How We Talk to Ourselves Really Matters
By Leo Babauta | Source
One of the biggest things that has power over our lives is something that most people are unaware of — how we talk to ourselves. It’s unseen, and therefore we’re powerless to it, and don’t even realize how much power it has over us.
We talk to ourselves in really negative ways, and it makes such a huge difference:
- Stressing ourselves out: We look at a situation and then tell ourselves that it’s terrible, scary, hard! Basically, our inner dialog escalates the stress of the situation. Instead of reassuring ourselves that we’ve got this, we press some level of the panic button.
- Discouraging ourselves: Things aren’t going our way … and so our inner dialog says things like, “This is too hard. You can’t do this. This isn’t working. You suck at this.” So discouraging! And so we tend to give up from this.
- Criticizing ourselves: When we don’t do as well as we’d like, we often have a critical inner voice, which is stressful, frustrating, discouraging. The hope is that this inner critic will spur us to do better, but it usually has a negative effect.
- Making ourselves frustrated: When we think things should be going better, we can have an inner voice that says things like, “Why does it have to be this way? Why do I always struggle with this? Why do they have to act that way?” And while this is understandable, it usually leads to frustration.
- Making ourselves avoid difficult things: When something is scary or hard, our inner voice might find rationalizations: “You can do this later. Give yourself a break.” And so we avoid.
As you can see, this inner voice is speaking all the time, and it usually has some really negative effects on us. It makes us want to avoid or quit what we really want to do. It sabotages projects and habits. It leaves us feeling stressed, frustrated, discouraged, down.
So how do we overcome this? Through two important steps:
- Becoming aware of the inner voice
- Using this voice as an ally for good
Let’s take a look!
Bringing Awareness to the Inner Voice
If we aren’t aware that the voice is there, we can’t do anything about it. But it’s been there so long that it’s just background noise at this point.
Let’s try an experiment:
- For just 10 minutes, try to pay attention to any thoughts that come up in your head.
- Pick a hard task you’ve been avoiding.
- Commit yourself to doing that hard task for just 10 minutes. Set a timer, and go after it.
- Notice what thoughts come up, before, during and after.
For some people, there will be an avoidance of the experiment altogether. If that’s you, what do you tell yourself to avoid the experiment?
For others, they might get stuck in the “pick a hard task” step — what doubts come up that stop you from choosing?
For others, there will be a number of thoughts that come up as they try to get started, or as they do the task. What rationalizations, doubts, or other thoughts can you notice?
Write them down. This is how you learn to be aware of this inner voice.
Now do this experiment every day for two weeks. You’ll see your inner voice so much more than ever before. And you’ll become aware of it outside of those 10 minutes a day as well. (Also note what you tell yourself to avoid doing the experiment for two weeks!)
Bonus: also notice your thoughts when you are avoiding anything. Or feeling discouraged or frustrated.
Learning to Use the Inner Voice for Good
OK, so let’s say you’ve been doing the two-week experiment. You’re more aware of the inner voice. This is huge.
Now we can start to create an ally in this inner voice. It can do a lot of good, but we have to practice.
Notice when your inner voice is being critical or discouraging, or causing you to avoid or be stressed. Notice what it’s saying.
Now start to change the inner dialog, with a gentle and friendly attitude:
- Be understanding: When the voice is harsh, tell it that you understand that it’s afraid. Afraid of not being good enough. Tell it that you understand that it’s trying to help you, to protect you. Then reassure it: you’ve got this. Ask it to trust you.
- Be encouraging: Instead of saying discouraging things, ask the voice to encourage you. “You can do this! You got this!” Things like that. Ask the voice to be your best cheerleader.
- Be friendly: Ask the voice to be kind and friendly as well — when we’re feeling down and discouraged, we just want a kind friend to be there with us. The voice can be that: “It’s OK, buddy, you tried your best. You can learn from this. You can dust yourself off and try again.”
- Be inspired: Often, we force ourselves to do things. But what if we could talk to ourselves in a way that’s not a taskmaster, but an inspirational speaker? The voice could remind you of why this is important, and tell you about the beautiful possibility this task represents for you.
These are just some things you can try. You could try other approaches as well: being curious, adventurous, humorous, playful, grateful, loving.
In the end, this is about reclaiming the power of our inner voice. And as we do so, we’ll be changing the course of our lives.
with love,
Leo Babauta
Zen Habits