Your Internal Voice: Friend or Foe?

Of all the sources of inspiration, my Peloton experience has brought forth more "a-ha" moments thanks to some of their phenomenal instructors.

The other day I had a class full of them thanks to one of my favorite instructors, Robin Arzon. While there were at least 6 statements that I shouted into my phone notes during my ride to capture, there was one that I haven't been able to stop thinking about:

"Is the voice in your head that of a friend or an enemy?"

It's all about how we treat ourselves and how we talk to ourselves on a day to day basis. When you consider that we have between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day, with nearly 80% of those being neutral or negative, this statement caused some serious head-tilt. How much has "the enemy" impacted your daily life? 

Another way to think about this is transcribing the words that you say to yourself and read them back, would they seem to be words from a friend or an enemy?

We are all guilty of negative self-talk, impostor syndrome tendencies, and negative bias. So, how do we take the little steps to increase our positive self-talk and improve the trajectory of our days to be happier and continue on our path to success?

Start Small

Change is hard, no matter what it is. Instead of taking on a full-court press attack on your entire negative psyche, start in one area of your life. Whether it's your work, relationship, body image, or pursuit of a passion, work on developing the habit in one specific area to increase the strength and awareness to do it elsewhere. 

Blend Objective With Subjective

When speaking about emotional intelligence, I often bring up the tendency that we all have to negative bias. This is the habit that we get in where the impact of one small bad thing can overshadow an entire day of positivity. When you start thinking a negative thought about yourself: stop, take a deep breath, and look at all of the elements affecting the situation. Don't ignore how you feel, but gather up what other elements impacted you. You will find that you're not so hard on yourself, but you'll also focus on things that aren't wrong or aren't broken in your world. Focus there.

Walk the Talk

Once you start increasing your ability to catch the negative creep and talk to yourself positively, the behavior that you exhibit will reinforce the new positive thinking. If you don't feel qualified for a promotion, or you're talking yourself out of it, start infusing positive affirmations that you are worth it and that you can achieve it. Then, start implementing that behavior. Need bigger projects to take on? Ask for them. Need to level up a skillset? Spend time in personal development.

Unrealistic vs. Dynamic

You will have lapses in this behavior if you try to go cold turkey on the change. I've tried it myself and I know how it goes. Instead of doing a full 180 turn on your current self-limiting belief, opt for a more powerful, dynamic version.

If you've not been the best leader, instead of saying "I'm a great leader now!" try "I'm working really hard on my leadership skills." In that change, you relieve the pressure of immediate adherence, you give yourself grace and support, and you work at a new pace of improvement that feels better.

Embrace the Silver Lining

We tend to give in to the absolute statement of negativity which is what starts bringing us down. "I haven't hit my goal" as a finite statement doesn't leave room for improvement or opportunity. "I haven't hit my goal, but I've made progress and I'm closer now than when I started" feels different, right? What has happened? What has improved? What work have you done? Look at the progress and appreciate the climb to this point without focusing on what hasn't occurred yet. Every little ounce of positivity in that change will help keep you moving forward.

It's time to raise the volume of the self-positive, self-confident voice in your head and watch things unfold the way you want.

And to the amazing team at Peloton, thank you for constantly helping me, and millions of others, push ourselves with a more positive mentality.

Rich Bracken is an energetic keynote speaker and marketing executive who blends data and research with emotion and case studies to share insights and strategies on how to implement sustainable positive change. His focus and passion is to help individuals and organizations perform at a higher level both personally and professionally. He has served numerous Fortune 100 clients and global organizations as a keynote speaker and consultant and is a Professor of Leadership and notable media personality appearing in such outlets as ABC, ESPN, Thrive Global, Vice, and Goalcast, and this fall he will be presenting on the TEDx stage.

To inquire about Rich's speaking availability for your next event or conference, contact him at rich@richbracken.com.