It’s that time of year again — January 1. The New Year! Time for making resolutions, but will we really keep them? Or will they end up like so many other New Year’s resolutions from years prior, forgotten by January 15, but regretted all year long.
Are you spending time reflecting on your 2011 resolutions? Do you feel disappointed that they were not accomplished? One of the main reasons that folks just like you and me do not achieve their goals is because we set ourselves up for failure by using negative self-talk.
What is self-talk? Whether you actually talk to yourself outloud sometimes (c’mon, admit it!) or just keep a conscious or unconscious running dialogue in your head, we all have mini-conversations with ourselves all day long. But if you are wanted to be open to the wonderful things coming into your life this year, or the fantastic things that you are going to create, you must be positive in your self-talk.
Here’s what some positive and negative self-talk can sounds like:
Positive Self-Talk
- I can do this.
- I can learn this.
- I am worthy of this, and I am good enough.
- I can and will do what it takes to accomplish my goal.
Negative Self-Talk
- I can’t do it.
- I can’t learn it.
- I’m not worthy, and I’m not good enough.
- I don’t have what it takes to accomplish this goal.
You must consciously decide how you are going to respond to and process all of the information that comes at you each day. If you spend time living in the past and telling yourself how rotten you are in a variety of ways, then no wonder you never achieve the goals you set! You must stop training your brain to become the person that you tell yourself you are. You are magnificent! Good or bad, your brain will create habits that reinforce the story you are telling yourself about who you are, what you are capable of, and what you are worthy of.
So if you use positive self-talk, your brain will literally help you become the person you want to be. If you use that same old negative self-talk, then your subconscious will also keep you stuck in the comfortable but probably bad habits of the past. The sooner you start to talk nicely to yourself, the sooner you will be on the path to reaching those goals — at the New Year or any other time. You can do it — now tell yourself that, too!
(For more info about self-talk, I recommend the book “What to Say When You Talk to Yourself” by Shad Helmstetter. My husband laughed when he saw it on our shelf, but it is really a positive and important work.)
