How to Develop Positive Self Talk

If you are not already aware, you are constantly talking to yourself. Your conversations are about yourself, others and your stories about the world. Some of it may be positive self talk that encourages you. However, more often than not, our self talk is made up of a lot of negative, self defeating and limiting thoughts.

Let us use a case to illustrate what negative self talk is. For instance, a person who wishes to diet but has failed in the past may have thoughts like "why even try? You will just fail again!" Much of this negative self talk is done subconsciously. At the same time, what goes on in your subconscious has a more powerful impact on the way you think and act.

The best way to overcome negative self talk is to follow these steps in turning it into positive self talk. If the negative self talk works, why wouldn't the positive?

1. Get your negative self talk on paper.

Dr. Phil has become famous for his line "you are not able to change what you do not acknowledge,". In fact, this is the perfect sentiment for turning your negative self talk into positive self talk. Get a notebook and start writing down negative thoughts that cross your mind. Do this for just one day and you will see how many negative thoughts you have and how it is bringing you down.

2. Bring negative thoughts to an abrupt halt.

The moment you start to recognize a negative thought creeping into your mind, stop it from continuing on. You may even need to vocalize it or speak a powerful word like "halt!" in your mind. Do this every time you have a negative thought and you will get better and better and recognizing the negative thoughts.

3. Turn your list into an alternative list.

Take that list you collected of all your negative thoughts and turn it around into a list of positive self talk. These statements can be repeated in your head as an alternative when you start to have a negative thought in the future.

For instance, when you start to think "I cannot lose weight; I always fail," you can stop yourself and tell yourself "I can do this if I really set my mind to."

You probably won't believe all of your positive self talk wholeheartedly, but continue using this tool and eventually they will start to become a part of you.

4. Ask yourself why.

Start challenging some of your most common negative thoughts. Why do you think it is true? Get to the bottom of your negativity and you may prove it wrong and unworthy of your time.

Ask yourself "why?" and then ask the same question of each answer, until you come to something deeper.

5. Ban the words "hate" and "can't" from your vocabulary.

Both of these words are very strong and have the power to completely crush a good mood, make you second guess yourself, and bring doubt to your mind. Pay special attention to your negative thoughts and notice when you use these two words. It will likely be a lot more often than you ever realized!

If you hate yourself or things about yourself and believe that you can't do things you want to do, you will stand in your own way of a successful, fulfilling life. Get rid of these words and your chances of overcoming the negative self talk are much higher.

Most certainly, it would help to have a list of daily affirmations that you would like to believe about yourself in the future. Use these affirmations for positive self talk and it will help eliminate the negative thoughts.