but what is important is how we speak to ourselves.

I want to share a story of a client I had in my office one day. This woman had come to see me for advice. She was fed up like most people looking for my help as a coach. She didn’t like how she looked and she didn’t like how she felt about herself either.

“Have you ever used positive affirmations?”, I asked her. “No. What are they?”, she replied.

“They are positive words, statements that you repeat to yourself over and over like a mantra. For example: • I am strong; • I am positive; • I am beautiful; • I am successful.”

“No way!” she said, laughing. “I would never talk to myself like that.”

“Why not?” I said. “No chance,” she replied, “I just couldn’t!”

I replied, “OK, that’s fine, but hear me out. Why do you accept telling yourself this: • I am not good enough: • I don’t like how I look; • I am not confident; • I am unhappy; • I am not in shape.

• I am overweight, etc.

“You do this on a daily basis and have done for years and you accept it, so why would you not tell yourself a different story?”

She replied, “I've never seen it like that before or heard it put like that before, I do say all those things to myself constantly.”

This is just one example of how and why self-talk is important, and just like habits or anything else you do need to be aware of it.

“He speaks in secret and it comes to pass, environment is but our looking glass.” (James Allen). What does that little quote mean to you?

What we repeat to ourselves in secret, we eventually become. The constant repetition of self-talk is what we are shaping our lives around, so would it not be wise to at least be aware of how we speak to ourselves so that we can change it and have a different outcome?

If the things you have up until now aren’t how you want it to be, then something has to change. That something is us, and how we view and speak to ourselves at a deeper internal level.

We can’t wait or expect things to change for us, we need to change We first need to change how we speak to ourselves and view ourselves.

When I first became aware of this concept years ago, it woke me up massively, and I'm still doing the work daily to keep reinforcing my own self-talk to create more changes in my life.

My life completely changed all within a space of a few years when I grasped a few different concepts, the big one being how I was thinking and speaking to myself.

Things in business and life just seemed to really happen for me. When I started to change, it all flowed more easily and the things I wanted started happening. I was doing something different on a deeper level and I was acting accordingly.

With work and action, of course, but they become clear when you do. What we repeat to ourselves sometimes we wouldn’t dream of saying to our worst enemy, but we live and accept that inner dialogue for ourselves every single day.

Stop that right now. Start by telling yourself a different story. Talk to yourself like the person you want to become, the person you should love and respect.

I constantly repeated my affirmations every single day and still do usually in the car on my way to my gym every morning.

• I am strong; • I am confident; • I am an advancing man; • I am attracting all good things into my life; • I am happy; • I am healthy; • I am grateful for everything I have in my life.

I’d repeat these affirmations and others over and over again.

You have the chance and the ability to change that inner voice. I needed to change mine so I did.

I never had confidence in myself but I wanted it and I wanted everything else too, so if someone told me to chant like a monk to myself for a few hours a day and it would change things in my life, I was in!

Tips for positive affirmations

An affirmation is something that you reaffirm to yourself, how you want to feel or who you want to become. So become clear on what it is you want to feel or who you would like to be. It may be: • I am a great mother; • I am a great father; • I am happy, and healthy and full of love; • I am at peace; • I am a money magnet; • I am a successful entrepreneur.

These will be special to you. A good way to remember them daily is to put them somewhere visible that you will see them daily, on your fridge, in your car, beside your car keys, etc.

Like everything else, be consistent!

Do them each morning and evening, repeat over and over again.

What we are doing is we are changing that larger negative inner voice that doesn’t serve us anymore into the more positive person you want to become. With affirmations, it’s important to believe it, feel the emotions of how it would feel to now be that person.

See that person in your mind's eye, visualise it and then go about acting like that person every single day whether you are there in life or not just yet.

The key thing is you’ll start to believe it, then small things will really start to change for you as the daily habits and action steps you take will move you closer each day to become that person.

You will begin to raise your standards and how you value yourself and what you once accepted before will change, as you will change, and no longer be that person.

I can’t stress enough though about the repetition and consistency of these simple but effective steps.

Bombard that mind of yours with the things you want, not with what you don’t want.

Sometimes you might ask, “What is the point?” I’d say, “What is the point in not doing them, if you don’t speak how you should speak to yourself anyway?”

Trust the process. Tips for them to be more effective would be to do them last thing at night before you fall asleep and very early morning. Your sub-conscious mind is more primed for it then.