Does negative self-talk actually affect the way we view ourselves?
In today’s world, social media is everywhere. From TV commercials to news reports to Facebook posts, we are constantly being told who to be, how to act and what to think. Typically, we tend to think of our early teens as being our most impressionable years — by the time we get a bit older, we don’t find ourselves as susceptible to social pressure. But this doesn’t mean that our views of ourselves can’t still be disrupted by the world around us. It just might look a bit different.
By the time you’ve hit your mid-20s, are you supposed to have it all together? Are you supposed to have the right job, car and relationship already? Are you supposed to look a certain way, or be more professional than you are? Are you supposed to know where your life is going?
These are questions that most of us can recognize, and they don’t have easy answers. And with all of these doubts spinning around in your head, your thought process slowly becomes more and more negative: “I’m not doing this right.”
Or “I’m not where I need to be.”
Or “I don’t know everything I thought I should by now.”
When we direct this sort of negative talk towards ourselves, it can be crippling. When you’re facing a difficult week where you have multiple projects to work on and no time to do them, sometimes it can feel hopeless. That pervasive thought (“I can’t do this”) gets us every time. We start to doubt our abilities and our intelligence, and our stress level goes through the roof. Consistent negative self-talk can cause unnecessary anxiety and tension.
But the good news is, we don’t always have to fall victim to it.
Changing the ways we think can do more than help us stress less over our performance on an exam. By recognizing negative thought processes when they happen, including those directed at ourselves, it becomes easier to overcome those stressors and reframe them in a better light.
Overall, this can lead to a much healthier mindset.
Whether we’re stressing about your weight, job or education, sometimes the best thing we can do is reframe the situation. Psychologist Tamar E. Chansky talks about the power of what she refers to as possible thinking. When we start to think, “I can’t afford to fail this exam, and I am terrible at this subject,” we should take the time to step back and think in terms of our options. Suddenly, “I’m terrible at this” can become “I know I need to do well on this exam. To do this, I need to study, go to the tutoring center and talk to my professor.”
Instead of focusing primarily on your expected failure, the possible thinking process forces you to consider what you can do about it. It puts the power back into your hands, and sometimes, that’s all you need to get energized.
Another helpful trick is the “best friend” approach. If you’re frustrated with yourself because you still haven’t gotten that perfect internship, just put it into the context of what your best friend would say. He or she would probably be working to make you aware of what you have accomplished by now, not what you haven’t. And if that doesn’t work? Maybe some time out having fun with your best friend would be even more help.
Don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t accomplished everything your perfectionist-self set out for you. It would be nice to have our lives completely together by this time, but the truth is, we’re all still figuring it out. It’s not about how many obstacles you have to tackle along the way; it’s about figuring out how to get through them. When we spend our time judging ourselves for any missteps we might make, we drain ourselves of all the energy we could be spending on dealing with them.
When you get stuck in your anxieties and negative self-talk, it’s important to remember not to live inside your head. Changing your thinking patterns is difficult, but it is possible. If we turn our inner critic into someone who gives us constructive criticism, we can learn from it. By making it into an enemy, we shut down all possibility for growth. When you have troubles and worries, just remember not to be your own worst enemy.
