Self Talk – Is Yours Positive or Negative?

Self Talk is constantly feeding your subconscious with voices both external (past and present voices of parents, teachers, clergy, and friends both experiential and experimental) and internal (that which you say to yourself) at 8,100 bits per nano second with the 9oo Billion Neurons in your body. As I’ve discussed in Omnitasking, you cannot not dismiss internal dialog. You can, however, program it.

It’s Just 2 Things – if your internal dialog is negative and you are responding poorly to it, change it!  Make it positive.

Self Talk is the main deterrent to LISTENING. Often when we are speaking with others, someone will say something that triggers us into thinking of what we want to say and we launch into a complete dialog with ourselves. For more on how to become a great listener and stop this internal dialog, view Rossi’s 2.5 min. Video

Pick Your Power Phrase

Psychology Todays says, Positive self talk can help you win the race–or the day.

One Quarter of the Conscious Experience

Scientific American says, “We all talk to ourselves silently throughout life. Psychologists call this type of thought inner speech or self-talk, and it occupies about one quarter of conscious experience.

Seth Godin says:

There’s no more important criticism than self criticism.

There’s no amount of external validation that can undo the constant drone of internal criticism.

And negative self talk is hungry for external corroboration. One little voice in the ether that agrees with your internal critic is enough to put you in a tailspin.

The remedy for negative self talk, then, is not the search for unanimous praise from the outside world. It’s a hopeless journey, and one that destroys the work, because you will water it down in fear of that outside critic that amplifies your internal one.

The remedy is accurate and positive self talk. Endless amounts of it.

Not delusional affirmations or silly metaphysical pronouncements about the universe. No, merely the reassertion of obvious truths, a mantra that drives away the nonsense the lizard brain is selling as truth.

You cannot reason with negative self talk or somehow persuade it that the world disagrees. All you can do is surround it with positive self talk, drown it out and overwhelm it with concrete building blocks of great work, the combination of expectation, obligation and possibility.

When in doubt, tell yourself the truth.