We all have this power that others can’t see. It doesn’t cause us outward damage that alerts others something is wrong, and it could lay in hiding for our entire lives. It silently dims our light and wrecks havoc internally.
Enter…negative self talk. There are a lot of us walking around being the worst critics to ourselves. We talk to ourselves in ways we would never talk to another human being. It can stem from childhood, our upbringing or multitude of other reasons…regardless of why it exists, it happens.
And it’s damaging every time.
Our brains are extremely powerful – they drive so much of what we do, feel and experience – including our self talk. Negative self-talk might start in the mind, but it has a laundry list of consequences for our whole being. This includes…
- increased worry and anxiety
- decreased self-confidence / self esteem
- feeling down and sad
- feelings of helplessness and negativity
And guess what it doesn’t do?
It doesn’t drive us to make positive changes in our lives.
It keeps us stuck, stagnant, and afraid.
Research and therapy treatments have proven that our self talk is very much what steers our moods and feelings. And then our moods and feelings impact our actions and behaviours.
So, in a nice little nutshell: If you want to change the way you act, you need to start with changing the way you think first.
If we stay in constant negative self talk, it’s like freezing ourselves in place…where we don’t move forward or make positive changes.
Overtime, this can become a bigger issue by leading us to “confirmation bias”.
Confirmation bias is when we have the tendency to seek out and prefer information that supports our existing beliefs.
Example: If I consistently tell myself I am a failure…I will, whether intentionally or subconsciously, begin to look for evidence that I am, in fact a failure.
Didn’t get the promotion at work? Failure. Forgot to submit my bill payment on time? Failure. Missed my friend’s birthday? Failure. Lost my keys again? Fail. Big ole, failure.
When we get into confirmation bias more, we become unable to see anything that tells us otherwise. It leads us to places where we give less effort because the negative self talk has ballooned into a core belief. We then only see things that prove this belief over and over again…becoming blind to any thing that might prove something else.
Healthy self talk doesn’t then mean ignoring our faults and mistakes….things really do go sideways in life sometimes and we do mess up big time (super guilty over here!). It means not allowing our negative self talk to steam roll us into thinking we’re complete hot messes with no hope!
Our goals, to take back our brain power, is to frame our thoughts in a more positive and realistic light. And this month, I’m going to help you work on that!
Follow along through the blog and social media (Facebook, Instagram) all month long to get some real life strategies to rewire your brain and work with it’s power instead of against it!
And be one of the firsts to be apart of the launch of “Refire Your Mind” – a new program by Refire Fitness designed to rewire your brain to break old habits with science-based tools and strategies. Stay tuned!