What To Say When You Talk To Your Self

by Shad Helmstetter

You will become what you think about most; your success or failure in anything, large or small, will depend on your programming––what you accept from others, and what you say when you talk to yourself.

Leading behavioral researchers have told us that as much as seventy-seven percent of everything we think is negative, counterproductive, and works against us.

Every thought we think, every conscious or unconscious thought we say to ourselves, is translated into electrical impulses in the brain, which, in turn, direct the control centers in our brains to electrically and chemically affect and control every motion, every feeling, every action we take, every moment of every day.

Whatever “thoughts” you programmed into your brain, or have allowed others to program into you, are affecting, directing, or controlling everything about you.

Think what you could do, beginning tomorrow, if the shackles of bad habits, old conditioning, and self-doubt were suddenly gone.

Our self-talk may be in spoken words or unspoken thoughts. It can take the form of feelings, impressions, or even wordless physical responses, the clutch in the stomach that comes when we are surprised or afraid, or the rush that comes with excitement or joy. We are thinking machines that never shut down.

The human brain will do anything possible you tell it to do if you tell it often enough and strongly enough.

By the time most of us reach adulthood, we are so conditioned to think in a certain way that our pattern of self-talk becomes habit that is physically wired into our brain. It is fixed. And for most, it remains that way. How we look at life, what we believe about ourselves, how we view anything, and what we do about it, gets filtered through our preconceptions.

But there are those who would argue that nothing ever happens by accident––that everything which occurs in our lives does so because of what we mentally “create” to happen.

Every action we take is first filtered through our feelings. How we feel about something will always determine or affect what we do and how well we do it.

1. Programming creates beliefs. 2. Beliefs create attitudes. 3. Attitudes create feelings. 4. Feelings determine actions. 5. Actions create results.

The past procrastinator, who had been programmed to put things off, now says, “I do everything I need to do when I need to do it. I enjoy getting things done, and I enjoy doing things on time and in just the right way.”

When you decide to stop thinking negatively, and do not have an immediate, new positive vocabulary to replace the old, you will always return to the comfortable, old negative self-talk of the past.

External motivation is motivation which comes to you from the outside. It may influence you to make a change, but it cannot make the change for you. And it cannot keep you from drifting off course when the motivator is gone. It is the external coach who supports, encourages, demands, and rewards. But when the coach is gone, so are the support, the encouragement, the demand, and the reward.

If it is a great talk, by the time it is over, we will have set some new sights and made an irrevocable commitment to make some important change for the better. We may even have set some specific goals to do just that. Then we go home. We get back to the details and distractions of everyday life. Our old programming quietly re-convinces us that we are capable of less than that person on the stage was trying to get us to believe.

Responsibility does not mean “duty” or “burden.” It is not the measure of our liability or our accountability: it is the basis of our individual determination to respond to life and to fulfill ourselves within it.

We are so busy taking care of first things first that we have no time, energy, or thought left to take care of the one thing that could make all of the other things work better. We are too busy fixing the train to realize that we are on the wrong track. We are too busy staying alive to figure out how to live.

True leaders have their own selves firmly in control; they are in command of their actions, their feelings, their attitudes, and their perspective.

Instead of replacing people, start replacing their internal “cannots” with capable, confident self-belief.

Until we become programmed to believe what we cannot do, as children we are still willing to believe in what we can.

I am a good listener. I hear everything that is said. I am attentive, interested, and aware of everything that is going on around me. I have the courage to state my opinions. I take responsibility for myself and everything I say and do.

I set goals and I follow them. I set my sights, take the appropriate action, and achieve my goals.

The next time a problem of any kind occurs, take note of how you respond to it. If you consider yourself to be a mature, capable individual, in control of yourself, take control of your thoughts. Not just when it suits you, and not just when things go well. Don’t waste the power of your mind giving in to the petty inconveniences of life.