We all have negative thoughts and feel negative emotions every now and then. Some however might have developed an unconscious habit of having negative thoughts about people, situations and themselves, thus doing this rather often.
Negative self-talk comes usually undesired. Some people might even be unaware of their negative self-talk. It is not unusual when we coach leaders to hear them talk negatively about themselves without them noticing it.
It is hard to change something you’re unaware of.
A powerful exercise to practice and an essential first step in creating awareness of how your self-talk sounds like, is paying attention to the words that come out of your mouth after these words: I am…
For the next 7 days pay attention to whatever you say after ”I am”. If you catch yourself saying anything disempowering like I am not good at x and y, or I am tired of …, or whatever it might be that is a negative self-talk.
As soon as you are aware change the words for empowering words like I haven’t yet mastered x and y, or I haven’t given myself time to master x and y. The assumptions behind empowering self-talk will bring you more empowerment.
As the assumptions behind disempowering self-talk will bring more of what you don’t want in your life.
Give it a try and let us know how it worked for you. You may post your comments below.