As a human being, you are constantly talking to yourself, having an inner monologue with yourself. It’s called self-talk. Self-talk is an internal dialogue that can affect your confidence and self-esteem. One kind of this is positive self-talk, a personal (mental) conversation with a positive mental attitude towards your life and yourself. This is said to be the optimistic voice in your head – soliloquy that makes you look at the bright side of things.
So why should you immerse in positive self-talk on a consistent basis? Here are several benefits that you can expect from a constructive self-dialogue:
1) It helps boost your confidence.
Do you feel shy in front of a huge audience? Do you have little belief in your talents and skills?
Positive self-talk can help you get through this – thus making you feel more confident. Most of the time, negative self-talk can hinder you from performing at your fullest. This gives you second thoughts about your ability to carry out the task.
With positive self-talk, you can put your doubts on the wayside – so you can focus on accomplishing your feat with flying colours. And if you think confidence doesn’t really equate to success, think again. Those who are successful at what they do truly believe in themselves and their abilities.
In fact, confidence is so important to success that many psychologists believe that it is one of the primary prerequisites to personal and professional success.
2) It introduces optimistic thoughts — that save you from depression.
Depressed people often feel useless, worthless and hopeless. Not only does it take a toll on the mind, it affects the body as well.
Depressed people exhibit a variety of physical symptoms, such as sleeplessness, eating problems and lethargy, to name a few. If you suffer from depressive mood, positive self-talk can help you turn the other way around.
Optimistic thoughts such as “I can do this” and “The world is a beautiful place” can pull you away from the path that leads to depression.
3) It eliminates stress.
Stress can truly get the best of you, as it affects every bit of your persona.
So if you want to escape from the mental and physical burdens of stress, then positive self-talk is something that can help you out.
According to the American Heart Association, positive self-talk can help control stress. As a result, it makes you feel calmer and less anxious.
4) It shields your heart.
Stress is one of the many aggravating factors that can lead to cardiovascular diseases.
Since positive self-talk can reduce stress, it gradually lowers your risk of suffering from heart problems as well.
Supporting this claim is a study conducted by Susanne Pedersen, a researcher from Tilburg University, Netherlands.
In her research, results show that those who have positive outlooks in life demonstrated lower risks for mortality – at least in the next five years.
5) It can help you improve your performance in anything you do.
Say that you are very tired and drained, having run several kilometres for a marathon.
Just when you think of giving up, positive self-talk can give you the nudge you need in order to go on and finish the race. An essential part of sports psychology, positive self-talk can help athletes reduce their pre-race jitters and performance anxieties, and help them get in the zone.
In fact, studies show that continuous positive self-talk can help an athlete enhance his overall performance.
But positive self-talk isn’t only for athletes. It is also just as important for professional and personal success.
If you are getting ready for a big presentation or trying to accomplish a personal goal of amassing wealth, positive self-talk will give you the right mindset to do so. While positive self-talk can make you become a better performer, the key to achieving this is to make your internal conversations feasible and possible. Convince yourself with believable goals, instead of seemingly unreachable ones.
True enough, the importance of positive self-talk cannot be denied.
With its benefits to the mind and the body, there is no reason why you should not have a daily optimistic dialogue with yourself.
You need to have these conversations with yourself. You need to know yourself and master your own thoughts. If you do so, the world is your oyster.
