I’m no Tony Robbins, and I know that a post about self-talk may seem like a huge departure from what I usually write about. I feel that strongly about stopping negative self-talk that I’ve put some of my thoughts into words. And that’s not all, I’ve given you some actionable steps on how to improve.

As a personal trainer and fitness coach I try to help my clients reach their fitness goals and create a healthy lifestyle. Self-talk is like having a roommate. They can be a good living partner or a bad one. Constantly using negative self-talk is the worst kind of person to be living with. You owe it to yourself to improve your relationship with yourself. It may sound silly, but I’ve found that negative self-talk hampers my client’s results. It’s simple self-fulfilling prophecy. If you say you can’t, you can’t. If you say you’ll never do xy or z, you won’t, no matter how hard you think you are trying.

I recently found an article about the ‘10 commandments of exercise‘, and while it’s written for mostly bodybuilders, there are many key points that are applicable to everyone.  I think we all could use a healthy heaping of keeping these ’10 Commandments’. Seriously, this is a great read for anyone whether they are starting out their fitness career or well into the journey. I confess that the first 2 commandments (not coveting someone else’s progress/achievements, and thou shalt recognize your own strengths) are the hardest for me to keep.

I think recognizing one’s strengths is one of the hardest things to do. We tend to be our own worst critics. Unfortunately, we usually aren’t our own best advocates either. We tend to get in a vicious cycle of super negative self-talk. I’ve also found that if you don’t toot your own horn, no one else will.

So the question becomes, how can we eliminate the negative self-talk and recognize our strengths?

3 Steps to Eliminating Negative Self-Talk

I could be really cute and make a 10 step plan, or 12 steps and copy AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). I however, like to keep it short and sweet. Chances are you won’t remember all of the steps if I went that route. So instead, here are my top 3 steps for eliminating negative self-talk.

Step 1: Pay Attention

Just like many other habits, be it tracking your food choices/calories or budgeting simply paying attention to what you are doing is a very powerful way to start making a change into a more healthy habit. Pay attention to what you say to yourself out loud or in your head, or even things you say about yourself in the presence of others. If you talked that same way about someone else-especially to their face-you’d have some serious problems on your hands. Why is it ok to do to yourself?

Step 2: Change your Tense.

You don’t have to do a complete 180 here, or just yet. You don’t have to start saying you’re the world’s best whatever. Simply replace the definitive statements with future statements. If we state something as a possibility in the future we instinctively start working to make it a reality.

Example: “I can’t do this! It’s impossible!” change it to “I can’t do this YET. It’s nearly possible!” or “This is really challenging for me. I’ll give it my best shot!”

Step 3: Progress not Perfection

Down deep I think we all know that perfection isn’t attainable-true perfection that is. Those who we look up to in one way or another still look up to someone else. There is always another rung of the ladder to climb. The sooner we can accept our progress and our journey over perfection the sooner we can be happier. Find joy in the journey!

Remember: Change your words, change your mind, change your life! Stop beating yourself up!