What to Say When You Talk to Your Self

   

        As much as 77% of what we say to ourselves may be working against us. And you know what’s even crazier than all of this negative self-talk? Deep down, every one of us innately knows that the world should be fair, and we should get our fair share; yet, we keep saying bad things to ourselves like, “I’m not good enough,” or “Who do I think I am to think I could get get?” when we talk to ourselves.

            You see, part of the problem is that the first 18 years of our lives we are told no 148,000 times by well-meaning people who were only trying to protect us and keep us safe. However, sadly, eventually after all this ‘no’ programming we too eventually join in this bombardment of our own dreams and what’s possible and began telling ourselves, “no”. Repetition sure is a convincing argument, isn’t it? Especially, when we are the ones saying it now, huh?

            Sadly, at this point of saying ‘no’ to ourselves, without realizing it, we begin constructing an invisible wall that stands between ourselves and our dreams, and what’s possible. Even though we can’t see that wall, that wall will remain standing tall and impenetrable for as long as our old programming remains within us. You see, we become the thoughts that are in our minds. And if those thoughts are… ‘no can do’… well, you already know the rest… I don’t even have to tell you…

            You want to know what the really sad thing is though? Someone else programmed us to think like that. And ironically, they were most likely the ones who were on our side and most likely just trying to help us too! Sad, isn’t it? We’ve all heard that saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? Life sure can be crazy and confusing!

            There is a silver lining in this dark ominous crazy life-cloud though. That lining is that there are many good self-help programs out there that can improve our lives. The bad thing though, according to Dr. Helmstetter most of them are lacking permanence, knowledge of the psychological process of the brain, and a new word-for-word programming for our minds. However, self-talk does have these three success elements. Thus, Dr. Helmstetter’s self-talk makes a lot of sense because it can paint a new and improved picture of ourselves in our own minds.

            Another good thing in the self-improvement world is that it makes no difference what happened to us in the past or how others programmed us for something less than success without our permission. Thankfully, we literally, can change just a little bit about ourselves in order to gain a whole lot of quality of life back. The little thing we have to deliberately change is what we let others say to us, what we say to ourselves, and what we think and even feel about ourselves. With just a little bit of work we can reprogram ourselves for a better life.

            We really can erase and replace all the less than excellent programming with excellent, life-fulfilling programming with self-talk. Hey, we talk to ourselves all day long anyways. There is just no getting around that. We’re going to do it regardless, so we might as well deliberately change the conversation going on in our own heads. Change the self-talk and change our lives for the better.

            Interestingly, the real obstacle here many times isn’t our subpar programming, but the fact that most of us don’t realize that we’ve let others program us, and now we’re reinforcing it on a daily basis. We have blindly jumped right on that same wave of negativity and have continually strenghened that negative programming from others by what we say to ourselves now.

            Thus, the invisible wall remains. However, we can crack that wall, weaken that wall, and then tear it down through our new and improved spoken words, unspoken thoughts, feelings, impressions, and physical responses. Hey, the former military man inside of me has always said that if you physically feel those butterflies in your stomach, then just command that squadron of butterflies to line up and fly in a wedge formation for you instead of against you.

            We really can do this! You see, Dr. Helmstetter says that the human brain will do anything possible we tell it to do, if we tell it often enough and strong enough. So, let’s get going on this! And let’s do it with some vigor.

            Hey, our subconscious mind is even working right now, day and night, to make sure that we become precisely the person we have unconsciously told ourselves to be. What kind of person have you told it to be? You see, here’s the deal, in order to live our best possible life, we are going to have to ditch the old habit of automatically believing the worst first, and the best last.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. Learn more about Dan at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Check out Dan’s teen leadership book at: http://tinyurl.com/glxzjaf