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Never Say Anything About Yourself That You Don't Want To Come True

This article is more than 9 years old.

I still remember as a child seeing my mother standing in the kitchen talking to herself. No joke. She would literally have entire conversations with herself. At the time I just assumed my Mom must be a little bit crazy, after all the woman had ten children so by rights she was entitled to be at least somewhat nuts. Then I grew up and became an adult myself and realized that those conversations she had with herself didn't mean she was crazy at all, in fact they were a stroke of genius, and probably the only way she kept her sanity while raising those ten kids (or I would argue nine since I was of course, an angel child).

When I became the CEO of my first company I found myself having all kinds of conversations with myself, only I found it was far less suspect to have them inside my head, rather than out loud because, let’s face it, doing it out loud is just plain awkward. But I learned quickly that there were two types of conversations I could have with myself: the positive and uplifting conversations, or, the negative and destructive ones. I learned that the key to being successful came down to my own ability to limit those conversations in my head to the positive and uplifting ones.

Research has shown that it is our thoughts that drive our emotions, and our emotions that drive our actions. Therefore, if we want to act in a way that will bring us the most success, we have to control our emotions by learning to control our thoughts.

I find self-talk to be the most effective way to control my thoughts. When I find myself in a situation where I am feeling stressed or anxious or overwhelmed I immediately begin having conversations with myself inside my head. If you were to jump inside my head you would hear a typical conversation going something like this:

“I am seriously stressing out.”

“Why are you stressing out?”

“Because I am never going to get everything done.”

“All you can do is continue taking steps on what needs to get accomplished, there is absolutely nothing more you can possibly do than that, so take a deep breath and quit stressing because stressing won’t change anything here, it will only slow you down. Just keep moving forward doing the best you can do and it will all work out in the end.”

“Good point, thanks.”

It may sound silly to have that type of conversation with yourself, but I can tell you with certainty that it works. And the more you do it, the better you become at it. Think of it as having your own personal therapist with you 24x7, free of charge. Positive self-talk is one of the very best ways to improve your emotions and build your self-confidence.

Unfortunately, negative self-talk works just as effectively. “I can’t do it.” “I’m fat.” “I’m stupid.” When those are the types of things you are telling yourself repeatedly you’re bound to actually start believing them. You begin doubting yourself and you in turn you limit your actions, thus inhibiting your own success, which makes it imperative to learn to control it until you can stop it completely.

“Never say anything about yourself that you don’t want to come true.” – Brian Tracy

One way I have found to control my own negative self-talk is to immediately ask myself, “How would I feel if someone was saying that to my child?” That particular question is the perfect kick in the behind to help motivate me to snap out of it and change my thought pattern. If the voice in your head is saying something that you can’t imagine saying to a person you love then you shouldn't be saying it to yourself.

Beyond the self-talk that happens inside our heads, we have another form of self-talk that is happening with our body language. I think this particular type of self-talk is one that we tend to overlook completely, yet it too can have a powerful influence on our emotions. Have you ever observed yourself in the mirror while you are talking on the phone? If you haven’t, then I suggest you do. Many times in phone calls we feel bored or irritated with the conversation. However, when we are watching ourselves in a mirror as we are talking on the phone we will find that we are far more engaged in our discussion with the other person. We tend to smile more often during the conversation and we tend to show concern on our face while listening as someone shares their problems with us. When we are observing our own facial expressions during the call it literally causes our voices to sound different as well. Our voices sounds happier when we are smiling and our voices reflect more concern when we have concerned looks on our faces. It was this very reason that I purchased small mirrors to put on the cubicle of each of my sales and customer service people at my company. I wanted employees to observe themselves as they talked on the phone because we knew it would help them to communicate in a more caring and sincere way. The results spoke for themselves.

I have always been a big fan of surrounding myself with motivational quotes and sayings at home and in my workplace, but I find that writing notes of self-talk advice to myself can actually have a greater impact. Try writing yourself a note on your bathroom mirror saying things such as, “You are going to ace your project today” or “You can totally handle whatever challenges come your way today.” For some reason when the advice comes from yourself to yourself, it seems to have a greater influence on your thoughts and thus your emotions.

Here is the self-talk litmus test: If you find yourself feeling unhappy or stressed out during the day you can bet that you have subconsciously been listening to your own negative self-talk. You have likely been telling yourself to expect the worst, or you are seeing everything as a horrible disaster, or you are telling yourself that things are “always” bad or “never” okay. So of course you feel horrible! Who wouldn't hear horrible if someone followed them around all day criticizing everything they did. Yet we do it to ourselves and we don’t even notice we’re doing it.

“Tell the negative committee that meets inside your head to sit down and shut up!” – Ann Bradford

The key is to realize that if you feel like garbage then your thoughts have been garbage, so take out the trash and start talking positive! Then watch as your positive self-talk leads you down the path toward amazing success.

~Amy Rees Anderson (follow my daily blogs at www.amyreesanderson.com/blog )