Being Kind to Yourself

Top champions in business, especially in sales, listen to positive information. They love listening to upbeat music. They have a library of motivational talks at their fingertips. They actively control the direction of their self-talk.

If you're not kind to yourself, why would you expect others to be?

Self-talk is that conversation that's running in our heads all the time. There are times when you're consciously aware of it and other times you're not. When you get preoccupied with what's going on at the moment, you are less likely to recognize that internal conversation...and that can be dangerous.

Those self-talk conversations are often re-hashings of real conversations we've been involved in or have overheard. Unfortunately for most of us, those conversations are not often positive.

Controlling self-talk

Controlling your self-talk is as easy as changing a conversation you're having with another person. You choose to make the transition to another topic. Once you start paying attention to your self-talk, you'll realize it's even easier to change the conversation than with a friend or loved one because you can be rude about it and not offend another person.

If you hear yourself expressing negative or hurtful thoughts, take control of the conversation by re-stating the same point to yourself in a positive manner. For example, ;let's say you say to yourself, "Oh, man, you never should have mentioned that upgrade that's coming out in six months. Now the client will probably put off making a decision." Mentally tell yourself to "STOP!" And, rephrase that message like this: "The client really needs help today and a six-month wait an upgrade is just too long. So, I mentioned the upgrade to create urgency for making the decision today."

Practice this strategy each time you catch yourself listening to negative self-talk. Most of us tend to be tough on ourselves. We want to be better, smarter, stronger, healthier, and richer. Unfortunately, when we aren't quite where we want to be, our picks up on those thoughts and gives us more of it in the form of negative reinforcement. That's why it's critical that we counter those negative thoughts with positive iterations of the same message. Give your subconscious the kind of message to repeat that you would love to hear every day!

Copyright Tom Hopkins International, Inc.