How You Talk to Yourself

Some of the thoughts holding you back sound perfectly positive.

You tell yourself you’re trying. You’re getting better. You’re so much better than you used to be. It is just going to take some time.

Those sentences may seem encouraging. But look at the identity underneath them. Are you being the person you want to become, or repeatedly telling yourself you aren’t there yet?

In Episode 344, I examined subtle self-talk that can keep us creating from the past instead of the future. Awareness needs to include more than the obviously harsh thoughts.

Your current result is not your only starting point

When you set a goal bigger than your current life, you may not hit every milestone on the way. You might want to make $100,000 in a year and be halfway through with $10,000 earned.

That happens to people pursuing new results. The question is what you think about the circumstance.

Thoughts create feelings, which drive actions and results. Your current result can trigger thinking that keeps producing more of the same.

Pay attention to how you relate to the number, the progress, or whatever is happening now. Are you treating it as a definition of who you are?

I want you to think from the identity of the person creating the result you want, not only from the evidence you already have.

“I want to get better” can keep you not good enough

A friend told me he wanted to get better at attracting money. That sounds like a reasonable goal.

I pointed out the underlying thought: he wasn’t already good at it. He needed to improve before he could be the person he wanted to be.

Someone already attracting the amount of money they wanted would think differently. They might believe they were good at creating value and receiving money, or that attracting money was easy for them.

The words are close. The feeling they create can be very different.

I thought abundantly before I had the wealth people could see. That thinking helped me create it. Even when I wanted to earn more, I wanted my thoughts to come from the future self who had that result.

Ask whether your future self would be thinking the sentence you keep repeating. If not, look for a thought she would think.

“I’m trying” is different from “I am”

Put “I’m trying to make more money” in the thought line and notice the feeling. Then try “I am making more money.”

I feel the second thought ignite energy in a way the first doesn’t.

Listen for similar phrases: working on it, working on getting better, working on your thoughts or your business.

You may have repeated them so often that they no longer sound like thoughts. They sound like facts about you.

But you are still choosing a sentence, and that sentence creates an emotion. Becoming aware of both what you say and what you hear from yourself is a skill.

Don’t overlook the thought simply because it sounds ordinary or well intentioned.

Being “better than before” keeps the past in charge

When someone points out something in your thinking, you may defend yourself by explaining that you are much better than you used to be.

You want credit for progress. I understand that. But you are still defining yourself in relation to the past.

The past becomes your standard instead of the future you want to create.

Consider acknowledging the coaching, letting the thought go, and identifying with who you want to be now. Instead of rehearsing how much better you are at thought work than before, practice thinking of yourself as a master at thought work.

Notice the emotional difference. The purpose is to create fuel from your future identity rather than keep explaining the old one.

Stop giving your brain a list of deficiencies

You may say you aren’t good at something as though repeating it helps.

Even if it is true that you don’t currently have a skill, spending your mental energy defining yourself by that absence isn’t useful.

I’m not good at dunking a basketball. I don’t spend time thinking about that. It isn’t relevant to the life I’m creating.

If you want to become skilled at something, pursue it. If you don’t, you can stop rehearsing that you aren’t good at it.

The same applies to looking for everything that is wrong with you. A friend and I joked about the program of continually finding what is wrong so we can fix it.

That program keeps your attention on deficiency. You are already 100% worthy. You don’t need to turn your life into a competition over who has the most things wrong.

Look instead at what is right with you, your life, and the people in it. Notice how that changes the experience.

Don’t decide in advance that change must take a long time

Sometimes we say change will take time because we want to reduce pressure. But we may also create a rule that isn’t necessary.

A decision can happen in an instant. A new way of identifying yourself can be available now.

When you say you have been thinking this way your whole life, so changing must take a long time, you are using the past to set the terms for the future.

I talked with a friend about celebrating his abundance and opportunities. He explained that people where he came from didn’t talk that way.

My friend Tonya pointed out that where he was going, they did. That shifted the conversation from past conditioning to future identity.

You can choose the way you talk now rather than wait for the future result to grant permission.

Become a scholar of your own sentences

Monitor the subtle thoughts, not only the ones that sound terrible. What are you saying when you explain your goals, your progress, and your abilities?

Would the version of you who has created the result say those things?

Practice thoughts that belong to that identity. Put them in the Model and feel the difference. Notice the actions they invite.

If you have friends doing this work, you can help one another hear sentences that have become automatic.

Create from your future. Talk to yourself as someone precious, capable, and worthy of the life you want to create.