Talk, Talk, Talk

Today, we are going to discuss talking to ourselves!

When I think about talking to myself, I imagine the lady walking through the grocery store, going up and down the aisles saying, “You look yummy, maybe I should buy you for dinner.” That is not what I am talking about.

I am referring to talking to ourselves (not even necessarily out loud, though I am a huge fan of that as well) focusing on the big picture. Let me give you a metaphor to help you understand what the big picture is. You are looking at a picture of your family on your phone. The picture is made up of a lot of pixels. If one or two or even ten of those pixels would be a little off, the picture would still be a nice picture. In life, our long term goal is the picture. Our short term actions are the pixels. We can make some mistakes and it will not ruin the big picture.

So how can we move forward every time things don’t go smoothly? The key here is self talk. Think about what went wrong. Then, say to yourself, “My goal was x, y happened. Next time I need to do x, I will do a, b, c, in order to improve.” Think about why you want things to change. Say them to yourself.

Let me clarify with an example. Bob is painting the living room. As he paints, he realizes that he forgot to put down drop cloths. He notices paint droplets all over the floor in the area that he painted. Bob thinks about how he should have put down the drop cloths and in his over eagerness to get started, he didn’t put them down. He says to himself, “I wanted to paint the room, I got overly enthusiastic and started to paint before I was fully set up. Next time I want to start a project (think big picture), I will make sure that I go through a checklist for setting up before I begin.”

Have self compassion, even while moving forward! We are works in progress. No one is perfect, and our goal is to slowly move ourselves to a better place.

For today, talk to yourself at least once! Tell yourself what you are doing right and where and how you can improve. Have fun!