How to Get Unstuck From Negative Self-Talk
As a child, you were probably taught to watch what you say. After all, the power of life and death can be found in the tongue. That’s right. To a HUGE extent, what you say out loud or what you say in your head as negative self-talk has a HUGE impact on everything from your mental and physical health, to your financial status, the quality of your relationships, the amount of success you achieve in your work, and everything else.
As I tell my audiences and coaching clients:
- What you speak about, you tend to bring about.
For example, if you keep saying you can’t stand your job, you have a better chance of losing your job.
If you keep saying you can’t stand your body, your body is more likely to get sick.
If you keep saying you’re always broke, guess what? You’ll always be broke.
If you keep saying you can’t trust a man or trust a woman, you will always find someone in your life to hurt and betray you.
If you keep saying you can’t find a job, you will remain unemployed.
If you keep saying you can’t find someone to love you or believe in you, your very thoughts will attract more experiences to confirm your beliefs.
When I learned the power of my negative words and when I learned how to turn that around, my whole life, all my relationships and my career all changed for the better. And for that I will be forever grateful.
Or follow up any negative thought with a command that says, “Cancel. Cancel.” With repetition, you neutralize the negative thoughts and reset your autopilot, at least for the moment.
►2. Reject your Mind Binders
Avoid the use of such words as “can’t.” As industrialist Henry Ford (1863–1947) put it,
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
Eliminate the word “impossible” from your vocabulary. One of my students helped me do that when she gave me a poster that read, “An impossibility is nothing more than a big idea striking a small mind.” And the business books and the sports pages are filled with stories of people who did the impossible because they refused to speak the word “impossible.”
►3. Reprimand your Mind Binders
This will sound silly, but it works. Keep a rubber band on one of your wrists, and whenever you think a negative thought or utter a negative comment, snap the rubber band.
Sure, it will hurt a little, but it’s a simple way to remind your mind and your mouth to stop using that negative self-talk.
►4. Replace your Mind Binders
For example, if you find yourself thinking something like, “I’ll never be able to handle those difficult coworkers,” replace that with a more constructive thought. Tell yourself something like “I can take a seminar on dealing with difficult people, and I can improve my skills when I’m talking to them.”
Instead of saying, “I’ll never amount to anything,” replace it with a comment such as, “I’m getting better and better.”
Your self-talk is not some innocent, innocuous bystander in your life. As I said earlier, what you think and speak about you tend to bring about. As American author and artist Florence Shinn (1871–1940) wrote,
“The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds, and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy.”
Bottom Line: You will never rise about your own self-talk. It’s time to learn how to stop the negative self-talk and replace it with positive self-talk.
Dr. Zimmerman’s Tuesday Tip, Issue: 1278- How to Get Unstuck From Negative Self-Talk
For a copy of Dr. Zimmerman’s latest book, The Champion Edge: Skill Sets That Fire Up Your Business and Life, go to https://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/the-champion-edge-skill-sets-that-fire-up-your-business-and-life/
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