Don’t Take Negative Self-Talk So Seriously. Have you paid any attention to the inner talk, the chatter that is constantly going on in your head about who you are and your capacity to reach your goals?
Those recurring thoughts are very telling, not of the reality of how things truly are but of where your mental set point is and of the direction that you’re heading in. Much of the negative things that we tell ourselves are just subjective distortions that we act as though are fact written in a science book. For the most part, much of our self-talk is a mixture of thoughts and emotions that are really rooted in past experiences that may not have anything to do with the present. Many are outdated and others were inaccurate from the moment your mind created them.
For example, especially when we’re really young, it’s very easy for our minds to extrapolate. But because somebody said this or did that to us that we must not be good enough a lot of adults continue to live their lives based on those experiences. Our minds also have the tendency to filter out good things and focus only on the bad stuff. They tend to exaggerate, making things worse than what they really are. They over generalize to work.
For example if you had two boyfriends cheat on you back-to-back, you’re now thinking that all men are cheaters and they’re no good. In the case of guys, a guy might think that women only want to be with the tall guy or super wealthy guy.
Our minds can also edit out certain information while focusing on negatives that only make us feel bad. It’s not uncommon for our minds to jump to conclusions without any evidence, because we’re just functioning from a place of fear.
Those are just a few examples of all the different things that our minds tend to do to us, so the next time your mind starts to regurgitate all that negative self-talk:
A) Don’t take it so seriously
B) Start to challenge it.
For more information on how you can train your mind to be positive and have a positive self perception go to my website and be sure to subscribe to my newsletter.