Written by: Abbey Riendeau, LMHC
Have you ever noticed that you always have a commentary of thoughts rolling through your head almost constantly every day? This commentary might include what you are observing, evaluations you are making about yourself and others, opinions you have, and so on. This is often referred to as ‘self-talk’ or our inner voice. You might not be aware of this inner voice but it is likely that it is there in your mind. This inner voice combines conscious thoughts with unconscious beliefs and biases to create the internal monologue within your mind everyday.
Your self-talk can be supportive and positive or it can be hurtful and negative. Everyone experiences negative self-talk from time to time, but when this inner dialogue creates significant distress, it can be damaging. Our self-talk is important because it has a big impact on how you feel about yourself and others, as well as impacting your decisions and actions. To have negative self-talk means that your inner voice is excessively negative and critical. It is an inner voice that is pessimistic and only focuses on the bad. This type of self-talk erodes your confidence and prevents you from reaching your full potential. It can convince you that you will fail before you even start because you are not good enough.
Examples of negative self-talk can include:
“I’m never going to be able to do this.”
“Why do I even bother?”
“Nothing ever works for me.”
“Nobody likes me.”
“I’m a failure.”
“I don’t deserve to be happy.”
Negative self-talk is often repetitive and does not usually reflect reality, or it over-exaggerates a small piece of reality. These types of thoughts can lead to rumination on negative aspects of your life, which often continues to bring about or amplify negative scenarios.
Your self-talk has the ability to impact your mental health and your relationships with others. If you always talk to yourself negatively, you will feel bad most of the time. The thoughts you tell yourself often feel as though they are true. This will drag you down and continue to drag you down. Negative self-talk increases the likelihood of experiencing serious mental health challenges and is often experienced by those who suffer from depression or anxiety. This constant negative chatter can be difficult to break out of and can create feelings of hopelessness. Furthermore, negative self-talk can go on to impact your confidence and abilities. It leads to stress and makes it hard to bring positive aspects to relationships within your life. Have you ever tried to have a relationship with someone who only focuses on the negative? It can be deflating not only for the person suffering from the negative self-talk but also for those who care about the individual and see them as a good person.
It is possible to change how you speak to yourself. This change often starts with first noticing how you speak to yourself internally. Begin by paying attention to what you say to yourself when you achieve something and when you fail to achieve something. Pay attention to how you speak to yourself in general throughout the day. Do you look for any reason to put yourself down?
Next, understanding how our self-talk trickles down to ultimately impact if we succeed or fail at our goals is important. The suggestions, words, or thoughts we tell ourselves internally creates the feelings that we feel about ourselves. These feelings shape our beliefs about ourselves. These beliefs create behaviors that fall in line with how we view ourselves. And finally, these behaviors determine if we succeed or fail. If we constantly tell ourselves that we are going to fail, we will fail because we never give ourselves the chance to succeed.
After gaining this understanding, you need to decide that you want to succeed and you need to choose to do something differently every day. Then you can start seeing these thoughts for what they are: just thoughts. Just because something pops into your head does not mean that it is actually true. Learning to allow our thoughts to come and go without holding onto them so tightly and identifying with them as true can bring so much relief.
Consider asking yourself what factual evidence you have to support this thought. If you only have opinions or feelings to support the thought, it probably isn’t true. Next, consider if the thought is actually helpful for motivating and pushing you towards your goals, or if it actually holds you back from your goals. If it doesn’t propel you forward, you don’t need to hold onto it or give it any weight.
You can try techniques for ‘stopping’ the thought. Redirect your mind to what you are doing in the moment, such as through mindfulness practices. You may also consider using imagery of yourself squashing or throwing away the thought. Additionally, replacing the negative thought with a more neutral, factual, or positive thought can be helpful. Practice viewing yourself and situations from a ‘glass half full’ perspective. You can try “thinking like a friend” by viewing the situation through a kind friend’s perspective to provide yourself with some compassion. Identify your strengths as part of your self-talk and practice accepting compliments from others. Surround yourself with optimistic people who will help you cultivate this mindset.
It will take time for your feelings to begin to change to match up with your positive thoughts, just like it took time for your feelings to align with your negative thoughts, but with continued practice and change your feelings, beliefs, and behaviors will change. Putting in the time and effort to cultivate positive self-talk is worth it. Having a positive inner voice will reduce your stress levels, reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, make you feel more in control of your life, and help you overcome obstacles.
If you find that your negative self-talk is overwhelming, please reach out to a mental health professional for help. Enlisting the support of a therapist can make a huge difference in beginning to improve how you speak to yourself and ultimately begin to see differences in your overall mood. Our therapists at FIG are available to help you recognize, discuss, and change your inner critic to live a more fulfilling and positive life. If you are experiencing extreme negative self-talk, feel free to reach out to us to schedule an appointment or call 988 for immediate mental health support.
Citation:
Australia, H. (2022, March 4). Self-talk. Www.healthdirect.gov.au. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/self-talk#:~:text=Negative%20self%2Dtalk%20is%20when
Scott, E. (2023, November 22). The Toxic Effects of Negative Self-Talk. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/negative-self-talk-and-how-it-affects-us-4161304