Our words matter: How to decrease negative self-talk

Every single day and all day long we have an inner dialogue with ourselves. We can’t escape it. So… how’s your inner dialogue?

How we talk to ourselves is a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. Our worth, our belief in our abilities, confidence in ourselves, etc.. 

Have you paid attention lately to how you are speaking to you? Because our inner dialogue is a 24/7 habit, we often don’t recognize how we talk about ourselves. But how we talk about ourselves matters significantly. Our words become our mood, behavior, and outcome. What we think about, we eventually say and then see lived out… meaning, we need to start to pay attention to our thoughts and words we use about ourselves, situations, and others. 

If you’d like to learn more about this topic in more detail with specific tools, click HERE to get a free easy to use handout to start learning more about stopping negative self-talk

However, to get you started, here are a few ways to decrease negative self-talk and improve self-kindness. 

• First, start with noticing it… (your like, umm duhhh). But I challenge you to take this seriously. Don’t shame yourself with how often you do it or how intensely, but just make notice of it. What are the themes about? What purpose are they serving? Often our negative self-talk serves a purpose (can motivate us to achieve, isolate us to keep safe, keeps us from getting our hopes up because we will just get disappointed eventually anyways, etc.). 

• Second, don’t feed the negative talk. We have so much more power over our thoughts and words than we realize. Sometimes this is VERY difficult. Possible ways to not feed negative thoughts include: 

Do an activity that keeps your mind busy: Listen to a podcast/music, call/text a friend, watch a show, read, workout, do an activity you enjoy, etc. Or change the subject. Think about something else. Redirect your thoughts. 

• Third, Fact Check and Challenge. 

Is this thought accurate? What disputes it? What says it’s true? Work hard to challenge it. 

• Fourth one, use self-compassion and kindness. 

Recognize that none of us are perfect. We are all imperfect human beings trying to do our best. We will never be perfect, so why try? Acceptance of our imperfections goes a long way with decreasing negative self-talk. 

• Five, whose voice is this really? Why do you feel so negatively about yourself related to this subject? Is this something you care about or something you’ve been told you should care about? Something someone said to you? Get curious about the theme and background of this negative topic. When we understand it more, we have a better ability to dispute it and not continue it. 

• Six, - Redirect your attention to what you are doing well. Give yourself permission to highlight the positive aspects of yourself too. Sometimes this can be difficult, but start small with believable statements. Example, “I’m a really intentional mom.” “I try to do my best at work.” “I have worked out 1x this past week.” 

• Seven, work to simply observe your thoughts and let them move past you. You can take notice and say, “oh there I go making a negative comment about my looks.” Disconnect from the emotional connection to your thoughts related to what you're thinking. When we call it out and make a more neutral statement, negative thoughts start to lose their power. 

• And last, call yourself out and say “Stop.” “I don’t need to feed this thought.” When we say it out loud, reality kicks in and our internal thoughts lose power. 

How we speak about ourselves is powerful. We become what we think. And the words we speak are heard by those around us, including our children. Teaching ourselves to speak positively about ourselves, also teaches them. 

They are worth it, but so are you. 

Want this in a handout form with more specific details and additional tools? Click HERE to read more on how to decrease negative self-talk.