The Art of Positive Self-Talk

As a transformation coach, the most important challenge I face is to create sustainable change for people. This requires teaching them powerful and simple technologies that they can bring into the real world and use to make significant progress in living happier lives.

I like to aim for what I think of as a life of total contact, a conscious attempt to be in direct contact with as much of life as possible. By increasing the surface area of our lives, we can fully experience the joy of it all.

More and more, it seems we live in A world of A to B. We're at point A and we need to get to point B. Everything in between is just a glimpse, because when we linearize time, we extract a lot of the essence from it.

We experienced the two-dimensional aspect of it, but we missed the full 3-D experience.

The same is true of our self-talk. We don't actually even realize how much we're talking to ourselves -- but we do it even when we're talking to each other. We need to learn to experience it fully because it has a huge impact on us and our lives.

To that end, I teach responsible self-talk to all my clients because it's a simple life adjustment. It's also interesting. Try it the next time you have an argument with someone and you'll see what I mean.

So what is it, and how do we experiment with it?

Responsible self-talk involves listening carefully to the point of view we take when we talk to ourselves. Do we tend to take responsibility for our feelings - or do we "blame" other people, events and circumstances for our feelings?

For example, when you feel insecure about your past, you see the past as something fixed and still acting on you. This view is debilitating because it allows the power of your past to dominate you in the present, in the here and now. You voluntarily gave it the power to bother you.

Many of us feel, think, speak and act in this disempowered perspective.

When we talk about the past, the only reality happening in the present is what we think and feel about the past. When we recognize and acknowledge this, we can change it.

This is the power of responsible self-talk. Here's an example:

"I'm worried about my past" could be changed to "I'm worried about my past".

There is a world of difference between these two views. The first assumes that the past has power over you. The second gives you the right to decide for yourself how it will affect you.

This is an important distinction. This new way of putting words together makes you an active observer and participant of your own experience. More importantly, it gives you the ability to make your current experience whatever you choose.

Remember this simple idea: How you react to an event is as important as the event itself, and how you react to an event creates perspective. The onus is on you.

If you are the one who created the perspective, you are the one who can change it. You can think, talk, act, and feel differently. People or circumstances have nothing to do with you psychologically. You do everything for yourself.

Here are some more examples of changing your perspective through self-talk:

She makes me very angry

I let myself be angry with her

My father made me feel

Helplessness When I was with my father, I allowed myself to feel helpless

Life is so uncertain

I made myself feel uncertain about life

The news makes me sad

I'm sorry about the news

Tomorrow's meeting scares me

Fear myself with my thoughts about tomorrow's meeting

Fear drove me out of my way

I let myself get out of my way because of fear

When we take responsibility in self-talk, we speak in the present tense because the past, present and future can only be experienced in the present. Right now, all we have is our reaction to what happened in the past. At the moment, we can only predict how we will react to things that may or may not happen in the future.

The actual response is our responsibility.

Remember, the words you use create your perspective. This is the idea of power -- specifically power over your current emotions and feelings.

Will you take power into your own hands, or will you give it to something you can't control and become a victim?

I believe in the beauty of our dreams and that it takes radical courage to have a fulfilling life. You didn't get the life you wanted -- you got the life you promised and worked for. Trying responsible self-talk will make you aware of your sense of responsibility, a new sense of responsibility -- and a simple, effective self-empowerment tool.