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What you think of yourself matters—a lot. It can affect everything from your happiness and success to your health and well-being. However, sometimes, this self-talk isn’t always positive or constructive, causing you to lie to yourself about who you are and what you’re capable of doing. You tell yourself things like I’m not good enough or I don’t deserve it when in reality, you are more than worthy and deserving of all the things life has to offer you.
What Is Self Talk?
Self-talk is all the little voice messages that go on inside our heads. Whether these voices are positive or negative, they have a big impact on how we feel and how we think about ourselves. Constantly having bad self talk or negative self-talk can make it hard to find joy, happiness, and success in life. The good news is, with just a little practice, you can learn to control the voices that tell you you’re not enough—and get rid of them for good. Start by telling yourself some positive affirmations. These are statements like I am beautiful or I deserve the best. Write down ten things you love about yourself, and keep them somewhere visible so you can read them every day. You might also try talking back to your negative thoughts; if you hear something like I’m so stupid, say This isn’t true. Even better? Take five minutes every day to meditate or do breathing exercises.
What Are the Benefits And Drawbacks Of Self Talk?
Self-talk can have both a positive and negative impact on us. Research has shown that those who use more self-compassionate or gentle self-talk are more motivated, less reactive to emotions, and therefore better able to regulate them, and more creative. They also experience an increase in feelings of control, which gives them the power to bring their dreams into reality.
Those who habitually practice harsh self-criticism have increased anxiety, depression, and shame. When we repeatedly judge ourselves for things we’ve done wrong or not well enough, it creates a feeling of being trapped in a cycle of negativity with no way out. Thoughts such as you are going to fail, or you will never find a job go around and around your head like a stuck record, messing with your confidence and damaging your self-esteem. It can impact the quality of your life by making small problems seem bigger than they really are.
How Do I Reframe My Talk to be More Positive?
The most important step is to identify negative self-thoughts. Let’s look at some examples of these kinds of negative thoughts:
- I’m not smart enough for this job; they’ll see right through me during the interview process
- My boyfriend doesn’t really love me; he’s just staying with me because he feels sorry for me
- My body is hideous; no one will want to be seen with me if they see how fat I am.
- I’m a terrible person, Nothing I do will ever be good enough
- I don’t deserve to be happy.
These are just a few examples of what your negative self-talk might sound like in real-life situations. But remember that these thoughts aren’t true—they’re just lies that your mind tells you because it’s trying to protect you from being hurt again or feeling inadequate or unworthy. The problem is that these thoughts end up hurting YOU even more than they would if they were actually true! And guess what? They’re not true! There’s nothing wrong with you or what you have to offer; there’s only something wrong with believing those negative lies about yourself!
Now that you know what these statements might sound like, try countering them with positive statements (like how awesome you are!). Remember your achievements and positive skills.
Here are some other steps you can take to overcome Negative Self Talk:
Don’t be hard on yourself
It’s easy to be our own worst critic and beat ourselves up for every little thing we do wrong. But the truth is, we all make mistakes – it’s part of being human. What’s important is that we learn from our mistakes and try not to repeat them in the future. So next time you make a mistake cut yourself some slack and try to learn from it. Take your mind off of the past by focusing on what you can do now to change things.
So if you can find a way to let go of past mistakes and start thinking about how they can teach us something instead, your self-esteem will start to build back up again, and everything will get easier!
Things change. Embrace it
It’s human nature to resist change. We like things the way they are, even when they’re not good for us. Change is hard, and it’s often scary. But if we want to improve our lives, we have to be willing to change. Otherwise, we’ll just keep making the same mistakes over and over again. So next time you’re faced with a change, instead of resisting it, embrace it. Who knows? It might just be the best thing that ever happened to you.
Don’t procrastinate your happiness
We all do it – we procrastinate our happiness. We tell ourselves we’ll be happy when we get that promotion when we buy a new house when we lose ten pounds. But the truth is, happiness is a choice. It’s not something that you can put off until later. So why do we do it? Because we don’t want to take responsibility for the happiness in our lives right now. We are scared of risking anything and we don’t want to do anything different than what we know so well. But eventually, if you never change your path, then life will just pass you by and you will wake up one day with nothing left to show for it. And there’s no guarantee that tomorrow will be any better than today.
But there’s hope. It starts with taking responsibility for your own happiness and being aware of the things you tell yourself every day about yourself, other people, about the world around you.
Conclusion
We all lie to ourselves. It’s human nature. But why do we do it? Because we’re afraid of the truth. The truth is, we’re our own worst enemies. Negative self-talk makes us believe the lies we tell ourselves over and over again But if we can learn to accept the truth, we can be our own best friends. We need to be kinder to ourselves because there is no one else in this world who will be as understanding or forgiving as we would be toward ourselves; only we know what it feels like inside our own skin! So let’s make a promise today that no matter what happens throughout the day (whether it be something big or small), we will try our best not to talk badly about ourselves or put ourselves down anymore! Because if we don’t love ourselves then how can anyone else?
