Let’s talk about how to eliminate negative self-talk - it stresses you out. It makes you feel bad and it's got to go. You know that voice, it's the voice that tells you that you're not good enough, or you're not doing enough, or you're not doing it right. Or you're missing out or somebody doesn't like you many different things that we can negatively tell ourselves. And it makes us feel bad.
You know that it's the negative self-talk when it makes you feel awful. I always say, that's when you know, it's a lie and bear with me for a second. When something is a lie, it feels really bad. Think about this - when it's the truth, there's something in you that knows it's the truth.
It feels okay on some level and not awful. None of us are perfect. Right? We're humans, we're not perfectans. We all have stuff we want to work on. That's all okay.
But when we get on ourselves and tell ourselves lies, that's what I'm talking about today. It needs to be eliminated. I call this the five steps to, fire the liar.
Step one, pay attention to the things that you're telling yourself that make you feel bad. It can really help in the beginning to write it down and keep track of it because you will begin to see patterns. The negative self-talker loves to dwell on certain subjects. Mine loves to tell me that I've fat all the time. Oh my gosh. She loves it. I'll get more into that in a minute, it's been going on my entire life because magazines in the U.S., they tell us we're supposed to weigh 27 pounds.
We all have them. Pay attention to that and write it down so that you can see those trends or patterns and identify them immediately when they come up for you.
Step number two, when you notice, it it'll make you feel bad. Step two is question whether you would say that to your best friend? Really ask yourself that question. So what I call my best friend fat, my best friend is far from fat, but no I wouldn’t. And I wouldn't have a friend who would call me fat.
One day I was on a hike and that's when this dawned on me. I was in my head saying horrible things to myself - about myself. I asked myself in that moment, Annie, would you have a friend in your life who talked to you this way?
No, the answer is absolutely No. And you wouldn't either. So question yourself, would you say that to your best friend? And let's take the fat example. Let’s say someone would talk to their friend about her weight.
This gets us to step number three. Maybe you would talk to your friend about her weight, but you would never call her fat. but let's just say, someone would talk to their best friend about their weight for health purposes.
That brings us to step number three - find the absolute lie in what you’re telling yourself. Dig until you uncover the absolute lie that’s making your feel awful. It will be something like, let's just going to stay on this example, it makes you unattractive or unlovable or unworthy, right? You would never say any of those things to your best friend - that she's unattractive or unlovable or unworthy. Right? So that's the absolute lie.
Now, when we find this, we are firing that liar.
In the beginning it can be helpful to name your liar. If you want to, if that resonates with you. When I started doing this, I named my liar Fannie. Now, if your name is Fannie, I am not trying to insult you at all. It was just a derivative of my name. I would say stop Fannie, no Fannie. You're a liar Fannie.
Or you don't have to use a name. In that moment you can say “Stop”. “No”. Or you can just say “Fire the liar”.
And then instantly step number five is to find something to appreciate. Get your mind onto different neural networks. I'm not saying go and write a gratitude list. I think appreciation is stronger because gratitude lists can become a rote exercise after a while.
Those are your five steps. And I would love in the comments to know what are the lies that you tell yourself?
Just by doing this one thing, you're going to lower your stress levels. And you're going to be a whole lot happier because you will determine that this voice in your head needs to be fired. You’ve got to fire that liar. If you would like a Downloadable Guide to help you with this, here’s one that you can download and it will lead you through all of it. It has spaces to write these things out because in the beginning that can really help you to identify the patterns. Then once you master this, you don't have to write it all down anymore.
Hope this helps you and let me know how it goes Firing That Liar!