There is constantly a dialogue happening in our brains during all of our waking hours. Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly talking ourselves through situations that come up throughout the day. However, this internal conversation can be our worst enemy.
I know for myself, I overthink absolutely everything. If I have an awkward interaction with someone (which happens a lot), I will think about it for the rest of the day. If I think I said something that could possibly have offended someone or rubbed them the wrong way, then I will think of ways I could apologize even though I definitely didn’t need to.
There have also definitely been times where I didn’t have the confidence or self-esteem to think that I was good enough to do something or that I didn’t deserve when something good happened to me. Negative self-talk can also lead to constant comparisons to other people. I would convince myself that another person was automatically doing something better than me, and I should change myself to be like them.
In the last year or so, I have started to realize that this type of mindset is not healthy for me, or anybody. I have decided to become more mindful about how I talk to myself. If I work so hard to try and be nice to everyone else, then why can’t I do that for myself too? I have noticed that this has helped a lot with my confidence and not worrying what other people think about me. Giving myself positive affirmations, rather than trying to pick apart every detail, has allowed me to live more in the moment rather than worrying about everything. While I definitely still have times where I let that negative self-talk into my head, I try to quickly spin that into something positive.
At the end of the day, loving yourself and being able to acknowledge that in your own thoughts is what will ultimately make us happy with ourselves and who we are. While affirmations from others can help with confidence and confirm your own ideas of yourself, they can’t fully be accepted until we truly believe them. The way that we talk to ourselves can have more of an impact than we may realize because of how it affects our own opinion and view of the person we truly are.