This week I wanted to talk about the words we use and how words, especially self-talk, affects how we come across to others and feel about the world.
Isn’t it true that as humans we often beat ourselves up verbally? We might make a mistake, and all we can do is to keep playing that mistake over and over again.
Negative self-talk like this is very harmful and detrimental to our health and wellbeing.
Purposeful and planned self-reflection or self-appraisal is a helpful and productive thing to help keep the negative self-talk at bay, as this is self-sabotage and self-destructive.
Trying to stop negative self-talk may feel impossible, however, with the right strategies in place we can turn this around and flip it on its head and start focusing on the positive self-talk.
Here are some tips to follow:
- Reframing – Changing our habits, playing a new record with different words is the way to go; changing habits is hard but can be done particularly when there are far more positives with positive self-talk than negative self-talk
- Value – Valuing ourselves more and giving ourselves credit for what we’ve done well, rather than beating ourselves up is such a positive tonic which brings about motivation and stamina to try again
- Mirror – I will often say to clients that putting the mirror in front of them and telling themselves what they would tell others is a great practical exercise to try and get the brain to change the downward spin to an upward spin that’s more positive and constructive
- Honesty – Being honest with ourselves and others helps. When asked how we are we often hear ourselves saying that we’re fine when we’re not. Maybe pride sits in the way, maybe it’s not admitting what’s true, either way it isn’t helpful, and often sharing something can open doors for great support and conversations
- Changing – Choosing the lens in which we see the world through can be a literal eye-opener. Whilst we’re seeing only dark negative things with failure written all over them, another lens is showing light, colour, positivity, we just need to choose which lens to look through
- Mindfulness – The thoughts we plant in our mind seep deep and perception becomes reality. Feeding ourselves with positive thoughts can be very therapeutic and cathartic – being mindful we are what we eat and what we think, so feed yourself the best positive tonic ever
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To find out more email Debs on: debs@successfactor.co.nz
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