How Your Self-Talk Can Sabotage Your Success
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How Your Self-Talk Can Sabotage Your Success
Do you tend to beat yourself up when you don’t live up to your own expectations? Many people think that they have negative self-talk as a result of failing, but it tends to be the other way around. The way that you talk to yourself can either set you up to grow and reach your goals, or it can sabotage your success.
What do I mean by negative self-talk?
Some of it might be obvious, like telling yourself ‘you’re a failure’, ‘you can’t do this’, or ‘you’re going to quit anyway so you may as well give up!’ But it can also be more subtle – you could be telling yourself that you have to work out every single day to get fit, or that your diet has to be completely ‘clean’ for you to be healthy.
Any kind of thought or expectation that you wouldn’t say to your best friend, but you say to yourself? There’s a good chance it's unhealthy self-talk.
Let’s explore five important ways that negative self-talk can set you back.
It leads to perfectionism
Perfectionism and black-and-white thinking go hand in hand. Now you might think that being a perfectionist is a good thing – but all it does is add another layer of pressure and expectation. Not only do you have to achieve something, but that something has to be done exactly right, otherwise you’ve failed!
Perfectionism ignores one important fact – everyone starts off being bad at something when they first start! I wasn’t born with skills around healthy eating, exercise or habits. It took me years of working out consistently, learning about nutrition and educating myself around mindset and habit-building.
It’s ok if you’re still learning about how to reach your goals, and it’s ok if it takes you longer than you hope for. The most important thing is that you keep making progress.
It can make you feel more anxious or depressed
When you talk down to yourself, you’re far more likely to feel anxious and/or depressed. We know that this can have real physiological effects on the nervous system. Low motivation, lack of interest, fatigue and overwhelm are just a few outcomes you might experience.
As you can imagine, these symptoms make it harder for you to act. Overwhelm can leave you feeling paralysed, while low energy, motivation and interest drain you of the stamina to get started. So by mentally pressuring yourself to achieve a goal or stick to a habit, you reduce your chance of successfully doing so.
It feeds into procrastination
Procrastination is something that we all do from time to time. But when procrastination becomes a habit, it can hold you back from stepping into everything you’re truly capable of.
You don’t just start procrastinating for the sake of it. Procrastination is a symptom of something else such as fear, anxiety, overwhelm, lack of self-belief. And all of those can be triggered by unhealthy self-talk.
The more you tell yourself that you can’t do something or that you are only successful if it’s perfect, the greater the urge to put it off. Even if the task is something simple, it becomes more overwhelming because of the pressure you put on yourself.
It undermines your self-confidence
I think it’s fair to say we all wish we had a bit more confidence. Having confidence in yourself allows you to try things outside of your comfort zone, push your mental limits and achieve more in the long run. Unfortunately, negative self-talk can weaken your self-confidence.
How do you think a child would feel about themselves if you regularly told them things like:
You’re not good enough
You’ll never live up to your role model
Every time you try something, you’re going to fail
You can’t achieve your goals
That would lead to a child with pretty low self-esteem, don’t you think? Well the same goes for you. The more you talk down to yourself, the lower your self-confidence. And the lower your self-confidence, the harder it becomes for you to believe you can achieve anything.
It becomes a vicious cycle
When you talk to yourself in an all-or-nothing way, you’re far more likely to give up on your goals. After all, you always fail at them, so why should you keep trying? But this simply reinforces the cycle. You give up on your goals and habits, which makes you feel bad about yourself. And because you feel bad about yourself, you beat yourself up about your ‘failure’.
But if you can put a stop to this never-ending cycle of giving up and negative self-talk, you can make some real progress towards your dream life!
A healthy mindset is the key to accomplishing your goals.
Want to build a healthier mindset and achieve your goals?
If you’re sick of feeling unmotivated, discouraged and unsure where to start, now is the time to take action.
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Hey there, I’m Rachel!
NUTRITIONIST, PERSONAL TRAINER, WELLNESS COACH
Here I share healthy recipe ideas, training plans, and nutrition & wellness advice you need to know.
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While we make every effort to make sure the information in this website is accurate and informative, the information does not take the place of medical advice.