What are the benefits of using positive self-talk?

Today I was reminded an encounter I had a couple of months ago. I was strolling through the city as there was an event going on which made the streets free from car traffic. Pedestrians and bicycles were king and it was very nice weather. The pubs & restaurant terraces were packed with people enjoying a drink or afternoon tea. I was signalled by an old friend and garage holder from the town I grew up. We use Facebook and the likes to stay in touch, but it had been a long time since we really sat down together and talked.

He mentioned that he followed my travelling and appearances all over the world and he pointed out an occurrence where my car was due in maintenance at his garage shop and as he was moving the car, my “affirmation cards” fell down from behind the sun visor. At that time (years back) he was intrigued by them but did not dare to ask, as he classified them as a bit awkward. I did indeed create laminated cards with my desires and goals printed on them and stuck them to the sun visor and whenever I was standing still in traffic or had to wait in the car, I went through them.

I hear you thinking, a bit of a long intro to get to the subject of today’s post about using positive self-talk, but it is really relevant as it proves that it really works. This dates from years back and I can sincerely say that everything that was on there is more or less achieved or I made a significant progress. Now affirmations are not the topic I want to write about today, I would like to address the effect of the internal thoughts, your internal dialogue, which in my case were actively triggered by these affirmation cards.

Your biggest influencer is you

One of the biggest influences that we can use to our advantage in life is oneself. In particular, we can use our thoughts because they influence our feelings and therefore can have a profound effect on how we deal with life in general. By learning to control our self-talk and turning it into positive self-talk rather than negative, which most people do unconsciously throughout the day, you can begin to gain more control over every aspect of your life and make essential changes.

Your ability to succeed in life largely depends on how you deal with life, a positive mental attitude leads to a confident and ultimately more successful person than one full of negativity which leads to a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. By taking a positive attitude you look at life in a different way. A positive attitude leads to seeing good in people and in the world which leads to optimism and success. Your quality of life is based on how you think and feel from moment to moment and changing the way you think can drastically change how you see life and deal with life.

The person who goes through life optimistically with a positive attitude is better able to deal with life and the problems which it sometimes throws at us. They are able to bounce back and recover from problems or set-backs in life. The optimistic person will see the problem for what it is, nothing but a temporary set-back which they can overcome and move on. When looking at life in this optimistic way the person is able to take full control over their thoughts and feelings and turn a negative situation into a more positive one by simply altering the way they think. Since thoughts can either be positive or negative and you can only have one thought in mind at one time, then choosing positive will keep your thoughts, feelings and actions optimistic which leads to a happier person who is able to achieve their goals much easier.

Using positive self-talk in your daily life

Ideally, you should use positive self-talk throughout the day in order to establish a new thinking pattern. You will probably have established a pattern of negative thinking in some cases for many years in certain areas and this will take time to overcome. To start with, you should aim to repeat positive self-talk around 50 times throughout the day. This can be achieved by repeating positive statements quietly to yourself or out aloud. Positive self-talk can be used for many different aspects in your life. It can help you to overcome difficult situations, gain more confidence in yourself, help you to quit habits, recover quicker from illness or make changes to your life in general. Popular phrases or sentences that can be used in positive self-talk include. Let me put forward some examples:

• I have an interesting challenge facing me – this could be used when a problem occurs in life or there is some difficulty. Rather than looking at the situation in a negative way and thinking “I have a problem”, thinking of it as a challenge is a much more positive way of dealing with it.
• I like the person I am – this could be used to bolster self-confidence and gain respect about yourself and the person you are. Similar statements could be: “I am the best”, “I am a good person” or “I have many excellent qualities”.
• I know I can do this – this could be used when you are faced with a certain task that you would previously doubt yourself capable of conquering. Similarly you could say: “I have the ability to conquer this” or “this doesn’t pose a problem for me”.
• I am full of health, energy and vitality – this can be used to encourage good feelings about your health either after you have been sick or while recovering from an illness.
• I am fulfilled as a person – this can be used to encourage good general positive thoughts about yourself and the world in which you live.

So far my “rant” on positive self-talk. Use it wisely and you wlll benefit!

Have a conscious day!

Filip De Pessemier