How To Create Believable Self-Talk

“I like the idea that I create my own supportive self-talk that serves to support me in achieving the life I want.”

For years now, we have heard from neuroscientist, medical researchers, and psychologists that our thoughts, our self-talk, creates our experiences and shapes our lives. What we think we become. Our brain receives, processes and stores what we put into it. Our brains are created to function in a specific way and that’s exactly what they do; a brain has no choice. Our subconscious mind is programmed by what we hear, what we say and what we think, the same way a computer is programmed. Like a computer, the subconscious mind does only what it is programed to do. The subconscious mind makes no judgment as to whether what it is receiving is true or false.

Much of the programing happened to us as children by the things said to us by the adults surrounding us. However, programing the mind is a life long process. As adults, it is important to learn to deliberately use our thoughts and self-talk to put into place the programs we want running in our minds rather than simply accepting what might have been programed in from the past.

Self-talk used on a regular basis can reprogram the negative automatic thoughts that may have previously been programed into your mind. For the self-talk to be effective, it needs to be in the present tense, positive, simple and believable. Effective self-talk focuses on what you want rather than what you don’t want. For instance, saying, “I am calm and relaxed at work”, is more powerful than saying, “I don’t want to be stressed at work”.

For someone working on changing their thought regarding what they eat, a self-talk statement might be, “I eat only healthy nutritious foods that are good for my body”, rather than “I stay away from fast food and junk snack food”.

Simple enough but what if there is a part of your mind that is resistant to the positive self-talk that you create to support yourself? That little voice that says, yeah but To be effective, your self-talk has to be believable.

Here are five words that will help you translate any positive self-talk statement into something that your mind will more readily believe. I like the idea that

I like the idea that I am calm and relaxed at work. I like the idea that I eat only healthy nutritious foods that are good for my body. I like the idea that I create my own supportive self-talk that serves to support me in achieving the life I want.

Reframing negative thoughts and creating positive, realistic self-talk is a basic principle of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Working with an experienced CBT therapist can be a worthwhile investment in developing the ability to create supportive self-talk.

For additional information and help please contactinfo@centerforlifestrategies.com or call/text 703-437-6311