In the past, if I spoke to a friend, how I spoke to myself , you’d punch me in the face. I think we don’t know how influential self-talk is to shaping the outcome of our life. Let's think about it for a minute. I’m going to be presumptions and say the readers of my weekly email are progressive and forward thinking people. If week after week I was spewing negative bullshit that instead of empowering you stripped you of that spark to be and do more. Very soon you’d be unsubscribing. You didn’t sign up for that abuse. And yet we talk to ourselves that way all the time. Not realising we have access to the working of our inner mind and the power to influence it.

This isn’t some Twilight Zone, woo-woo, new age ting, it makes perfect sense if you think about it. Most of the conversations you have on a daily basis are with yourself in the private confines of your own head. You talk to yourself thousands of times throughout the day. Think of the power and influence you have to direct your thinking. Only giving empowering thoughts significance and everything else gets the boot. 

I’m not just making this stuff up. Studies show that the kind of self-talk you engage in has a profound effect on the quality of your life.

I like using examples from my own life to underline to you the ideas are practical and do work.  So for years, I would tell myself that I could only write one novel a year and even that was stretching it. Everything around me reinforced that fact and I just never thought to dispute it. The thing with me is I can learn from the examples of others, even if it does take me some time to sink in. Other authors were writing from 4 to 10 books a year so I just decided to do the same. At that moment I started telling myself I could and everything changed. I started recognising strategies that would help my productivity, I discovered Apps and software that allowed me to get things done more efficiently, I was meeting people who would hold me accountable for my results. It’s not magic. In other words, telling myself I could do it made me aware of the numerous opportunities available to me.

Ponder the idea that your circumstances are not just created from the outside influences in your life but from your thoughts. What you can and cannot do is influenced by what you think about and the meaning you give to those thoughts.Imagine the influence you have on your actions by the things you keep telling yourself. No one has that kind of access to your inner landscape and that domain should be protected but for the most part people don’t. They allow the news, toxic people, the internet and anything else access to their mind and then start repeating the garbage that was placed in there. You can talk yourself into or out of any situation depending on how you frame your language. I’m not saying you need to become a supercomputer policing every waking thought - you couldn’t even if you wanted to. But when you become more aware of how you speak to yourself, choose empowerment.

Your emotions are triggered by your thoughts and your thoughts influenced by what you tell yourself.

Just make sure whatever you say to number one will build you up, not tear you down.

My book recommendation - What to Say, When you talk to Yourself, is a brilliant starting point, if you want to know more about this essential skill. Check it out.

Hope it helps.