15 Ways to Practice Positive Self-Talk for Success
Self-talk
is the act of talking to yourself either aloud or mentally. These are the
messages that you are telling yourself all day long about yourself.
The
messages you tell yourself will encourage and motivate you, or they will limit
you because they are negative.
For
example, if you go to a work party and make a joke in front of 10 colleagues
and no one really laughs, just a few chuckles from those being nice, what do
you tell yourself after the party? Do you drive home thinking “I should have
just kept my mouth shut, now they think I am an idiot,” or do you tell yourself
“No big deal, at least I put myself out there and tried.”
Version
one of self-talk will make you question yourself at your next social event. You
may even hold yourself back from saying too much out of fear of embarrassment
or making yourself feel bad. Worse yet, you may develop an aversion to social
situations because you make yourself feel insecure about your interactions with
others because of your self-talk.
Version
two of self-talk allows you to give yourself a pass to try again. To just be
human and interact with others because we cannot all be on spot with humor and
social interactions 100% of the time, but it is worth the effort to at least
try.
Self-talk
is so important as these are the messages that determine whether you should
keep trying or not. The messages you send yourself can either help you succeed
or they can hold you back and keep you paralyzed in fear.
Here are
15 tips to help you provide yourself with good, positive self talk for success:
1. Replace negative thoughts with
positive
Negative
thoughts happen. It’s hard to provide yourself with positive thoughts all the
time.
However,
you can start replacing negative thoughts with the positive. There is always a
flip side or upside to any situation. It’s up to you to start finding the
positive in order to begin changing your negatives into positives.
For
example, if you sign up for a half-marathon race and make it to mile ten and
then get a leg cramp so bad that you are unable to finish, you may mentally
call yourself a quitter or consider the situation a failure.
You can
turn those thoughts around by telling yourself that at least you tried and you
made it all the way to mile ten. Remind yourself how you pushed through some
tough hills on the course and you stayed committed to all the training that got
you to be able to run in the race.
Be
positive when negative thoughts creep into your mind. Doing so will help you
find the motivation to try again in the future.
If you
concentrate on the negative, you are mentally holding yourself back from trying
again.
2. Have a purpose higher than
self
Having a
strong faith in a higher power is helpful in having positive self-talk. Research shows
that teens who had “regular religious service attendance, high subjective
importance of faith and years spent in religious youth groups are associated
with higher self-esteem and more positive self-attitudes.”[1]
Having
faith in a higher power, along with involvement in a religious community, helps
individuals have higher self-esteem. Self-esteem and self-talk go hand in hand.
3. Cut overly negative people out
of your life
Everyone
can have a down day and be negative or moody. However, some people seem to have
down days every day of their life. If you have some of these people in
your life, it may be time to distance yourself from them.
Attitudes
of the people you are around will have an effect on your own attitude. If
someone has a negative attitude they are likely to bring down those around
them, especially if their negativity is pervasive over time and across a
variety of situations.
It is
hard to cut family or co-workers out of your life; however, you can limit your
time and exposure to these people. Don’t spend time off work with negative
co-workers. Don’t hang with negative co-workers in the break room.
Keep the
negativity to a minimum in your life by limiting your time with negative
people..
4. Be grateful
A great
way to find the positive in your life and create positive self-talk is to
recognize the things in your life for which you can be grateful. A study
in Psychology Today showed that:[2]
“Young
adults assigned to keep gratitude journals showed greater increases in
determination, attention, enthusiasm and energy compared to the other groups.”
Finding
things you are grateful for in life on a daily basis helps to improve your
attitude, which will help you have better, more positive self-talk..
5. Don’t compare yourself to
others
When you
are constantly comparing yourself to what others have and what you don’t have,
you can easily get down on yourself.
It is
easy to become negative about your life if you are playing the comparison game.
Instead, find gratitude in what you do have, rather than concentrating on what
you don’t have.
You can
always find others who are better off than you or worse off than you. It’s more
important to concentrate on yourself and on being grateful for your own life
and not making any comparisons.
6. Use positive words with others
If we are
negative with our words with others, then we are more than likely to be
negative in our mind about ourselves as well.
Having
negative thoughts leads to negative self-talk. If you are in a negativity rut,
then stop now.
Start
speaking life and affirmation to the people in your life that you love,
including yourself. Doing so will help improve the attitude in your heart.
Positivity
breeds positivity, and negativity breeds negativity. Choose the positive for
yourself and others.
7. Believe in your success
Believe
in your ability to succeed. Believe in the abilities and skills that you have,
so that you can propel yourself toward success.
Doubting
yourself holds you back from trying and thus holds you back from succeeding.
Believe you can succeed, even if it takes multiple tries.
8. Don’t fear failure
Don’t
fear failure as it is often the road to success. Some of the greatest success
stories in life are of people who failed multiple times before becoming
successful. If they had given up the first time after failing, then they never
would have become hugely successful.
Fear of
failure holds back many people from ever even trying to succeed. They remain in
their status quo in life because they live in fear of failure.
If Milton
Hersey had given up after his first three candy companies failed, he wouldn’t
have gone on to create the world-famous Hershey’s candy company. He is just one
example of someone who failed many times before finally succeeding:
Don’t
allow fear to hold you back from trying. Tell yourself you can keep trying if
you do fail!
9. Post positive affirmations
A great
way to provide positive self-talk to yourself is to write it down.
Have positive mantras, scriptures, and affirmations written and posted
for you to view throughout your day. Post them on your refrigerator, your
bathroom mirror, next to your computer screen, or wherever you can see them
often on a daily basis.
Having
positive messages around you helps to shape positive self-talk in your mind.
10. Don’t dwell in the past
Don’t be
too hard on yourself. Everyone has a past. Everyone has bad things in their
past. Don’t concentrate on these failures, mistakes, or negative things that
have happened in your life.
Keep your
mind focused on the future and what is possible. Especially the positive things
that are possible.
There is
a reason why your windshield is so big and your rear-view mirror is so small in
your vehicle. What’s ahead is far more important than what is behind you.
11. Visualize your success
Your
ability to visualize your success is tied to your ability to actually achieve
success.
Visualizing
helps you think positively about your situation and encourages you to see that
your vision of success is possible.
12. Limit your intake of the news
and media
The news
and media can be predominantly negative. When you are constantly feeding your
mind negative messages it becomes very difficult to find positive self-talk.
Limit
your exposure to news and media. It’s good to be an informed citizen but
sometimes it is good for your mind and soul to shut off the TV and cut off the
negativity that is happening everywhere in the world.
Remind
yourself there are lots of positive things happening in the world too, but they
just aren’t put on the news.
13. Help others
Helping
others is a way to bless others, but it can also be an even bigger blessing to
yourself. This article on helping others shows how beneficial this
act can be to yourself.
You can
experience feelings of being more positive, empowered, and optimistic by
helping others. These feelings will help you have better self-talk during your
day.
Try to do
one thing each day to help another person, so that you can begin the habit of
helping others on a regular basis. You will thank yourself later, as will the
people you help.
14. Be physically active
There are
a great many benefits to becoming active, such benefits include increased creativity,
reduced anxiety, improved self-confidence, reduced stress, increase in happy
brain chemicals and more.[3]
All of
these factors will help with your ability to provide positive self talk to
yourself and eventually succeed in life.
Get up,
get active, and improve your body and mind together by exercising on a regular
basis.
15. Dream and set goals
A great
way to begin positive self-talk is to dream about the future.
What is
your desire in life? What do you want out of life? Where do you see yourself in
5, 10, or 15 years?
Allow
yourself to dream big and then set smaller goals toward reaching those end
goals.
Encourage
yourself toward your life successes by providing supportive messages about how
you will achieve these goals.
When you
reach these small goals you will develop positive thoughts about your abilities
and skills related to how you achieved these milestones. This helps with your
positive self-talk.
Don’t get
down on yourself if you do have failures along the way. Allow for flexibility
and changing of plans along your route, and you will be a happier person.
Tell
yourself it’s OK to let go of some dreams and take on new ones as well. Your
life is yours. Allow yourself to dream and to go for those dreams.
Shoot for
the stars; you never know which one you will hit. If not the first one, then
try, try again.
Respect
and appreciate yourself and your ability to keep trying.
Dr. Magdalena
Battles
https://www.lifehack.org/504756/self-talk-determines-your-success-15-tips
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