3 Simple Steps to Improve Your Positive Self-Talk

Here is an exercise for you. Don’t think about apples. Don’t think about juicy red apples. Don’t think about the beautiful trees that produce juicy red apples. What are you thinking about right now? Probably apples. How often do you hear yourself saying, “I don’t want to do this or that” and then you do it anyways. According to Steve Andres and Charles Faulkner:

“ Our brains simply don’t know how to put things into negative language. In order to know what not to think of, our brains have to first think of it… We tend to think of what we don’t want to do, and then often proceed to do it.”

With Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), we can retrain our brains to think differently just by changing the way that we talk to ourselves. The concepts are simple and they basically work this way:

1. Say what you want to do in the positive. So if you don’t want to be overweight, then say “I want to be 10 pounds thinner.”

2. Create a vivid mental picture of “what you want to do” to make this change more desirable.

3. Mentally practice doing “what you want to do” so that it becomes a natural process.

Final thoughts: Our thoughts influence our actions. Changing our inner chatter from negative to positive can help us to become for more effective in getting the desired results that we want. This is a practice of conditioning the brain to unlearn old thoughts patterns and relearn new resourceful patterns. As I always say, it does take practice, patience, and time. There are so many tools to experiment with in NLP, check them out and see what works for you. Of course, if you need any help, you can always set up a coaching session with me and we can experiment with these tools together.

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