On the blog, lately, we have been diving into the most common things holding may people back from pursuing their goals and dreams. We’re about to dive into another great topic and this one happens to hit home for me. It’s time to talk about negative self-talk!
Negative self-talk is talking negatively to yourself and about yourself.
Negative self-talk is only a symptom of the root cause which is one’s mindset.
Your mindset is influenced by your experiences, which shape your core beliefs and view of yourself, the world and your ability to achieve your goals in this world. If you struggle to speak life over yourself, your goals and dreams, and if you struggle to believe the best about your abilities, gifts and talents, I encourage you to take a look into WHY.
Get in a quiet place, pull out a journal, ask yourself and answer these questions. Be honest with yourself.
📌What do you believe about yourself?
📌How do you see you yourself?
📌How do you think other people see you?
📌What events from your past have shaped your beliefs about yourself today?
Once you have answered these questions, you have a good foundation to build upon.
The next building block is to take strategic action to begin shifting and reshaping your mindset; your thoughts and beliefs about yourself. Because, how you perceive yourself has a lot to do with your self-talk.
Writing and speaking positive affirmations is helpful to reshaping your thought patterns. But, it’s like trying to treat the symptoms of an illness without dealing with the route issue IF you don’t actually identify and deal with the root issue.
It may take therapy, prayer and time. But, I encourage you to be intentional about practicing positive self-talk consistently. Because, what you speak is powerful and it matters, if you want to set goals and slay them. How you talk about yourself, and what you speak to yourself, that no one else can hear, is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. Your actions typically reflect your beliefs. When you get your mindset (belief/perspective of yourself) right, your self-talk will align and so will your actions!
When you believe that you are more than a conqueror, when you believe that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, your self-talk and your actions should reflect that.
I am preparing to launch my self-care candle line called Align Allure Luxury Candle Bar. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years, but it was always just a wish or dream. I never seriously considered actually doing it until one day, I got thought of an idea for concept and then it was like… Why not me? And, that was followed by thoughts like, why not now? And, let me tell you, I was able to come up with multiple, valid reason why I should wait or just not ever do it at all. I battled a lot of negative thoughts… About what other people might say, what other people might think, how I don’t have enough time, money or space to pull it off. ALL the things man, all the things, I thought of. And yet, I still did it. After all of that, I went for it anyway.
Even as I began to take action, to bring my dream to life, I kept quiet about it, because I was ashamed. I was ashamed of the fact that I’m using a vendor to hand-pour my candles, even though it was a SOLUTION to my temporary problem of lack of space and time to be hands on in some aspects of my candle business. Even as I type this, I feel the urge to backspace this entire paragraph. But, I’m willing to expose my feelings of shame, because it has led to negative self-talk, which is what we don’t want. As I mentioned, it is important to deal with the root cause.
What is my root cause here? My fear of rejection. There are people, events, things that happened in my past that caused me to develop a fear of rejection. One of the ways I deal with this root cause is by consistently challenging myself to do things that I would otherwise procrastinate on or just not ever do, due to fear of what someone might say or think. The negative thoughts will come, I acknowledge and process them, I speak positive affirmation (I write and speak my affirmations to myself daily) and then I move forward with ACTION. Repeat. That’s the strategy, that’s the formula. Do it over and over and over again.
It’s not a once a day, one a month or one a year ritual. It’s simply a tool to help you WIN that particular battle in your mind and you can do it anytime a negative thought bombards your mind. I’m especially talking about those negative thoughts that pop up daily or every time you think about pursuing your goal.
After you have answered the questions listed above. Think about how you can effectively DEAL with your root issue(s) and HEAL.
Again, it may tike time, prayer AND therapy. Some things, like negative thoughts, will always be around. You just have to learn how to COPE. I hope what I have shared here is helpful for you. Get what you need, do what you need to do, so that you can pursue your goals and dreams and live your life walking in your God given purpose with boldness!
I wish you a blessed week ahead Set Goals & Slay family, thank you for reading!
keziamarie.co 
Insightful article. I like how you mentioned that we can deal with negative self-talk by coping with this self-talk. The negativity will always be around. We just have to learn how to cope with these thoughts. Thank you for sharing!