Self-talk

This recent WhatsApp message reached my phone and made me think: What do I say to myself? How many of my thought sentences contain negative or destructive words?

I read the story of a man, let’s call him John, who grew up in a house where his father was a word junkie. He was forever filling out crosswords and taught his children the power of words. Words, he believed, have an important influence on our lives – be it positive or negative.

He taught them to use words to their benefit by constructing their own acronyms. For example, the word PUSH, written down as in a crossword, could stand for

Petrified

Under

Stress,

Helpless.

Or it could be used to encourage you to

Put

Up

Some

Hard work.

When John hit a low in his career, losing his job when he least expected this to happen, he put word power to good use. He tells how he woke up one morning with the word STRONG ringing in his ears. Stand Tall, Resilient, Optimistic, Never Giving up, he told himself for that day.

The following day the word GREAT pulled him through: Get Ready and Expect a Terrific Day, he chanted and saw how his mindset was changing from fearful to brave.

Fear, he discovered, doesn’t go away. But you can control it by allowing it to trigger energy in you – remember the fight or flight principle?

He changed his self-talk by turning words around. Can I? became I Can! He soon discovered that carefully selected words have the power to build confidence. He gave himself a 30-day challenge to invest in positivity, neutralising all the neigh-sayers and to do what he could with what he had. He surrounded himself with positive people and started sharing his inspiration with others.

Every race has the last lap – this is also the case with hardship. Stick it out, remove your negative self-talk and choose the words you say to yourself, with great care.