If you’re anything like me, you’re probably rolling your eyes at the whole concept of self talk and discount it altogether. I implore you – hear me out.
I’m not going to be talking about anything woo woo – we’re getting down to the science.
We’re getting down to the science of how you can quite literally rewire your brain by changing how you talk to yourself.
How cool is that? When I first found this out, I honestly was so excited I couldn’t stop talking about it.
Self talk is the absolute first thing that needs to be focused on when it comes to your confidence and healing journey.
How do you talk to yourself?
It’s not just when you tell yourself “Oh I look fat,” although that is part of it. It’s the constant chatter that goes on inside your brain on a regular basis. Our brains are always working overtime trying to process all of the information and then give us that information. They’re truly amazing things. But we tend to become preoccupied with the scripted conversations we have in our brains.
How do you describe yourself?
When someone says, “tell me about yourself,” how do you do it? Do you start by describing your strengths or your weaknesses? This is truly important to understand. Your self talk is so much more than telling yourself that you’re amazing. Yes that part of it is important, but it’s more than that.
How do you describe your accomplishments? When someone says, “Oh hey! You did this cool thing!” Do you diminish it, or do you talk about how awesome it is? When you accomplish something, do you allow yourself to appreciate how awesome it was that you did it? Or are you too overcome with everything you did wrong and how it could’ve been better?
How do you accept compliments? How do you receive compliments? Do you even allow yourself to accept and receive compliments? This is truly important. How you react to compliments tells you just where your subconscious is as far as your self worth.
Now that we know what it all is, why is it so important?
How you talk to yourself will determine your success in life.
Whatever success looks like to you, your self talk will decide if you’ll get there.
Have you ever heard the quote, “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right?”
Your thoughts will limit what you will end up doing. If you wake up in the morning and say, “today is going to be a crappy day and I’m lazy and awful,” it’s probably going to be a sucky day.
But if you wake up that same day and say, “Man today is going to be a great day! I’m going to be so productive and going to get so much done!” You’re going to search for opportunities to make that happen.
How you talk to yourself and about yourself determines where you’re going to go and how far you’re going to go to reach your goals.
This is why it is extremely important to master your self-talk.
When you master your self talk, you’ll be able to achieve just about anything you put your mind to. Because you’ll know that even though you may not have all the skills necessary in that given moment, you’ll know you can figure it out.
This is imperative to your confidence journey. Without positive self talk, you’re not going to get very far.
Think about it this way.
Imagine you’re talking to a little kid, maybe 4 or 5 years old. He’s working on building a block tower and it falls. What’s your response? Do you tell him, “Oh my gosh you suck you’re such a failure!” Or do you say, “That’s ok bud! It happens – let’s try it again!”
I would like to think that you’re going to pick the second one. That’s how important our words are. It’s been proven that when you talk to children you need to give them as much positive feedback as possible to help them grow. So why do we think, knowing that, that it’s ok to do that to ourselves?
That’s the thought that I want you to have. I want you to see how important our words are. How you talk to yourself and others is such an important skill to master. Because once you get this under control, you’re going to be unstoppable because now you believe in yourself.
How do you change all that?
First, realize that this is going to take time. You’ve more than likely been feeding yourself, and been fed, many negative words over your lifetime. You’ve got years and years of negativity in your brain, so you can’t expect this to change overnight. But I can say that if you commit to the work, if you decide that you’re worth the effort, your life will change before your eyes.
You’re not going to suddenly wake up and be perfect and never have struggles again. That’s not what I’m saying. I struggle all of the time and I like to think that my self talk is pretty dang good.
But I know that when I do struggle, that there are better days ahead and I’m not going to live in this struggle forever. That’s the power of self talk. That’s the power of positive self talk in rewiring your brain.
How do you make all that happen?
Your brain perceives your reality through what you tell it. So if you look in the mirror and say, “Ugh. I’m fat,” whether you’re a size 2 or a size 28, your brain says, “Oh, she keeps saying we’re fat. So I guess we’re fat.”
If you continually say “I’m too stupid” or “I’m not good enough,” your brain takes that as fact.
Your brain takes those words, creates connections and wires itself and creates reality based around those words.
It doesn’t take into account that if you were stupid, you wouldn’t have gotten to where you are today. It doesn’t take into account that you’re actually beautiful. All it knows is what you’re telling it.
That’s harsh, right? We’re creating these negative connections in our brain and have been solidifying them for years.
But here’s the cool part:
You can literally rewire your brain, change the way your brain thinks, and create a whole new reality.
If that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what will. I was ran by my brain for the longest time. I felt like I was so out of control, I felt like I had no say in what my brain did. It was a miserable existence because my brain was truly convinced that my life was not worth living. So I know what it’s like to struggle with that.
When I found out that I could change all that, it blew my mind. Ever since that moment I’ve been obsessed with this because I’ve seen this happen. Not only in my life, but in my client’s lives, my friend’s lives, my follower’s lives. It’s insane just how powerful self talk is.
The foundation of every personal growth journey, are your affirmations.
I used to hear the word affirmation and roll my eyes so hard I thought they were going to get stuck in the back of my head.
All affirmations are, are sentences or phrases that encourage yourself along the way. But when it’s an affirmation, it’s with strategy.
There are four affirmations that I start with. These are the four affirmations that I give my clients, these are the affirmations that are the base of my free Confidence mini course.
These four affirmations are a great base to start with if you’re new to the self talk game. When you don’t believe in yourself, it can be a struggle to come up with things to say to encourage yourself along.
The four that I share don’t need to be your four, but I strongly encourage you to start with these. Then add on as you go. Do them consistently and see how they impact your life.
The first one: I am strong.
So many times we think we’re not strong enough. Either physically, like we’re physically not strong enough to pick up the box. But there’s also the emotional side. We feel like we just can’t handle life. We can’t handle one more thing. We’re not strong enough to do this.
Reminding ourselves that we’re strong is so important.
I am strong.
Second: I am capable.
Too often we think we don’t have the potential, skills, it. Whatever it is, we don’t have it and we’ll never have it because we’re just not capable. Reminding yourself that you’re capable of taking on anything life throws at you is so important and it will change the way you see things.
Three: I am intelligent.
The word “intelligent” is purposeful. It is more than just “smart.” Saying “I am intelligent” is so powerful. It is so important to remind yourself that you’re smarter than you think. Saying “I am intelligent” creates a power behind it, a drive behind it. Intelligent people can take on the world. So can you.
I am intelligent.
The last one is the one that I struggled with the most for a very long time. I was surprised to find out that all of my clients struggle with this one, too. After doing some more digging, I found that women struggle with this word more often than I would’ve ever thought.
The affirmation is: I am worthy.
Here’s the deal. When we don’t think we’re strong, that we’re capable, that we’re intelligent, when we don’t think that we could ever live up to our potential, that we don’t think that we’re deserving of a life that we love, that we’re worthy of achieving our dreams, we stay stuck. We stay stuck and we limit ourselves and resign ourselves to a life that is less than what we deserve.
Saying “I am worthy” is so powerful.
Why is this one so hard? Why is this one so difficult to say?
Because for so long we have convinced ourselves that while we’re strong enough to keep going, that we’re intelligent enough to make it happen, that we’re capable enough to figure it out, that we don’t deserve it.
That we don’t deserve to live a life that we don’t want to run away from. That we don’t deserve true happiness. That we don’t deserve to enjoy life because for whatever reason, we aren’t worthy.
The next part of this is going to be hard, especially with telling yourself that you’re worthy. But the fact of the matter is that you are worthy.
The following phrase I heard for the first time on Brooke Castillo’s the Life Coach School podcast.
You will never be more worthy than you are right now in this moment.
How does it feel to hear that? When I heard it, I had to stop what I was doing and sit down. I was so overcome with emotion when I heard that. I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know how to process the fact that I could never do anything to make me more worthy. And there’s nothing that I could ever do to make me less worthy. My worth was given to me long ago and that would never change.
That’s the message I want to give to you. Your worth cannot be taken away or given to you. Your worth was yours the moment you were created. You will never be more worthy than you are right now simply because you are worthy of everything your heart desires if you choose to go after it.
Whether you believe it or not doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. The fact of the matter is that you are worthy. You don’t have to believe it for it to be true.
You are worthy. You are enough. As you are. Right now.
It doesn’t matter if you are riding the highest of highs or the lowest of lows. It doesn’t matter if you’re a millionaire or you’re so broke that you’re struggling to come up with food for tomorrow. You are worthy.
It breaks my heart to know that women walk around feeling the way that I felt for so long.
I am only 26 years old. For about 20 years of my life I have struggled feeling worthy. That means at the age of 6 years old I was struggling with my worth. It breaks to know that there are kids out there that don’t think they’re worthy.
I want you to know that you are worthy. You. Are. Worthy.
The four affirmations:
I am strong.
I am capable.
I am intelligent.
I am worthy.
The next part of this is going to sound a little hokie but I need you to stick with me.
What you’re going to do, every morning and every night, is stand in front of the mirror and say out loud while looking yourself in the eyes,
I am strong.
I am capable.
I am intelligent.
I am worthy.
Look yourself in the eyes and say it out loud.
This part is crucial, this is where change happens.
I know it’s going to feel awkward and uncomfortable, but I promise you that it’s going to make a massive difference.
Even if you don’t believe what you’re saying, continue to do it anyway. Develop the discipline to continually do this day after day.
First, when you say it out loud, there’s some really cool things that happen with your brain.
We know that our words impact our brain’s reality.
When you say it out loud, you hit your brain in 4 different ways.
- You have to think of the words, so your brain visualizes them.
- You have to say them so your brain sends the words from your brain to your mouth.
- You have to hear what you’re saying, so your brain has to tell your ears to listen and pay attention.
- You have to process the words that are going into your ears and back into your brain to understand them.
All of this is a process. So the words run full circle and hit your brain from every angle.
Why do you have to look at yourself in the eyes?
Think about it this way. A friend walks by and says, “Oh hey. You’re pretty strong.” They pat you on the shoulder and keep walking. That’s pretty cool, right?
Now imagine your friend grabbing you by the shoulders, looking into your eyes and saying “Hey! You’re really strong. Good job!” Feel the difference.
There is a massive difference in saying something in passing and looking at yourself in the eyes while you say it.
But there’s also another reason.
So often, we look to external sources for validation and self worth. We look for external sources to tell us that we’re enough. When you tell yourself these things, you’re reminding your brain that you’re the one in charge of your mind. That your life is yours and you can do with it what you see fit.
It doesn’t matter what your jerk of an ex boyfriend said. It doesn’t matter what your abuser said. It doesn’t matter what that mean teacher said. It doesn’t matter what your unsupportive parents say.
All that matters is that you are showing up for yourself and you are rewriting that script.
You are rewriting your reality. So yes, while it seems hokie, this is why you need to do this. This will change your life if you let it.
The first few times you do it will be uncomfortable. The first few times you look at yourself in the eye, you’re going to feel awkward. But keep showing up.
One day a few months from now you’re going to wake up and say, “I look good today.” Then it’ll hit you. You told yourself you look good today with no backhanded compliment. It’s going to hit you, that it wasn’t hard to get up and workout today. It wasn’t hard to say my affirmations today. It wasn’t hard to remind myself that I got this. When did this happen?!
That’s the beauty of this.
When you are consistent and do this continually you are going to find yourself miles ahead of where you were. It’s not going to be an overnight thing, and it will take time.
But if you commit to the work, if you commit to going all in, you’re going to change your life.
When you master your self talk, you’re going to be unstoppable.
Because I know how important this is, I’ve created this free download that covers this process with all 4 affirmations to make it as easy as possible.
Print it out and put it wherever you need to to be reminded to do these.
You’re going to surprise yourself with just how much you can accomplish when you get your self talk under control.
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