Challenging Negative Self-Talk

Gordon Simmons and Tracy Brown, started Happiness Inside because they truly believe that when people turn their awareness inward, they can begin to discover how to become happier.  And I agree! Just like getting fit is no mystery, getting happier isn’t really complicated either. And yet, both can be difficult if you don’t have support, knowledge, drive, and a set of tools you can use to accomplish the job. So they started www.HappinessInside.com Because they know that when you are happier, so are your friends and family – and even their friends and family. What if we could get millions of people focusing on increasing their happiness? What wonderful ripple effect could be created in the world? They are our latest guest bloggers here at StopStressingNow.Com and It’s with great pleasure that I introduce to you…

Gordon Simmons

Negative thoughts are constricting and unproductive. They make us give up before we’ve even tried. Positive thoughts, however, are uplifting and full of possibility. By continually choosing thoughts that support you rather than thoughts that bring you down, you will create a bias for positivity in your life and an openness, which will, in turn, create more experiences for you to feel good about.
We all have some self-doubt and negative chatter buzzing around in our heads. That’s natural. But when negative self-talk is allowed to build up, unchecked, it begins to distort our self-image. Without being aware of our negative self-talk, we can easily imagine it as truth. Before we know it, we actually begin to define ourselves by the negative thoughts we have. We start to believe those thoughts that say “I’m such an idiot!” or “I can’t do that!” or “I’m worthless.” That’s the bad news.

The good news is that you get to completely control those negative thoughts. After all, they come from your brain. Instead of getting crushed and distorted under the weight of negativity, you can choose to replace negative self-talk with self-talk that supports you. Here are three ways to go about that task.

1. Challenge the negative statements immediately. Whenever you hear yourself say something like “You know you’ll never get that promotion.” Challenge that thought. In her book Positivity, Dr. Barbara Fredrickson lists “Dispute Negative Thinking” as tool number five in her positivity tool kit.    That’s good advice. “Really?” you might ask. “And why not? I am good at what I do. I’ve been promoted in the past, and if I can figure out a way to stand out from the rest, I have every reason to believe I’d be considered for that promotion.”

Of course, the statements you make in your challenge must be true. Be very factual because your negative self-talk is not. It can’t stand up to truth. Challenging it will expose it for the falsehood it is.

2. Keep a daily journal of your successes—big and small. Of course you’ll want to write items down such as “I finally made that sale” or “My process improvement idea was implemented.” But you’ll also want to keep track of the more mundane successes as well. “I completed my portion of the project on time.” This is a success statement. “I made my son smile today” is another success statement. Keeping a journal of these will give you plenty of evidence to refute those negative thoughts. Success mentor and author Jack Canfield devotes an entire chapter of his The Success Principles to replacing negative statements with positive ones. The chapter is titled: Transform Your Inner Critic Into An Inner Coach. And why not. By replacing those negative thoughts with true supportive ones you become your own best advocate

3. Begin listing your strengths. Once again, for 30 days, take some time and really evaluate your strengths. You know you have them. If you have trouble thinking of some, ask your friends, family, and co-workers. Or look at your last employee evaluation. Listing your strengths in an honest, matter-of-fact way will help you to see how ridiculous negative self-talk is. You don’t have to make things up. You have lots of strengths. “I’m a great listener and friend” is a strength. “I can really cook.”  “I’m a good baseball coach.”  Doing these exercises each day for a period of time is important because each time you think of a strength you possess, you will have a positive emotional experience. These small experiences, over time, will truly make you happier. Author and Positive Psychology pioneer Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky has this to say in her book The How of Happiness: “Because positive emotions are typically short-lived many people believe they are trivial. This is a mistake. . . .moments of pleasure don’t just make you feel good. They broaden your horizons and build your social, physical, and intellectual skills.”
The overarching idea is to give more weight to the positive statements you can honestly make about yourself than you do the negative, false statements that pop in to your head.

Everyone experiences fear, doubt, and worry. The important thing to remember is that all that chatter in your head is just that—chatter. It is not truth. It is not you. It is habitual thinking that you can change if you make yourself aware and practice techniques like these.

We plan to learn the answer to that question in the coming months with new articles right here. Also by growing www.HappinessInside.com to the world’s largest social networking site devoted to personal happiness.  We invite you to come on over and see how our members are creating that ripple effect.