If you talk to other people the way you talk to yourself, would you have any friends?

If you talk to other people the way you talk to yourself, would you have any friends??

If you’re like most of us, the answer is definitely, “no”!

?We are not always consciously aware of the tone and language our internal voice uses; a lot of what goes on in the 1.2kg of computational jelly between our ears is unconscious. Generally, we talk to ourselves inside our heads using language and tone that is overwhelming judgemental, negative, and even self-limiting.

?Why, though, is so much of it negative?

• ?Maybe it’s because (as claimed by Dr Shad Helmstetter, the father of self-talk theory) we hear the word ‘no’, on average, 148,000 times before we hit our teenage years, and the scripts we inherit from our parents are often around what we “can’t” do rather than what we “can” do. ?
• Maybe it’s because we have a particular personality type that pre-disposes us to think in occasionally unhelpful ways.
• Maybe it’s because there is an evolutionary advantage to assuming something is a threat; we are primed to respond with fight or flight instinctively to external stressors, so perhaps that’s why we tend to look on the pessimistic side even in the privacy of our own skulls.

?Nobody really knows.

?Whatever the root cause or causes, it’s certainly true that many people focus on the bad side of things, and almost everybody bullies themselves, even if they only do it every now and again. Most of us, at least some of the time, are our own harshest critics.

?Another Helmstetter ‘statistic’ (I’ve never been able to locate the studies he’s citing, hence the inverted commas - if anyone has located the references, I'd appreciate you sharing them) suggests that 77% of our self-talk is negative.

?Whether the percentage is right or not, evidence would suggest it’s probably not too far off base.

?Often, we talk to ourselves like we’re about to get in the boxing ring and we are trash-talking our opponent. And we do so without ever being aware we are doing it.

Every now and again we might catch ourselves doing it. Sometimes, other people will recognise it and ask us why we feel the way we do.

Mostly, though, it’s a blind spot.

Why is this even a problem?

What we tell ourselves matters.

At a basic level, our brains can’t differentiate between ‘real’ and ‘made up’. Our unconscious doesn’t know how to take a joke. When we drive past that junction that we meant to take and then castigate ourselves for being “an idiot”, at a fundamental level we take it to heart.

Tell yourself too often that you are “an idiot” and you’ll start to believe it.

Our perception is our reality.

“There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so”, as Shakespeare put it.

Our self-concept can be eroded and ‘held down’ by negative self-talk, and our self-concept has a profound impact on how we are able to ‘show up’ in our own lives. The negative consequences of negative self-talk and low self-esteem can include low resilience, unwillingness to try new things and get outside of our comfort zones, self-limiting beliefs, and self-fulfilling prophecies.

What does that mean?

Just think of the old Henry Ford quote, “if you think you can or you think you cannot, you’re right”.

?That captures one part of the problem (the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ part).

?Another part of the issue is that it stops us from taking the perceived risk of trying something new, and it leaves us less able to learn from failure if we do try something new and don’t succeed straight away.

And that’s a big problem because, to get good at something, you will first need to be bad at it. Nobody is truly exceptional ‘right out of the box’ when attempting new complex and difficult tasks.

?Failure is our biggest teacher, but only if we don’t take it personally.

?There’s a big difference between “I failed” and “I am a failure”. One describes an attempt at doing something, the other describes an internalised flaw. One you can learn from and build upon, the other is like toxic waste being poured onto your self-esteem.

?Levels of self-talk

There are different levels of ‘self-talk’, for example:

• ?“I can’t” – this is ‘negative acceptance’. When you tell yourself that you cannot do something, you are accepting this belief as a fact.
• “I should” – this is basically ‘negative acceptance’ dressed up in its Sunday best. There may be an element of awareness that change is necessary, but “I should” or “I ought to” comes with a hidden element, “but I can’t”.
• “I am going to” – this is intention and an awareness of the necessity for change.
• “I am” – this is the way to start any re-framed belief to help internalise a positive message of capability.

What I have found works very well for a lot of clients (and I have had significant success with myself) is to take a negative belief and to reframe it as a positive statement. This is structured, grammatically, as a statement in the first person, followed by the verb ‘to be’, and a present tense assertion without any conditionality (no 'if' or 'when' statements).

This is important because, to take hold, a reframed belief must be stated as though it is already part of who you are so it can be internalised as an unconditional part of your identity.

For example, around a year ago, a client mentioned he was unhappy with his weight. I don’t typically coach people on health and fitness, but the client and I had a long-standing relationship and so we quickly identified that he had a scarcity mentality around food and drink. He spoke to me about the fact that he felt he always ‘must’ clear his plate no matter how much food was on it, and whenever he opened a bottle of wine, he felt compelled to finish it in one sitting.

The negative beliefs were “I must clear my plate” and “I must finish something when I have opened it”. These were underpinned with feelings of shame relating to being wasteful.

Following our session he reframed his beliefs as “I am the sort of person who only eats until he is full” and “I am the sort of person who only drinks two glasses of wine in an evening”.

These reframed beliefs, which he built into his daily journaling for a couple of weeks, were reinforced through behaviour (i.e. – he acted as if the reframed beliefs were true).

After a very short period the reframed beliefs became true – he was able to internalise them and his repeated ‘acting as if’ built muscle memory so he no longer must think about it – the new beliefs are simply part of who he is.

The rule is that around 10% of the job of rewiring your self-limiting beliefs comes from reframing those beliefs as described above, the other 90% comes from ‘acting as if’ the reframed belief is already true.

Personality and pre-disposition

Does personality-type give you a ‘pre-disposition’ to negative self-talk?

The idea that we all have a ‘persona’ goes back to the ancient Greeks (Hippocrates, father of the practice of medicine, talked about four distinct temperaments, known as the ‘humours’, that manifested as our demeanour and character).

Much later Freud and Jung talked about different personality types and their work (particularly Jung’s concept of archetypes) paved the way for the proliferation of profiling tools that exist on the market today.

One of my favourite quotes is from, of all things, a statistician – a chap called George Box. He said, “all models are wrong, but some are useful”.

I like this because, whilst Box clearly meant it to apply to statistical models, the aphorism also holds true for personality tests, and a bunch of other models besides.

It can be argued (persuasively) that no personality tests truly measure what they claim to measure, but all of them measure something, and they do so consistently.

This means there is an internal logic to the reporting, and these simple psychometric tests provide a useful set of ‘rules of thumb’ and helpful observations about things like the behaviours, values, and communication styles that come from the subject’s particular personality ‘type’.

They also give us a language that helps us to articulate nuanced concepts and meaningful observations about people’s style, tendencies, proclivities, and characteristics.

It’s a matter of personal preference, to an extent, which one you go for.

Some favour the almost-ubiquitous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which has the virtue of being well-recognised in a lot of businesses.

If you want to go ‘old school’ there’s the Eysenck Personality Inventory, which I remember learning about in Psychology lectures 30+ years ago (I even saw Hans Eysenck speak at a psychology symposium in my student days – sadly I found him to be a tedious and unengaging stage presence, but maybe that says more about my hangover that day than him as a speaker!) ?

Then there are other assessment tools like AVA, HEXACO, NEO-PI-R … the list goes on (there are literally dozens of them!) ?

One that is (almost) as ubiquitous as Myers Briggs is DISC.

I’m accredited in DISC profiling, and I usually find that people grasp DISC quickly. For the purposes of this article, I’m going to use DISC as a reference point.

What is DISC?

DISC profiling works on an assessment of how much mental, emotional, and physical energy it takes for someone to behave, think, or speak in a particular way.

The less energy it takes them to behave or communicate in a particular way, the more ‘natural’ that style is to them.

This manifests as their observable personality (their behaviours, their decision-making style, their communication style, their typical roles within a team).

The more energy something takes them, the more of a ‘drain’ it is to them.

This manifests as something they either do not do at all, or which they must fight against their own natural tendencies to do.

Imagine a graph with two axes (x and y) that intersect at the centre to give you four cardinal points (that is, like a compass with ‘north’ at the top and ‘south’ at the bottom, ‘east’ on the right-hand side and ‘west’ on the left-hand side).

• At ‘north’ you have ‘task orientation’. This is an assessment of how natural the subject finds it to focus on tasks, actions, and either outcomes or data.
• At ‘south’ you have ‘people orientation’. This is an assessment of how natural the subject finds it to focus on people, feelings, and either energising the team dynamic or maintaining a stable structure.
• At ‘east’ you have ‘active’. This axis is an assessment of the energy people typically put into ‘forward motion’. People at the right-hand extreme of the x-axis tend to never stop moving – they may ‘leap before they look’.
• At ‘west’ you have ‘reserved’. People at the left-hand extreme of the x-axis tend to weigh up everything very carefully before taking a step forward, in extreme cases they get trapped in analysis paralysis. We all recognise the value in the tradesperson’s basic rule, “measure twice, cut once”. Someone on the extreme left of the x-axis measures twice … three times … four times … and perhaps never gets around to cutting at all.

The DISC profiling tool plots the zones in which a subject is most comfortable (least drained) on both the x axis and the y axis.

The resultant assessment report is surprisingly nuanced – it shows the blend of characteristics that the subject identifies with most (is least drained by), and it also shows any characteristics that the subject may, unconsciously, push themselves to exhibit because circumstances demand it, even though those characteristics may be ‘battery draining’.

One characteristic will stand out as the most comfortable/ least draining, so you will often hear DISC aficionados referring to someone as a ‘High D’, a ‘High I’, a ‘High S’, or a ‘High C’.

What does that mean?

Simplistically:

• D = Dominant – these active/ task-focused individuals are ‘big picture’ thinkers, they like to move forward with pace and momentum. They are not risk averse. They can be welcoming of conflict as a healthy way to achieve results. They don’t like to be bogged down with detail and they almost seem to welcome problems as a chance to prove themselves, to innovate, and to come up with solutions. They are driven by outcomes and the bottom line, and they like to be in control.
• I = Influencer – these active/ people-focused individuals are, like ‘D’s, big picture thinkers who like to move forward with pace and momentum. They tend to talk a lot and rapidly. They try to be likeable and can be a bit ‘show off’ at times. At their best, they’re charismatic and can pull people together as a group. They can be the life and soul of the team and they’re usually highly extraverted (or extroverted if you prefer the US spelling). ?They are motivated by social acceptance and inclusion, which can manifest as a need for approval.
• S = Steady-relater (or ‘Stable’) – these reserved/ people-focused individuals are ‘detail’ thinkers. They tend to be highly conflict averse, and this can mean they are perceived to be ‘quiet’, especially when there is a high ‘D’ holding court. They take a long time to ‘warm up’ to someone but, once you have earned their trust, they are typically very loyal. They are motivated by people, and they are sensitive to the mood and emotional landscape within a team environment. They value the details and minutiae of structure and the status quo, and, for that reason, they are particularly sensitive to uncertainties and potential l negative unintended consequences of change. Unplanned, unphased, change is a concern for them.
• C = Compliant (sometimes called ‘Conscientious’) – these reserved/ task-focused individuals are highly detail oriented and they are motivated by a need to be accurate. If a job is worth doing, a High C will certainly make sure it is done properly! They are not keen to talk about feelings or ‘waste’ time talking about hobbies, the latest sporting fixture, and ‘what you did at the weekend’ – they would rather deal with the facts of the matter and then, if there is time for a little social interaction at the end of the meeting, they might be drawn into some light chit chat.

Back to the original question … do different personality-types pre-dispose people to negative self-talk?

The truth is that everyone has negative self-talk, so the impact of personality types is really on what sorts of things we say to ourselves.

A ‘dominant’ person might struggle with personal performance, and that would shape their self-talk.

If I was a ‘High D’, I might see myself as more (or less) valuable measured against by performance, particularly the achievement of outcomes and results.

If I'm not able to separate who I am (my self-esteem), from what I do or what I accomplish then my self-talk is likely to be highly judgemental and scathing. There can be a strong element of ‘imposter’ feelings (“who am I do even attempt that?”)

The answer is to build a set of internal narratives (maybe by using daily affirmations), so I'm focused on more than just outcomes – instead I am focused on my behaviours, how I am ‘showing up’, what I am doing, and how am I doing. ?

An ‘influencer’ might struggle with fears of social rejection and not being liked.

If I was a ‘High I’, I might see my self-worth as measured through the eyes of other people, particularly their approval.

Maybe this speaks to ‘scripts’ learned in childhood (simplistically, getting more love from parents when I did what they wanted me to do, and if I was accommodating and ‘nice’).

But, if I always need to be nice, and I always need to do what ‘they’ say then, over time, that's going to have a detrimental effect.

How can anyone manage expectations effectively if they’re driven to please all the people, all the time?

A ‘steady-relater’ might see self-worth in terms of maintaining peace, harmony, and the status quo.

?If I were a steady-relater my negative self-talk could then manifest as overthinking and catastrophising about the impact of change. Worries and fears about disruptions to the structure and the team. This might well manifest as procrastination and failing to decide, or even as a stubborn / passive aggressive resistance to implementing change-decisions that have been made higher up in the hierarchy.

A ‘compliant’ thinker might see self-worth in terms of my ability to get things ‘right’.

If I were a 'compliant' person, my negative self-talk could manifest as perfectionism that results in being over-cautious; a sort of ‘analysis paralysis’ where a decision needs to be made … but there’s always more data available so they just don’t decide at all.

Unfortunately, there just isn't a ‘perfect time’ to start any project. The best time to start is often when you have the minimum necessary information to get underway. If you have enough information to get started, then the way to get to excellence is to finesse it along the way.

Taking no action is often worse than taking not-quite-right action.

Done is better than perfect. Started is better than delayed.

One or more of the above may resonate with you ... so what can you do about it?

A neat idea is to find a coach, an accountability partner, or someone whom you trust and ask for their help.

Let’s break it down into two parts:

1. The performance people (high ‘D’) and the people pleasers (high ‘I’) people are more likely to act too quickly and regret it later.
2. The procrastinators (high ‘S’) and perfectionists (high ‘C’) are more likely not to act at all.

?If you’re in the former category then, once a week, share what you're working on with someone and ask them specifically if there's one thing that they think you might be moving on too quickly. ?

If you are in the latter category, you can do the same thing but ask if they think there is something you are over-thinking or moving on too slowly.

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If you found this article valuable and you would like a 1:1 session with me, DM me and we'll arrange to have a virtual coffee. This doesn't necessarily mean that you'll become a client of mine, but there's always mutual value in these conversations and, besides, every business relationship in the world started with two strangers talking to one another. I'm happy to talk.