Conversational Negative Self-Talk
Posted on November 8, 2007
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Most people don’t even know they’re doing it. Throughout the course of normal conversation, they bombard themselves with negative self-talk. Even people who are aware of the power of their words seem to miss some of the most commonly used derogatory comments that are made towards ourselves in the course of normal conversation. While plotting out goals and dreams we remember to stop ourselves from saying statements like “I can’t,” “I’m not good enough,” or “I’ll never be able to pull this off.” However, it’s the subtle little things that we say while on conversational autopilot that eats away at our self-confidence.
How many times have you heard someone in a conversation admit that they were misinformed in the past saying, “Oops, I lied.” Lying by definition is a deliberate and sometimes malicious intent to deceive another. If you were wrong, misinformed, or made a bad assumption, but honestly believed you were giving factual information at the time, then it was NOT a lie. You are not a liar. You did not deliberately deceive the other person. Do not use a negative term like “lied” to describe yourself. Say, “Oops, I misunderstood.” “Oops, I made a bad assumption.” Or, “Oops, I was wrong.” Unless you actually did it on purpose, it’s not a lie and you shouldn’t call yourself a liar. It amazes me how many people say “I lied!” repeatedly during normal conversation as if they are habitual liars or something. It’s a derogatory word. Don’t use it unless you really meaning it.
My daughter was telling me about a friend of hers that she was talking on the telephone with the other night. They were going over a tough homework assignment together. Every time my daughter’s friend realized that she had written down the wrong answer, on autopilot she would say, “Oh, I’m stupid.” Over and over without even realizing it, she kept calling herself stupid. She said it ten or fifteen times within an hour long conversation. Funny thing is this girl isn’t stupid, she just thinks she is and acts accordingly. If she was my daughter, I’d make her quit saying that all of the time. My children were taught never to call themselves such things. My daughter’s friend is really quite normal. I’m always hearing people say that or they’ll say the equivalent, “I’m dumb” or “that was dumb” in reference to themselves. Stupid and dumb are interchangeable.
Sometimes the negative comments are disguised as humor. “I’m just a stupid guy,” “Oh well, what do you expect from a dumb blonde,” or “I think my mom dropped me one too many times as a baby!” The fact that they feel a need to make excuses for themselves means that they have low self-confidence.
It’s a subtle and difficult pattern to break. A lot of people do it without noticing that they’re even doing it. It’s said with the same automatic presentation as the “Fine, thanks.” That always follows “How are you?” I would recommend that you ask someone to help you with it. For example, in speech classes they will get on you for saying things like um, ya’ know, or soooooo. These are fillers that we put into speeches to fill the gaps when we’re nervous. We don’t know we’re doing it until we have someone point it out to us consistently. After awhile, the speech students begin to hear themselves and stop themselves from saying these filler phrases. I would recommend doing the same thing to help each other out of conversational negative self-talk.
My daughter came home from school a couple of months ago and every other word was ‘like.’ Like there was this kid at school and like they were like so out of control! The teacher like had to like send them to the office because like they wouldn’t sit down and like respect the class. I giggled to myself as I stood there fixing dinner and listening to her 13-year-old lingo. I asked her if she knew how much she was saying ‘like.’ She argued that she wasn’t saying it. Just like a lot of people would argue that they aren’t’ guilty of negative self-talk. So, as she carried on her conversation for the next few minutes, I just said, “like” right after she did. Over and over, I’d just quietly say, “like” until we were both able to laugh together. She was quickly able to alter her speech patterns once she was forced into awareness.
It can really be that simple. Offer to help your friend to overcome their automated negative comments by playing the same game with them. If they are guilty of saying a particular derogatory statement repeatedly, then offer to help them to break the pattern. If you can admit to yourself that you are one of those people who says negative things about yourself without even really thinking about it, then ask someone to help you to stop. You would be amazed at how quickly you can stop the behavior if someone will just make you take notice. Self-awareness is the key to ending negative self-talk.
If you are too embarrassed to ask for help, or you don’t have anyone that you would trust enough to help you, then you’re going to have to make a huge effort to become more aware of the words you speak during casual conversation. It’s much more difficult, but still doable. Imagine that the negative statements are cuss words. You wouldn’t want to throw those kinds of words out around your boss would you? You wouldn’t want to use them around children would you? You wouldn’t use them around your grandma would you? Attach the same ‘no way!’ attitude to those negative self-talk statements. Start really listening to yourself. There’s really no need to beat yourself up when you catch yourself rattling off these statements, just take notice and make a promise to yourself that you’ll stop. Keep noticing, until you do stop.
Building Self-Esteem and Self Confidence
Posted on October 28, 2007
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Self confidence usually is based on how well or not
so well we’ve done in previous situations. This end product is how we
feel about ourselves. Our self worth is based upon our previous performance.
We all tend to base our own personal values on how successfully we perform
in different situations and we often require perfect performance of ourselves.
If we don’t live up to our perfect standards, we end up lowering our
values of ourselves. We’re heavily influenced by our society which values
flawless performance and places great emphasis on winning and performing
perfectly. We often lose sight of the fact that we can value ourselves
in spite of making mistakes. While it is only natural to care about performing
as well as we can, it is also important to learn to feel good about ourselves
just for who we are, mistakes and all. It’s probably good to get back
to the feeling we had as children. As children, we had self confidence
without even questioning it. We were valued for just being people, for
just being in this world. The value that other people placed on us and
that which we placed on ourselves had very little to do with how well
we did or how well we performed. As adults we often believe we must continually
justify our place in the world, that we have to somehow prove to other
people that we are worthy of their esteem and through their eyes we can,
therefore, prove to ourselves that we are really valuable. Often we spend
excessive amounts of time doing that and we lose sight of the basic fact
that we are usually all right just as we are, in spite of the fact that
we are not perfect.
How can we go about increasing our self confidence,
when we find it decreasing? There are a number of things we can do. One
thing that often helps people who are feeling low, is making a list of
the things that they do like about themselves. By making a list like
this we can sometimes rediscover those very likable qualities about ourselves
that we often take for granted. Another thing we can do when we are feeling
low is to take some time to do something nice for ourselves, something
we find enjoyment in. We can take the time to treat ourselves with fondness
and kindness, as we would a dear and valued friend.
Another interesting thing is that it is easy to forget
that there are things that we do well. Continued frustration or attempting
things that we have difficulty with can lead to feelings of clumsiness
and inadequacy. It doesn’t take long when we experience these feelings
to find our self confidence seems to have decreased. One thing we might
do at this time is to make a list of the things that we do well and to
do one of these things on the list everyday. It has been shown that although
this method of increasing our self confidence sounds simple, it is often
very effective.
One of the things mentioned earlier is very important
to watch out for. When our successful or our good feelings are dependent
upon others approval of us, we are placing all of our value in someone
else’s hands. This means our self confidence is totally dependent
on how other people feel or act toward us. This is what children do out
of necessity, because they don’t have the inner resources as we
do as adults. But as adults, we can begin to learn how to give ourselves
confident feelings and to maintain them. Being aware of what a vulnerable
thing it is to put our whole self worth into someone else’s hand,
might help to avoid this pitfall. Maintaining our self worth or self
confidence might also require reminding ourselves of the things that
we value in ourselves, keeping in mind those qualities we really appreciate.
Sometimes it helps going to a long and trusted friend or spouse and talking
over our feelings of discouragement. In the process of talking with someone
else, we might begin to recall the valuable things about us or be reminded
of them by our friend.
Finally, another way to rebuild our self confidence
is to try doing and risking things that we’ve never tried before.
It’s always a little bit of a challenge in doing new things and
just the act of accepting these challenges, some little and some big,
whether we are successful or not, often increases our self confidence.
What about people who have already tried these things
that were mentioned and who still have questions or concerns about their
self confidence? Temporary fluctuations in our feelings of self confidence
are fairly common, they happen to most of us. However, if our self confidence
is low for a prolonged period of time or our mood shifts quite often,
it might be very important to seek professional help. One thing that
might be happening is that we never really developed a good, solid concept
of ourselves as we were growing up and so as result, we don’t have
a firm, positive concept of ourselves to build on. A mental health professional
can be very helpful in our establishing a positive self image. There
are mental health agencies in your community you may wish to contact
if you would like to further discuss the area of self confidence. If
you are a student or student spouse at the University of Florida, you
can call or come into the University of Florida Counseling Center, located
at 301 Peabody Hall. Someone will be happy to talk with you about your
concerns.
Note: This document is based on an audio tape script developed by the University of Texas, Austin. With their permission, it was revised and edited into its current form by the staff of the University of Florida Counseling Center http://www.counsel.ufl.edu/selfHelp/selfEsteem.asp
10 Ideas to Jump Start Your Self-Confidence
Posted on October 15, 2007
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To begin feeling that first spark of self-confidence within you, try as many of these as you like. It’s important to enjoy yourself along the way. Have fun!
1. Correctly do 25 pushups, 50 sit-ups, or 1 cartwheel.
2. Learn all of the words to a fun new song on the radio and sing it aloud while driving down the road.
3. Open up your cookbook to a completely new recipe and learn to cook it well.
4. Learn how to say, “I love you” in two different languages other than your own.
5. Teach someone how to read, how to fish, or how to play a musical instrument.
6. Look inside a thesaurus to find new ways to say the same old things.
7. Find three funny jokes and learn to tell them really well.
8. Get a makeover, new hairstyle, or all new socks & underwear.
9. Learn how to say, “I’m sorry” and mean it.
10. Look into the eyes of strangers and hold their gaze long enough to see the insecurity in all of us.
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