Let’s talk about the dreaded “N” word. If you are alive and breathing, you’ve done it before or you are doing do it now. We live in a social media world. It makes it so easy for us to play the comparison game. The aftermath of comparison usual leads to negative self talk. We ask ourselves why we don’t have this or that, why’s we suck at this and can’t do that, the list goes on. There are many different reasons of why we do negative self talk. We honestly have to take a look at our past to pinpoint where we went wrong and why. My negative self talk dates back to elementary school and getting picked on. I carried different traumas throughout my life and it made me a bit insecure in different areas of my life. Negative self talk became a norm in my life early on. Only recently in my adult life am I finally taking charge to unlearn habits I’ve held onto my whole life. So how do we move past negative self talk and change it to positive self talk? Let’s talk about it…
PINPOINT YOUR WHY
In order for us to change negative self talk, we first need to figure out why it is we are doing it in the first place. Take yourself back. Pinpoint what negative things you are saying to yourself now. Now ask yourself what is it that made you feel the way you are feeling. Does it date farther back that what you’ve discovered? Put yourself on the couch and give yourself a real therapy session. It just might take you back to childhood. Don’t rush this step, it’s very important.
REPLACE YOUR STRUGGLES WITH SOLUTIONS
Once you’ve pinpointed your whys, it’s time to replace your myths with facts. For example, if I’m telling myself I’ll never be good at public speaking because I’m too shy, I’ll replace that myth with, “I’ll be good at public speaking because I’m going to practice it until I’m comfortable. I’ll take public speaking classes to learn the best ways to go about it.” Every problem has a solution, even if we can’t quite see what those solutions may be right off. If you don’t battle your struggles with solutions, you’ll remain stuck and negative self talk will consume you until you face it. Don’t stress yourself out like that, start to move through this step until you find the solutions you seek.
BATTLE NEGATIVE TO POSITIVE
Combat your negative self talk with positive self talk. For example, if I said, “I hate the way I dress, I wish I looked more like her”, I would contrast that with “I like the way she looks when she dresses, it’s time for me to boss up, go shopping, and level up my wardrobe. I’ll start my closet clean out tonight.” It really helps when you get really specific on what your plan to do and when. The goal is to ultimately minimize our self talk until it becomes a thing of the past. Of course we won’t be able to completely eliminate it, we are human, but we can at least do better with how we talk to ourselves.