Positive Self-talk

I learned one lesson this week and I want to share them with you. It’s about developing positive self-talk. Self-talk is the stream of messages that play over and over in our heads. It’s the messages that we usually say to ourselves. It’s a component in shaping our identity. How do you react if you are caught in a bad situation, say heavy traffic? Do you feel bad? fume or rant? If you’ve committed a mistake at work, do you blame yourselves, speak badly about your abilities, blame others? I know I’m guilty at this because sometimes I rant, like what happened last month. I even posted this ranting and I would like to apologize since I know I’ve imparted negative views to my readers. Won’t do that again.

Anyway, how do you talk to yourself? If you will review the things that you say to yourselves, are you reinforcing a positive view or are you putting yourselves down? If you want to have a healthy self-view, if you want to develop assertiveness as a person, here are some pointers that were shared by Alana Billingham (Media Associates).

1. Actively mange your self-talk. Do not talk to yourself negatively, because you coud apply this even on a larger scale of life. For example, if you always rant about the problems of our country, look at what you say when you are caught in traffic. Do you catch yourself saying, “Nakakainis naman ang traffic talaga sa pilipinas! Mga traffic enforcers na iyan hindi talaga maintindihan!" Instead of blaming others baka ang pwedeng maging self-talk natin, “Ay buti na lang traffic, at least makakapagisip-isip ako at makakapagreflect ako habang traffic.” That is a more positive self-talk. So we need to actively manage our self-talk.

2. Start paying attention to your internal messages. If they are negative, change them and deliberately plan positive messages in their place.

3. It’s important that you're not only instilling those positive messages on your minds, you should say them out loud under your breath and finally in your head.

4. Keep saying them until they have replaced the old redundant negative messages and the positive messages become part of your new identity. Studies shows that, it takes about eight weeks of active participation to change old habit. So,you have to keep at it.

Let’s stop making negative self-talk on ourselves, our offices, even our country. If we want our lives to get better, start using positive self-talk.