Self Talk

If you want to change your life, change your mind.

Apparantly we have an average of 60,000 thoughts a day; a significant percentage of these are negative and usually directed at ourselves. We're almost always our own worst critics.

Pay attention to yourself!
Your Self Talk is at the core of your development and destiny. Most people ignore this fact as it is too basic to even consider.

Your brain plays the same tape over and over, shaping how you think, feel and act. By being aware of this fact, you can have more influence with yourself by choosing what you believe, think, say and do; ultimately effecting where you end up in life which includes your level of inner wellbeing, quality of relationships, health, prosperity to name a few.

The brain is a fascinating organ. It consists of billions of neurons transmitting information at high speed. As a machine, it is quite simple. Basically, recording information and playing back. Like a computer, it is easily programmed.

Since the day you were born, you’ve had all sorts of "programming" enter your brain. The type of programming I am referring to are commands and information, either coming from yourself, or from the outside world through your five senses or learned from society and those closest to us.

This “programming” is also known as your self talk. Sometimes this play back does not support our wellbeing. We have thoughts that tell us we aren’t good enough in some way, not worthy enough to enjoy life or that we are doomed to fail, stupid, less than others, unlucky and so on. The alarming part of all this is that most people don’t even realise their self-talk is harming them!

The reason why is that the brain doesn’t distinguish between “good” and “bad” commands. It simply accepts the self talk and this is the platform from which it operates. There’s no doubt, everything you are today is the result of your SELF-TALK.

So, what does this all mean?
If we compare our brain to a computer. Many of the programmes we run are ineffective yet they have produced a measure of wellbeing and happiness. Having got this far it’s worth reflecting on whether we have achieved the results we were looking for and if not what can be done about this?

In our computer analogy, if a programme needs changing, an upgrade is required. Remember, the brain is fantastic at recording new commands – and is flexible enough to quickly overwrite old material. Not only that; it also adheres to the Law of Repetition.

That is, the more times repeated, the deeper ingrained it becomes. New neural pathways are formed and through repetition they override existing pathways.

You already know this from experience. Think about any new skill you learned. At first you had to really concentrate. You knew you were consciously incompetent. (Sometimes we haven’t even reached that level of understanding as there are areas of our life where we are unconsciously incompetent). As your skill developed you became more competent, conscious of your level of expertise with less thinking required. The last step was reached where it became a way of being. This is also known as unconsciously competent. Personally, I prefer to stay consciously competent although this is not always possible in our fast paced, multi tasking life.

So how do we bring an element of consciousness and awareness to our self talk?

A first step is to pay attention to what we tell ourselves. Really listen to what you are thinking and saying. The best way to do this is to set at least 10min uninterrupted time aside on a daily basis to tune in. From this quiet place we can begin to notice our false statements. Writing down your predominant thoughts also helps.  It takes practice and patience to “listen in” consciously to the thoughts in your mind. Repeating this self observation will in time lead to it becoming second nature. When you have identified a self limiting programme you are then ready to create a new empowering programme.

Consciously designing and implementing a new neural pathway takes discipline. A simple example to start this process is to make use of supportive affirmations AND follow up with an action step aligned to the new thought / statement, no matter how small, so as to reinforce this new belief.
For example, existing self talk is:- “No one ever hears me. I’m always misunderstood so I’ll just keep quiet / force others my way etc.” A positive affirmation could be “I communicate openly and confidently and am easily understood” followed up with an action step of striking up a conversation with someone. It does not need to be a long encounter. Even a genuine ‘how are you today?’ is an effective action step to reinforcing the belief that communicating is easy and rewarding for both parties.

The more times you repeat your affirmations and actions, so you begin to “upgrade” your software until one day (soon) it becomes a natural part of who you are.

I hope you have enjoyed and found value in this months newsletter.

Be well, always

Diane

Aug - Sep 2009

July 2009