5 Simple Strategies To Help You Overcome Negative Self-Talk

In the book ‘Think Like A Monk’, former Monk Jay Shetty talks about negative thoughts being like mosquitos. That even the smallest one can rob us of peace. 

I have been on a habit formation journey this year. These are habits related to weight loss, blogging, and exercise. As I make my way along this path I realized that I ignored a major aspect, having the right mindset.

Every time I fail to keep up with my habits, I was beating myself up with negative self-talk.

In this post, I discuss overcoming negative self-talk and strategies from experts like Jack Canfield, Jay Shetty, and Andy Puddicombe.

Change Starts With Awareness

Awareness is the first step to any kind of change. I realized that as long as I am disappointed with myself, it would be hard to see positive results. If I constantly feel bad about my current weight, even the little improvements don’t have a lasting effect. 

It’s all in the mindset. If I can change my mindset and celebrate even the smallest wins, I am more inclined to make further progress. 

With my new mindset, If I don’t do all my daily habits I am still grateful. I am grateful for the ones I can do and celebrate for showing up. Maybe I didn’t get to run, but I got to go for a short walk! If I didn’t get to go for a walk but played badminton with my son, that works too! If I didn’t get any exercise in but took a long bath, that’s a win! 

Being grateful for the smallest things has helped me practice more kindness towards myself. It has helped me develop self-love. 

5 Strategies To Help Overcome The Negative Self-Talk

1. Speak To Ourselves The Way We Speak To Others

Andy Puddicombe is the founder of Headspace and a former monk. In this short video, Andy talks about how to be nicer to yourself. He talks about why we are unkind to ourselves. 

Kindness per Andy is always within us, but It often gets clouded due to life’s circumstances. We feel frustrated and impatient and we get unkind. He also calls out that we wouldn’t speak to our close friends the way we speak to ourselves.

I caught myself using derogatory language during self-talk. These started with phrases like ‘I can’t believe you’, ‘What were you thinking?’, etc. If we can approach our thoughts with the same gentle approach we use for our loved ones, things become much easier in life. 

If we can walk around with a sense of ease about ourselves then we are going to find it so much easier and pleasurable to be kind to those around us as well

~ Andy Puddicombe

2. Replacing Negative Thoughts With Positive

Jack Canfield, is a famous author & personal development expert. In his video on overcoming negative talk, he mentions that 80% of our daily thoughts are negative. 

Negative Talk as he mentions weakens the muscles in our body, and we end up experiencing fear and anxiety. To make our life better, we should consciously focus on shifting negative thoughts to positive ones. 

Every time you experience a negative thought, say cancel cancel and replace with a positive one.

~ Jack Canfield

3. Starting The Day Right

Negative Self-talk happens throughout our day. I found it helpful if I can remind myself first thing in the morning. In his book Tiny Habits, BJ Fogg talks about one of his habits. When his feet first hit the ground, he says to himself, “It’s going to be a great day”. 

I found that greeting yourself with something positive when you first look at yourself can make a big difference as well. 

4. Doing A Negativity Audit

Author Jay Shetty talks about a Spot, Stop and Swap technique to stop negativity in your heart, mind, and your speech. To spot the feeling or issue, I love his strategy of doing an audit of your negative comments. This means no comparing, complaining, or criticizing for a week. The goal is to keep the daily number low. 

According to the author, the more aware we become of such tendencies the more we might free ourselves from them. 

5. Letting Go Of One Size Fits All Approach

Humans can’t help but compare themselves with others. These could be people you know or idols you want to be like in a few years. When we are unable to keep up with something that worked for someone else, it results in disappointment and negative self-talk. 

I have struggled with this for my blogging schedule. I see successful bloggers who posted 2/week at the beginning. They have made it big by sticking to that schedule no matter what. This approach doesn’t seem to work for me. What works for one doesn’t for others. You have to make peace with what works for you depending on your situation. 

The more we define ourselves in relation to people around us, the more lost we are.

~ Jay Shetty

Parting Thoughts

A lot of disappointment comes due to self-inflicted expectations. This feeling that we have to be performing at our peak even during difficult moments of our lives. It is unrealistic to stick to our habits during tough times. 

Life needs us to put aside our goals and aspirations to give ourselves space to heal during difficult periods. Once we are ready, we can go back to our schedules. 

I hope some of these techniques help you change your negative self-talk and start planning on ways to rephrase your inner dialogue. 

Resources

• Headspace – How To Stop Negative Self-Talk
• In this article, Jack Canfield talks about 5 types of negative thinking and how to overcome them       
• Think Like a Monk By Jay Shetty – Check out chapter 2 which focuses on external and internal negativity. Jay Shetty also provides strategies to not fall victim to competition, jealousy, envy, etc.