What is Self Talk Anyway?

Self talk is your inner voice, the one that says things you don’t often say out loud. It runs constantly in the background of your mind, often without you even realizing it. It’s important to pay attention to, and learn how to control, because what you say in your mind can determine a lot of how you feel about who you are.

Self talk is an important part of your self-esteem and confidence. More positive self-talk leads to you being more likely to get things done and feel more in control of the things going on in your life.

So What Does Self Talk Have To Do With a Healthy Lifestyle?

Whether your self talk is position or negative, can drive the amount of effort you put into leading a healthy lifestyle. Negative self talk like “I don’t have time to exercise.” or “Healthy eating is boring and tastes bad.” can set you up for failure. On the other hand, positive self talk can lead to dramatic success. In fact, recent studies show that just thinking about and visualizing yourself strength training, led to strength increases of up to 53%!! Without ever touching a weight!!!

That’s how powerful our thoughts can be, especially recurring thoughts, like self-talk.

Stress can really take a toll on the healthy lifestyle you are trying to build for yourself.

3 Tips to Drive a More Positive Self Talk:

• Practise makes perfect.
  To make self talk more automatic, start with manually changing your thought process. Spend 2 minutes every day thinking about what accomplishment you’re most proud of. Write it down in a journal, so that you have a place you can go back to and review when you need that extra reinforcement for yourself.
• Recognize and discipline self-criticism.
  If you catch yourself thinking, “I suck at this.” or “I’m never going to figure this out.” or “I can’t do this”, discipline those thoughts. Try taking away a few minutes of your social media or TV time that evening as a punishment for these thoughts. Heck, by doing this, you may all of a sudden, have some extra time to spend with a loved one or to spend exercising!
• Enforce positive thinking whenever possible.
  Make positive thinking a part of each day. Have your favourite positive quote posted at your bedside table, or at your desk so you can’t miss it. We live in an time when we are signing in with our various passwords more than we sign our names. Set your passwords to a couple of different inspirational words to drive positive thoughts throughout the day.

To Sum it Up…

Self talk is important to control because “We ARE our thoughts.”. If you have problems with thinking positively, try practicing positive self talk and disciplining negative self talk. If you consciously surround yourself with positive thoughts, your automatic thinking will change over time. Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below. I would love to hear from you.