Practical guide to positive self-talk: tips and techniques

Ever catch yourself thinking, “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t do this”? That’s your self-talk in action. Self-talk is the internal dialogue running through our minds, affecting our mood and actions. It can either lift you up or drag you down.

Negative self-talk fuels anxiety and self-doubt, making you feel stuck. Positive self-talk, on the other hand, can boost your mood, improve your outlook, and even enhance your physical health.

If you’ve been weighed down by negative thoughts, don’t worry—changing this inner narrative is possible. Positive self-talk involves flipping those negative thoughts into kinder, more supportive ones.

Just imagine replacing “I always mess up” with “I can learn from this and do better next time.” Simple shifts like these can profoundly impact your mental well-being. We will go through practical techniques to cultivate positive self-talk.

You’ll discover how to identify and challenge negative thoughts, use affirmations, and integrate gratitude into your daily routine. Let’s start transforming your inner dialogue and, by extension, your life.

What is self-talk?

Self-talk is the dialogue you have with yourself. It’s that constant stream of thoughts running through your mind all day. Sometimes it’s like a supportive friend, cheering you on, other times it acts as a harsh critic and your worst enemy, pulling you down. Understanding self-talk is essential because it shapes how you perceive yourself and react to your experiences.

Negative vs. positive self-talk

Think of self-talk as a double-edged sword. On one hand, negative self-talk can be harmful. It can sound like, “I always mess up”, “I’m not good enough”, “I never do anything right” or “I’m a failure”. When you constantly feed yourself these negative messages, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Much like filling a garden with weeds, it can’t flourish.

On the other hand, positive self-talk is the opposite. It’s like having your personal cheerleader inside your head saying things like, “I can do this” or “I’ve handled worse”. Positive self-talk can uplift you, giving you the courage and strength to push through difficult times.

Benefits of positive self-talk

Switching from negative to positive self-talk can change your life for the better. It sounds like such a simple thing, and often we don’t even realize how we talk to ourselves, but changing self-talk really improves all aspects of your life. Here are some ways it can help:

• Reduces stress and anxiety: Positive self-talk can calm your nerves and help you manage stress better. It gives you the feeling of ‘everything will be ok and I can do this’, it calms you down and boosts your belief in yourself.
• Boosts happiness: When you speak kindly to yourself, it’s easier to find joy in everyday moments. The more you practice gratitude and positivity, the more good you’ll notice in your life.
• Improves health: Believe it or not, a positive outlook can also lead to better physical health by lowering blood pressure and improving immune function.
• Enhances self-confidence: Encouraging self-talk builds your self-esteem, making you more confident in your abilities. If you think the worst about yourself, well it makes sense you feel like shit, right? But if you cheer yourself on, think how great you are and believe in your abilities, well then it makes sense you’ll feel more confident to tackle every day.

For more detailed benefits, you can check out Medical News Today’s article on positive self-talk.

A quick review of techniques and tips to improve self-talk

Changing the way you talk to yourself takes practice, but it’s worth it. Don’t be too hard on yourself and remember that you’ve had negative self-talk for your whole life, so it’ll take time to change the way you think. Just remember that as long as you’re making progress that’s all that matters.

Here are some techniques you can try:

1. Identify negative thoughts: Be mindful when negative thoughts creep in. Recognize them and challenge their validity. Observe yourself, especially when something is not going ok, what do you tell yourself?
2. Talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend: When you catch your negative self-talk imagine saying those same things to someone you love. How would take make the other person feel? Would you even say that to them? If not, why are you saying it to yourself without thinking twice about it?
3. Write out negative self-talk: Sometimes seeing the things we keep in ourselves, things we say to ourselves don’t feel as strong until we see them out there. Written on paper, no chance of escaping from our own words.
4. Stop negativity before it spirals: Being in a negative loop is very easy, and if it’s all we’ve ever done it feels comfortable, even if it’s bad for us. Practicing having more positive self-talk starts with stopping negativity before it spirals and gets out of control.
5. Practice gratitude: Focus on what you are thankful for. Maintaining a gratitude journal or simply reflecting on positive experiences can shift your thinking. Always focusing on the negative helps your mind search for more negativity, so starting a gratitude practice helps you find more positivity in your day-to-day life.
6. Limiting exposure to negativity: If we’re always surrounded by negativity we can’t expect ourselves to have a positive outlook on life. If we’re always surrounded with people who complain and nothing is ever good enough for them, when we open our social media all we see is negativity, then to build positive self-talk, we’ll need to change something.
7. Use positive affirmations: Write down and repeat affirmations that make you feel good about yourself, such as, “I am capable” or “I am worthy.” Choose what feels good to you and say it, say it in your mind and out loud, feel the words you’re telling yourself, and repeat it until you believe them. You can also change it, if you need a certain statement one day, then use that. Positive affirmations need to boost your confidence and your mood so whatever feels good to you is the right affirmation for you.

Remember, the goal is to be kind to yourself and feel good about yourself. Self-talk has immense power, and by consciously choosing to make it positive, you can improve your life in countless ways.

Tips for changing your negative self-talk

Identifying negative self-talk patterns and recognizing triggers

Recognizing the triggers of negative self-talk is a vital first step. Knowing what’s setting off your inner critic can help you prepare, respond differently, and catch the thoughts before they go onto a negative rollercoaster.

Here are some steps to help you identify these triggers:

1. Keep a journal: Write down moments when you catch yourself thinking negatively. Note the situation, your thoughts, and how you felt. Notice if you’ve had a long day behind you, did you spend a day with someone who’s super negative, are you tired/hungry, did someone say something to you?
2. Check your environment: Sometimes, certain places or people can trigger negativity. Maybe it’s a stressful work meeting or an unresolved family conflict. I noticed in myself that if I don’t focus as much on my home and making sure it’s clean, my self-talk becomes much worse. Sometimes things we don’t even think can affect us in a big way.
3. Assess your physical state: Hunger, fatigue, or lack of exercise can cause irritability and negative thinking and make us go on a negative downward spiral. At that time just take care of your basic needs.
4. Examine emotional states: Are there specific emotions that lead you to negative self-talk? Feelings like frustration, sadness, or anger can often trigger a spiral of negative thoughts. In those times what helps the most is addressing the emotion, dealing with it, and with that helping your self-talk.

By identifying these triggers, you can start to anticipate and manage them. For instance, if you know stressful meetings trigger negative thoughts, you can prepare by practicing calming techniques before and after these meetings. Understanding your triggers is a powerful way to regain control over your thoughts and steer them towards positivity.

To learn more about the benefits of positive self-talk, you can visit Psychology Today.

Identifying these triggers not only provides insight but also allows you to pivot your responses, shifting from a negative frame towards a more empowering and productive positive self-talk.

Practicing this, because changing your negative self-talk to a more positive one is a practice, will significantly enhance your mental well-being, helping you have a more positive outlook on life and boost your confidence.

Talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend

Imagine for a minute how you talk to yourself daily. What do you say to yourself when you don’t do something how you imagined it to do, or when you see yourself in a mirror?

And now imagine saying those exact words to your best friend or someone you love. Would you ever talk to them the way you talk to yourself? I’m certain that you wouldn’t say to them even half of the mean stuff you say to yourself.

It’s time to change that. Why would you say nice things to others but when it comes to you, you treat yourself like your worst enemy?

Start treating yourself with the same kindness and encouragement you would offer to someone you love. If you wouldn’t say it to them, don’t say it to yourself. It’s so simple and yet we love bringing ourselves down and wondering how we can feel more confident. Well for sure not with telling ourselves what a failure we are, how ugly or fat we are, or how incompetent we are.

Replace harsh criticisms with gentle, supportive words. It doesn’t need to be crazy positive, just be gentler to yourself, knowing you’re doing your best every day, and build on that. Changing your self-talk to be more positive will help you see your worth and believe in your abilities.

Write out negative self-talk

Writing down your negative thoughts actually seeing them on paper and reading the awful stuff we tell ourselves is a powerful way to confront and reformulate them. When you find yourself thinking something negative, write it down.

Seeing your thoughts on paper can help you realize how irrational they might be and how much damage those thoughts are doing to you, your mental health, and your confidence. Once you’ve written them out, challenge those thoughts. Explore and search for actual evidence that your statements are true.

For example, if one of your go-to negative self-talk statements is “I’m a failure”. Challenge it. Ok, if I’m a failure, then I failed everything in my life, right? So find 5 things you feel you failed in your life. Then find 15 things and moments where you didn’t fail.

And the things you feel you failed, why didn’t they go your way? Did you invest 100% of everything into it, 100% of your time, 100% of your energy, and 100% of your effort, or were you half-assing it? Was the so-called failure completely up to you, or was it the circumstances you were in?

Then replace the negative statements with positive ones. For instance, if you write, “I can’t do anything right,” you could reformulate it to, “I made a mistake, but I can learn from it and do better next time.” Or another great technique is to write the negative self-talk out, and then rewrite it completely, but as if you’re talking to your best friend.

Changes things quite a bit doesn’t it?

Stop negativity before it spirals

When we get into a negative mood the negative thoughts can quickly spiral out of control if we don’t catch and stop them early on. If you notice a negative thought creeping in, intercept it before it grows.

At this point doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as you stop it. There are a lot of techniques that help from going on a walk, exercising, dancing, meditating, actually saying stop out loud, writing it out… Try and find what works for you. What matters is that you interrupt the negative cycle and redirect your focus to something more positive or neutral.

Observe your thoughts because the quicker you can catch negative self-talk, the less power it has over you.

Practice gratitude daily

Focusing on what you’re grateful for will shift your mindset from negative to positive. If we focus every day on all the negative things out there, all the negative things that happen to us, then how can we expect to be more positive and feel better?

But if we focus on the positive, finding even the smallest things to be grateful for then our mind will see more and more of the good in our lives.

A good technique to find more positivity in our lives is maintaining a gratitude journal or simply keeping a mental checklist of things you’re thankful for. That practice will improve your self-talk and how you feel about yourself and your life.

Gratitude helps you appreciate the good things in your life, countering the negative thoughts that often dominate your mind. It’s so much easier for us to focus on the negative but by writing down a few things you’re grateful for each day, you’ll start to notice a positive shift in your overall outlook.

Limiting exposure to negativity

Imagine your normal day. You wake up, you pick up your phone, check social media. You go to work, where you hang out with coworkers. You get home and watch TV. You go out with friends and hang out with them. At night you lie down in your bed and check social media.

Now ask yourself: What kind of profiles do I follow on social media? What are my coworkers saying? What do I watch on TV? When I’m out with friends, what are we talking about?

Do you follow profiles that inspire, empower, and motivate you? Are your coworkers people who see positive in every situation and have a positive outlook on life? Do you watch empowering shows on TV? Are your friends people that motivate you and when you go home you feel better about yourself and your life than you did before?

If not then it’s time to change that. Being surrounded by negativity won’t make your self-talk more positive or help you feel better.

Learning to limit your exposure to negativity is crucial for building positive self-talk. When you surround yourself with negative influences, it becomes significantly harder to maintain a positive internal dialogue.

Negativity is a powerful force that deeply affects your emotional and mental well-being. Constant exposure to negative news, pessimistic people, and environments filled with conflict fuel negative self-talk. This not only impacts your mental health but also reduces your ability to see situations clearly, act confidently, and change your self-talk to be more positive.

Curate your social media and news intake

Social media and news outlets are filled with both uplifting and discouraging content. It’s essential to limit your exposure to negative information and it’s up to us to decide which route we’ll take.

To build a positive self-talk and more positive outlook on life: unfollow accounts that post pessimistic or harmful content and subscribe to positive and motivational channels instead. Choose news sources that report facts without unnecessary sensationalism or cut news out of your life completely. News travel fast and you can be sure that important news will find you, watching it or not.

Choose positive company

Surround yourself with people who lift you up rather than drag you down. Friends and colleagues who support and encourage you can make a significant impact on yourself, your mental health, and your self-talk. If certain relationships are consistently draining, it might be time to reevaluate and set boundaries.

You don’t have to (or you can’t) cut certain people completely out of your life, but be smart about hanging out with them. Limit your time with them, practice ‘in through one ear, out through the other ear’, and practice not getting sucked into their negativity and complaining cycle.

Affirmations for positive self-talk

Creating affirmations is a powerful way to practice positive self-talk. Affirmations are short, positive statements that can help you challenge and overcome self-sabotaging and negative thoughts, help you build confidence, help you tackle life challenges easier, and help you believe in yourself more.

It’s very important that you choose affirmations that resonate with you, that you can remember easily, and that make you feel good about yourself. Creating effective affirmations that feel good to you and give you what you need in that moment isn’t complicated. Here’s how you can get started:

1. Identify your goals and challenges: Begin by reflecting on what you want to achieve and the obstacles in your way. Are you looking to build confidence, reduce stress, or improve your relationships? Pinpointing these areas will help you craft targeted affirmations.
2. Craft positive statements: Your affirmations should be positive, present-tense statements. Instead of saying, “I will try to be confident,” say, “I am confident.” The goal is to frame them as facts, not aspirations.
3. Be specific: Vague affirmations lack power. Instead of “I am successful,” specify what success means to you. For example, “I am doing amazingly in my career and balancing my personal life effectively.”
4. Keep them short and simple: Simple affirmations are easier to remember and repeat. A statement like, “I am capable and strong,” is straightforward and powerful at the same time.
5. Use emotionally powerful words: Words like “love,” “joy,” and “strength” can evoke strong emotions, making your affirmations more impactful.

Here’s an example to illustrate:

• Goal: reduce stress
• Challenge: Overwhelmed by workload
• Affirmation: “I manage my time effectively and handle my responsibilities with ease.”

For more info, this article guides you on how to make affirmations that work for you.

Incorporating affirmations into your daily routine can be a game-changer. Place sticky notes with your affirmations around your home, say them aloud in front of the mirror, or write them in a journal.

Make sure you’re practicing and saying them as often as possible and saying them with emotions, not just saying them because. I use an app for my affirmations, you can set your own affirmations and set times when you want them to appear on your phone, it’s called ‘Affirmations’. But if you check your app store on the phone there’s a lot available, some paid, some free, so just choose which one works best for you.

Building positive self-talk through affirmations doesn’t just make you feel good. It builds resilience, reduces stress, and helps you tackle life’s challenges with a more optimistic outlook. Ready to start? Make at least one affirmation for yourself and repeat it as often as possible.

Self-talk is our inner dialogue that directly impacts our mental well-being. Negative self-talk can drag us down and reinforce feelings of inadequacy. In contrast, positive self-talk builds our confidence and helps build a positive outlook on life.

Integrating positive self-talk into our daily routine can reduce stress, increase happiness, and improve our overall quality of life. Techniques like avoiding negative self-talk traps, treating yourself kindly, and using positive affirmations can help you shift your mindset.

Start practicing positive self-talk today. With consistent effort, you can transform your inner dialogue and improve your mental health.

And don’t forget, you got this and everything will be ok!