How To Transform
Negative Self-Talk
Negative self-talk is an inner form of dialogue that focuses on self-blame and or self-criticism and limits your ability to believe in yourself, and your own abilities to reach your potential. It can really bring us down.
Any thoughts that diminish your ability to make positive changes in your life or your confidence in yourself to do so, are not only stressful but can really stunt your success.
Negative self-talk can affect us in some pretty damaging ways. Rumination and self-blame over negative events are linked to an increased risk of mental health problems. Focusing on negative thoughts may lead to decreased motivation as well as greater feelings of helplessness. This type of critical inner dialogue has even been linked to depression, so it's definitely something to fix.
Those who find themselves frequently engaging in negative self-talk tend to be more stressed. This is in large part due to the fact that their reality is altered to create an experience where they don't have the ability to reach the goals they've set for themselves.
Other consequences of negative self-talk can include:
Limited thinking: The more you tell yourself you can't do something, the more you believe it.
Perfectionism: You begin to really believe that "great" isn't as good as "perfect," and that perfection is actually attainable. In contrast, mere high achievers tend to do better than their perfectionistic counterparts because they are generally less stressed and are happy with a job well done. They don't pick it apart and try to zero in on what could have been better.
Feelings of depression: Some research has shown that negative self-talk can lead to an exacerbation of feelings of depression. If left unchecked, this could be quite damaging.
Relationship challenges: Whether the constant self-criticism makes you seem needy and insecure or you turn your negative self-talk into more general negative habits that bother others, a lack of communication and even a "playful" amount of criticism can take a toll.
One of the most obvious drawbacks of negative self-talk is that it's not positive. This sounds simplistic, but research has shown that positive self-talk is a great predictor of success
For example, one study on athletes compared four different types of self-talk (instructional, motivational, positive, and negative) and found that positive self-talk was the greatest predictor of success. People didn't need to remind themselves how to do something as much as they needed to tell themselves that they are doing something great and that others notice it as well.
How to Minimize Negative Self-Talk
There are many ways to reduce the self-talk in your daily life. Different strategies work better for different people, so try a few on and see which ones are most effective for you:
Notice when you say things to yourself that you wouldn't say to a good friend or a child.
Your thoughts can be skewed like everyone else's, subject to biases and the influence of your moods.
There was once a "Saturday Night Live" character known as Debbie Downer. She would find the negative in any situation. If your inner critic has this dubious skill as well, you can tell yourself, "Debbie Downer is doing her thing again.”
Contain the damage that a critical inner voice can cause by only allowing it to criticize certain things in your life, or be negative for only an hour in your day. This puts a limit on how much negativity can come from the situation.
When engaging in negative self-talk, you may be able to catch yourself, but it can be difficult to stop a train of thought in its tracks. Change the intensity of your language instead: "I can't stand this" becomes, "This is challenging." "I hate..." becomes, "I don't like..." and even, "I don't prefer..." When your self-talk uses more gentle language, much of its negative power is muted.
Challenge your inner critic as if your friend was challenging an idea of yours
Sometimes looking at things in the long term can help you to realize that you may be placing too great an emphasis on something. Ask yourself if something you're upset by will really matter in five years or even one! Change your perspective by looking at your thoughts from a great distance. Even thinking of the world as a globe and of yourself as a tiny, tiny person can remind you that most of your worries aren't as big as they seem.
Telling a trusted friend what you're thinking about can often lead to a good laugh and shine a light on how ridiculous some of our negative self-talk can be.
For some, simply stopping negative thoughts in their tracks can be helpful. This is known as "thought-stopping" and can take the form of snapping a rubber band on your wrist, visualizing a stop sign, or simply changing to another thought when a negative one enters your mind.
Take a negative thought and change it to something encouraging that's also accurate. Repeat until you find yourself needing to do it less and less often.
2 replies to "What is Negative self-talk?"
[…] negative self-talk patterns. You may find it helpful to keep a journal in which you record all the negative thoughts that come into your head. This will help you to identify the types of negative self-talk that are […]
Yes, that is a great tool that can be used to identify negative self-talk. Thank you for your comment!