Harnessing Your Self Talk

SUMMARY

Do you find that the most difficult conversations that you have are the ones that you have with yourself? Have you constantly got that inner critic coming at you, letting you know and reminding you of the things that are holding you back?

Well, stick with me because this week, I'm going to help you clean that up.

Your self-talk is designed to keep you within your safe zone; to put you in a position that keeps you safe from those universal fears and the other challenges that you've convinced yourself will happen in your life.

Or so you think.

Unfortunately, though, continually having that inner critic speak down to you and hold you back is costing you opportunities to become your true identity, to use all your gifts and talents, your uniqueness, and your creativity.

Today, I want to help you to change that.

You need to harness that negative self-talk, shift it into an empowering self-talk, and become your greatest encourager. Just like approval, external validation is great, but it's your voice that you take the most notice of.

What is it that you need to shift in your self-talk?

What constantly goes on in your conversations with yourself that stops you from being who you need to be so that you can do the things you want to do to achieve the results you want?

Acknowledge and be aware of them. Help your mini-me unlearn them and then step into a new empowering dialogue. You'll be able to build up your identity, increase your personal power, and become who you need to be right now.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue this conversation around our identity, and I will help you rewrite your own story for the future.

I'll see you then.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you find that the most difficult conversations that you have are the ones that you have with yourself? Have you constantly got that inner critic coming at you, letting you know and reminding you of the things that are holding you back?

Well, stick with me because this week, I'm going to help you clean that up.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue this conversation about rebuilding your identity by helping you harness your self-talk.

Over the last couple of weeks, we've been talking about who you believe you are, your identity, which is separate from what you do. We looked at the fact that having your identity tied up with what you do is the reason why you're not able to pull back from it when you go home. When you identify with what you do, and things don't work out well, that can erode your identity. Operating out of those 3 universal fears of not belonging, not being enough, and not being loved changes your behaviour.

Over the years of this happening, you've developed an inner dialogue. You've conditioned yourself to think about yourself the think and act in a certain way. Therefore, when you step outside and do things differently, that inner voice reminds you of the times when it didn't work, of the reasons why you're unable to do it, and it can hold you back.

I know personally that I would never speak to anybody as harshly as I speak to myself and this is something that I continually have to work on. I need to check myself and know when I'm speaking to myself in a way that's disempowering. We talk about people externally from us who speak down to us, who speak negatively, put us down, and all those things, yet we're happy to do it ourselves.

I need to let you understand that, just like me, you have a reason for doing this.

Your self-talk is designed to keep you within your safe zone; to put you in a position that keeps you safe from those universal fears and the other challenges that you've convinced yourself will happen in your life.

Or so you think.

Unfortunately, though, continually having that inner critic speak down to you and hold you back is costing you opportunities to become your true identity, to use all your gifts and talents, your uniqueness, and your creativity.

Today, I want to help you to change that.

I call this inner dialogue your ‘mini-me’. It's that small version of you that you've created to speak to you and talk some sense into you when you step outside what's comfortable and when you do things that could trigger one of those fears. Because it's a small version of YOU, you've created it just like I've created mine.

What I love about that is that you can use the same process you used to create that inner voice that you have now to create that self-talk, that dialogue that goes on. You can use that same strategy and techniques to rebuild, change, and harness that self-talk so that it becomes empowering, pushes you forward, and leads you to the fullness of your potential. To do this, I like to think of that mini me as being like a 2 year old child who needs the support of its parent. It needs reassurance, certainty, comfort and safety. It needs to feel like it's being listened to and acknowledged.

That's exactly what your inner voice needs too.

Now that you understand that you created your inner critic and internal dialogue, and have taken responsibility for it, you know that it's your responsibility to change it.

All the things that have been said to you over your life, you've taken them on and you've made them mean something about you.

All the mistakes you've made, all the things that haven't gone the way you thought they would, all the things that felt uncomfortable.

That's what this dialogue has been created by.

Those beliefs that you have about yourself, the world, and others — it's all in the data that you've stored in your subconscious mind. What you need to do is interrupt the pattern, shifting from your normal way of thinking and talking to yourself.

The first step to doing this is to have a level of self-awareness to know when your self-talk is holding you back—to know when what you are saying to yourself is holding you away from one of those fears and be able to recognise that it's not serving and helping you. To do that, you need to continue to build up your identity, removing your limiting beliefs, and work on all the things that we're working on.

By having that level of awareness, you know, you can do something about it.

Imagine if one of my grandchildren came into my studio right now as I'm doing this with you, and they said - “Grandpa, grandpa!” - and I just ignored them, showed them the hand and kept talking to you. What they're going to do is find another way of getting my attention. In fact, if I don't give them my attention quickly, they will get really upset.

Why?

Because what I've done from the moment that they could speak is I've let them know that whenever they say my name, I'm going to give them my attention. By ignoring them, I've upset that pattern, they think that something's going on, and perhaps they've done something wrong.

What you need to do for that child is acknowledge them and say: “Hey, come over here and meet these nice people.” Show them the camera and give them a wave. Then, say to them: “Hey, sit over there for a minute, and Grandpa will take you out for ice cream.”

So, you need to acknowledge that you heard them, and that's exactly what you need to do with your mini me.

That is the first step when that inner voice comes up: recognising that it's not what you want to hear, not what you want to believe, not the data that you're going to take to move forward, not the next step of whatever you're doing.

You need to go: “Okay. I hear you. I acknowledge that. I understand that. Thanks for reminding me.”

And the thing is: YOU TAUGHT THEM THAT and that’s why you need to acknowledge them.

To continue that on, once you’ve acknowledged what you need to do (just like what I did with my grandchild when I said: “Sit over here and then we'll go and get ice cream”), is we tell them what's going to happen next.

When that inner dialogue is talking, and you’ve acknowledged them, thanked them, and said: “Okay, I hear you, but this is what we're going to do now. I want you to unlearn that, and I want you to relearn what it is that's going to be our new belief. It's going to be our new behaviour.”

As you keep repeating this process over a period of time, it's going to become the new dialogue.

The next thing to do is to demonstrate to that inner dialogue what it is that you want them to do instead.

When this happens, what they've normally done is remind you of your shortcomings, your failures, and the reason why you don't do those things. Now, what you want them to remind you of instead are things that are going to empower you — of the times that you did, and that you can, of the evidence that's there that says: You are capable and worthy.

When you do this, all those other conversations that are normally negative can be overcome. You can harness that self-talk and show them by your actions that this new behaviour and a new way of thinking actually helps you. What that will do then is, over a period of time, rewrite the story that goes on in your head. The dialogue (the way that you talk to yourself) will shift. If you feel more worthy, then you will build yourself up.

You and I need to harness that negative self-talk, shift it into an empowering self-talk, and become your greatest encourager. Just like approval, external validation is great, but it's your voice that you take the most notice of.

What is it that you need to shift in your self-talk?

What constantly goes on in your conversations with yourself that stops you from being who you need to be so that you can do the things you want to do to achieve the results you want?

Acknowledge and be aware of them. Help your mini-me unlearn them and then step into a new empowering dialogue. You'll be able to build up your identity, increase your personal power, and become who you need to be right now.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue this conversation around our identity, and I will help you rewrite your own story for the future.

I'll see you then.