Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Hello and welcome to Imagine the Possibilities. My name is Skip Pogue. This is season two, episode four and it's titled Self Talk.
[00:00:24] Have you ever told yourself you're not good enough?
[00:00:27] That no matter how hard you try, you're just going to fail?
[00:00:31] What if I told you that that kind of self talk might be the biggest thing holding you back?
[00:00:37] Because it really might be. I had a friend of mine that said it's intuitively obvious to even most casual observer when it comes to self talk. That's kind of true, isn't it?
[00:00:49] We're just talking to ourselves. We're having a conversation with ourselves. Now, it could be consciously or unconsciously. It can be positive or be negative. If it's positive, we're encouraging ourselves, we're motivating ourselves. If it's negative, we're obviously discouraging ourselves. But in addition, we're reinforcing the doubts we already have and maybe the fears of what's going to happen when we try to do this task.
[00:01:17] So negative self talk is obviously that same conversation, but it brings us down.
[00:01:26] Unlike positive self talk, which builds us up, we may get in our head all of a sudden that we're not good enough, smart enough, or capable enough.
[00:01:37] It becomes self defeating and we've got to stop it. There's no way other than that. And we also, when we get into that mindset, we also do certain things. We personalize things. We may take the blame for something we have no control over because we feel like it's our fault. It's not. If you don't have any control over it, it's not your fault that it failed or didn't go that way. It was expected.
[00:02:07] We sometimes do what's called filtering. We only look at the negative, completely ignoring anything positive that comes out of it.
[00:02:18] Everything is a learning experience.
[00:02:21] I learn stuff every day. I think everybody does. You have new experiences, you do something that you've never done. I'd never done a podcast when I decided to do it, and the story's true, it took me two years to go from I'm going to do a podcast to recording my first podcast. Two years that was filled with self doubt, negative self talk and a whole lot of other stuff. It's one of the things we really need to work on, get better at. We also can do what's called polarizing. That's where we see everything as either good or bad. And when it comes to that, we've got to get out of that. We've got to stop doing it. The problem Is that negative self talk can create a lot of issues with us. Like if we do it enough, if we're constantly telling ourselves we're not good enough, over time we're going to start to believe it. If we do that, we're going to lower our self esteem. There's no way you can not do that. It creates a fear of failure.
[00:03:27] In a podcast, I said I don't fear failure anymore because I look at failure as a way to learn things by failing. Maybe I have to go read, maybe I have to do some research, maybe I have to look at things differently. But I'm not failing. I'm just learning new things. I think it was Thomas Edison said that he did not fail creating a light bulb. He just found 10,000 ways that wouldn't work.
[00:03:53] That's true.
[00:03:54] By negative self talk, we can see an increase in our stress and anxiety. And you have to remember our brain reacts negatively to thoughts. They appear to the brain to be real threats. And that fight or fight thing comes into play and either one of those are bad. They'll just trigger more stress. It'll create fear of failure. And like I said, I don't fear failure anymore. I did a podcast on that. If you assume you're going to fail before you even start a task, I can pretty much assure you you're probably going to fail. Trust me, I've done that. Back in the day, I thought as soon as I started, I said, I can't do this, it's not going to work. And guess what? It didn't. But then I got through it and I learned some things while I was failing, I was failing forward. So I learned things. And when I did it the second time, I got better. Third time and it may have taken me 10 or 12 times before I could do it without messing up. That's okay, because each time I did something, I never failed. I just learned new things until I was successful completing the task. One of the it can lead to perfectionism and burnout. And I don't think that it's in us to do something perfect. We can try. I've tried to do things perfect and I finally realized that for me, perfection is just a little bit out of my reach. So I just do it, complete the task the way it needs to be completed and everybody's happy, including me. It can hurt us when it comes to our personal relationships with family and friends because you can start believing not only stuff about or work related, but it also can be personal stuff. Your little inner voice can tell you nobody likes you. If you hear that enough, you're going to start withdrawing from people. You won't interject things in a meeting. You'll just kind of be there. When it comes to personal relationships, you might react poorly with anger in certain situations. If something's sad, it can limit your personal, professional and spiritual growth, and we need all three of those. But it can limit it because you'll start thinking, if I'm not qualified for a promotion or I'm not worthy of a. You might never take the steps needed to earn more money or get promoted. Same thing goes in your personal life. There's things that you might never try or never do because you don't feel like you can do them. And same thing in your spiritual life. So we have to think about these things. And the last thing I think it can impact, and I've talked about this several times, is your physical health. I told the story of going to my doctor, and when I was driving there, I got really upset in traffic. And when I got into the doctor's office, the nurse took my blood pressure and it was worse. Worse than I'd ever seen it. Worse than she'd ever seen it. She said something to me about it, and when the doctor came in, who's a friend of mine, she asked me, she said, what is wrong with your blood pressure? You've been taking your medicine? I said, yeah. And I told her what happened coming in there. And so she said, okay, let's just talk a few minutes. I'll check your other vitals and stuff, and then we'll take it again. So we Talked, and probably 10 minutes later, she took it. I'd settle down, calm down, and my blood pressure was good. Getting that stress and anxiety from driving there affected me physically. Negative self talk can do that to us. How do you recognize negative self talk? Here's the thing. Most people don't even realize that they're doing it. But when it comes to recognizing it, one of the things we tend to do is overgeneralization. We say things like, I always fail. I could never do that. They're just general statements. You know they're not true. You don't always fail. Think about it. We do filtering where we only focus. We only focus on what went wrong. I did transitions for a while where the company I worked for was putting in help desk around the country. And I would go and start the help desk from start to finish. I would put it in and I had a huge spreadsheet to track all the activities on it. And I knew what I had to do. But what if one thing didn't go right and I got so focused on that that I started missing steps. After that, I was just focused on fixing that. Say it took me two or three days. I had a schedule, I had to have the thing done in a specific amount of time. And maybe because I got focused on it, I missed that deadline. Never happened. But I could have quite easily.
[00:08:36] We also do a thing called mind reading. We walk into a group of people, say, at our favorite coffee place or whatever, and they're sitting there talking and you walk up to a table and nobody, you know, they're in a conversation, nobody. They see you there, but they don't stop right in the middle of the conversation to welcome you. And you think, they must think I'm really dumb. Or they just said something to me already. But 10 seconds, 15 seconds goes by and everybody says, hey, skip, how you doing? You know, and it's all right, but you've already done that to yourself. You've already thought about it. So you just, you probably reinforced. Because that conversation that's going on, you don't join and you have one in your head that says, that's true. I really do think you're dumb. So you got to be careful of that. You need to listen when you start having that conversation or the negative thoughts pop up in your head, you need to listen to it. You need to be aware of that happening to you in the moment. Now we've got a pretty good idea about what negative self talk is. So the big question next is how do we stop it? How do we overcome negative self talk? The first thing we need to do is understand that for the most part, negative self talk is automatic. We don't start it by asking ourselves something negative. It just pops up in our head. So pay attention to that inner conversation. When it pops up, pay attention to it and recognize if a negative pattern is starting. Maybe you have a bad thought, a negative thought, I can't do this. You say, you're probably right. Well, what's your negative going to say back to you? Yeah, I'm right. So be aware of it and pay attention. If you see a pattern starting and the pattern includes what you're saying or thinking in return, I journal. If you're having issues with negative self talk and you journal, write down a few of the things you're saying to yourself. If you don't journal, take some time and write down a few of the things you're saying to yourself just on a piece of paper, just so you'll have a better grasp of what's being said. Let's say you have a thought that says, I'm terrible at this. Just pause and ask yourself. Even if you don't write it down, just pause and ask yourself, where's that coming from? Why am I having that thought? Practice mindfulness. Being in the present is necessary to stop and overcome negative self talk. And by being in the present, I mean being mindful. If you want to, you can practice some mindfulness exercises. One thing you can do is just sit in your chair and focus on your breathing and your body. And you have to be. To focus on your breathing, you have to be in the moment, you have to be in the presence. So just do that. You can look around yourself and look at your surroundings and think about them. Where are you sitting, what's around you, and any sensations you have in your body. Just be aware and live in the moment. Don't live in the past. Don't work to live in the future. That'll get better. Here's a couple other suggestions. One is to start your day looking in the mirror and say something positive about yourself. The first time I did that, I said something positive, but I was like, this is silly. But the more I did it, the more I realized it wasn't silly because it made me start each day with something that was very positive. Another thing, here's another idea, another thing. And this was something I found that really helped me. I don't know if you remembered or saw it when it happened, but back in 2014, Admiral William McRaven delivered a commencement speech at the University of Texas in Austin. He started that speech with this line, if you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. And it actually got laughing. But he went on to tell people why. And it had to do with completing a task. The first task of a morning you can always complete. Now, I read the book before I saw the video of the thing. I didn't see it in 2014, but I did read the book. And the book's really good. Guess what I did? I started making my bed. And I did feel better because I literally had to accomplish something first thing before I did anything else. The first thing I did, I accomplished something by completing that first task. It gave me a simple feeling of, okay, now today I've been doing it for a long time. And habits, good habits, things that reinforce the good in us are a good thing. Now, it can be a habit and it probably, hopefully it is. I think it is. But every once In a while, you know how you get up and you're like, I don't. I don't feel good today. Or I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to rest and relax. And then I think about not making my bed. I have yet to not make my bed. I'm like, I can't do that. I got to get that part. I've got to do it. So I've done it for probably five or six years now, maybe more than that. It was about 2020 when I read his book and then I went and found the speech and it was really. The whole thing was really good. I would. If you go to YouTube and find it, I think it was really good speech. Another thing, surround yourself with positivity. You know, spend time with people who support you, care about you.
[00:13:57] This is a hard one. Limit your exposure to negativity, social media, Facebook, Twitter, or toxic relationship. I'm trying to do something, and I started about a month ago now, I guess, or maybe not that long, but I'm trying to take an hour and my intention is to increase it. But right now I'm trying to take an hour a day where I don't have a phone, I don't get on the computer. I don't look at my Alexa devices or ask them questions. I just simply relax for that hour. And I want to increase it to maybe two hours. My phone being retired, it's odd because my phone go. I get a dozen phone calls a day or more. Some of them are people wanting to sell me something, usually warranty on my car.
[00:14:46] But anyway, it's a good idea. Just get yourself off of that stuff for a little bit at a time, especially. And my wife and I have gotten better about not being hooked to that stuff all day long. You know, if it's dinner time, don't get, you know, don't do it. You can get by without it for 45 minutes. Reading. I love to read. I have a Kindle device and I also use audible because I find that I tend to learn more, I guess, out of reading a book. And most of the stuff I read is spiritual, motivational business books and things like that. Occasionally I'll read a fiction book, but most of that, most of them I don't. I'm not a big fan of. I'm not a. I'm not against fiction, but my personal opinion, I'm not a big fan of fiction, but read a book, take a few minutes or an hour. One of the things I really enjoy when I'm in here in my office.
[00:15:44] I love gospel music, I love country music. So I've got playlists of both. And some days I listen to country music, some days I listen to gospel music and some days I listen to, I guess you would say relaxing music, baroque and things like that. And I simply sit here, I dim the lights, I relax, put on a set of headphones and maybe have a cup of chai latte or a cup of coffee and relax for an hour just listening that music. Not a lot of movement or anything else. That helps you and that really helps you through the day. Another thing when it comes to negative self thoughts is take action. You have a task before you and your head's telling you you can't do it or whatever. Well, try baby step. Take some action. Start moving forward. It can be a small step, but it's a courageous step because you're doing it and you were told that you couldn't do it. But you've taken a step toward finishing it and baby steps will get you there, just like taking long steps will. It may take you a little bit longer, obviously, but just take baby steps and move forward. As long as you're continuously moving forward, you'll get it done. Confidence grows when you do that because you see you're actually accomplishing things and moving forward on it. That's an important part of it. Your confidence grows when you take baby steps. When you move forward on really does, it grows, you get stronger. Make positive self talk a daily habit.
[00:17:21] We're probably good at building muscle. You know, people, probably a lot of people listen to this, go to the gym, hang out, they may run, they may do particular different types of exercises and stuff. Well, practicing positive self talk is just the same thing, but it's helping to create a more healthy mind. What can you do to make make this better? To make it a habit? We talked about starting your day making your bed. Also start it with a positive statement. I'm ready to I'm ready to face today. No matter what comes my I'm going to get what I need to get done done. I'm ready to face today with confidence. I can do what I need to do today. Just start with a positive statement. Reframe challenges when you have negative self talk, reframe it into a positive Something's going to be hard. This is tough but I can handle it. Don't listen to the bad side of it. Make it positive for you. Use visual reminders, you know, sticky note phone wallpapers or daily affirmations. I have A list of daily affirmat that I listen to on my Alexa device and they help me post a little. You know, if you think of something, a good quote or something and you like it, write it on a sticky note and stick it on your desk or something. Or make write it, type it out on your phone and make it the wallpaper for your phone. Or make it just a picture you can look at. Surround yourself with positivity. Sometimes we don't do that. Don't get caught up around a group of negative people. Look for things that create positivity in your mind. You know, good books, podcasts, people your friends, family, people in those groups that encourage you. Hang around with them, encourage them back. Each of you can reinforce it in the other so you know that's a good thing. Surround yourself with positive people. If you win, if you accomplish something, you know, celebrate it. If you had a tough task and you did it, tell yourself that you're improving one step at a time. We don't do things by going from point A to point B without taking at least one step. So just think about that. In closing, you need to understand. We need to understand. Breaking free of negative self talk isn't about our being perfect. It's about being aware of negative self talk and choosing better thoughts each and every day. I'd like to challenge you to do one thing. Think about an area in your life where negative self talk is holding you back. It could be a goal you have, a project you're working on, or a conversation with somebody you've been avoiding. Now just take one small step toward it. Write down what you're going to do. If it's a phone call, make that phone call. Take that first action. No matter how small it is. If we take a baby step, we're moving forward. If you do that and you want me to know about it, I'd love to hear from you. Send me a message, an email. The email address is imagine the possibilities.lifegmail.com I'd love to hear from you. If you feel like that you accomplish something and you want to tell somebody, I'll celebrate it with you. So that's it for today for this podcast. As always, I wish you much success in your life. I know that you can accomplish remarkable things. Always remember that your future belongs to you. Stay humble, be kind, love deeply, and laugh often. I hope that you have a super day and I pray that God blesses you in a super way.
[00:20:57] Thanks again and God bless it.
