Go ahead and talk to yourself
- Kyle Snyder: Live on Purpose
- October 28, 2023
- 434
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t — you’re right.”
—Henry Ford
I remember walking past a co-worker, and she was talking to herself, going through the steps that were required for her job. I asked her why she was talking to herself? She replied, “It’s OK to talk to yourself, just don’t answer yourself.”
It turns out that in the field of psychology, they teach people how to talk to themselves. I’m sure we have all been told to talk ourselves through a situation. It’s the same principle. Statements such as “this will get better,” “I can do this” or “this too shall pass” are all forms of self-talk.
Some people may say self-talk is only for the weak. That makes me laugh because people who say that have no idea what they are saying, The Navy teaches it at BUDS. What is BUDS? Well, it is basic underwater demolition/seals training. That is right: the Navy Seals get training in self-talk. They need it for the week where they get a grand total of five hours of sleep for the week. I need more than five hours of sleep a night, and I couldn’t imagine going a whole week with that much. I don’t think I would call a Navy Seal weak.
Many of us may not know we even use self-talk, but we all do. The only question is if it is positive or negative. People talk about the record that plays in their minds. That is basically their self-talk. If it is a good record, then keep on playing it. However, if it is bad, then we must change it. Changing the recording is not going to be easy, not by a long shot. If it were easy, then everybody would do it. However, if we are going to live a life for God, with purpose, then we must change our self-talk, if it is negative.
Some of us keep hearing how we are not good enough and there is no hope. If we keep letting that play on automatic, then there will be no hope. We need to interrupt the recording. We must begin by putting good stuff on our recording, like what does God say about us, we can do all thing through Christ, nothing can separate us from the love of God or who the Son has set free is free indeed. Write down Bible verses and keep them in front of you.
How long will this take? As long as is needed. I know no one wants to hear that, but if I don’t tell you the truth, then I will be doing everybody a disservice. I promise it will be a long process, but I also promise it will be so worth it on the other side. There will be times when we are trying to change our self-talk that we may feel silly and feel that it is not working. That is all part of the process, if we can get past the feeling of how silly we feel at first. YouTube has great motivational videos. Listen to one or two in the morning.
The whole idea is we need to put the good in to get the good out. I would never go to my television and tell it to give me a glass of water. That would be insanity. We can’t put the negative in our minds and get positive results. If we put in the positive such as reading good books, listening to good things, putting up pictures and paintings with inspirational quotes on them, if we surround ourselves with the good, then over time the good will come out automatically. Try it for the next month and see what happens.