3 ways how you speak to yourself impacts your goals

Is there something you desperately want to achieve? Something you tell your friends and family that you will do one day? You can see it and you can feel it, but you just can’t seem to get hold of it?

No matter what, you just can’t figure out why you haven’t achieved it yet? I mean…you’ve tried everything…

If this resonates with you, take a few minutes out to consider the following:

Could it be the case that you’re the one getting in your own way with your own internal dialogue and negative mind chatter? In other words, are you feeding yourself some bullsh*t idea that you’re not good enough?

Below are three things to take notice of how you’re speaking to yourself or about what you want to achieve:

Limiting beliefs

We all have them, but they can be so ingrained in our everyday talk we don’t even notice how they are holding us back. Start to notice if you ever hear yourself saying, or thinking, ‘I’m too old for that’, ‘I’m not good looking enough to do that’ , ‘I’m not smart enough to achieve that’…you get the idea.

If you do this, begin to challenge this language and start to fight your own corner. Reverse the language of your limiting beliefs and perhaps try some positive affirmations instead. If you don’t believe in yourself that you can do something, then how can you expect to do it? 

Disempowering language

If you want to achieve something desperately, start to notice when you hear yourself think or say things like, “I haven’t got time today”, “that’s just the way life is”, “work won’t let me do it” and “it’s alright for you, you haven’t got kids/a dog/a house to look after/a job”.  Every time you make an excuse, that’s exactly what it is, and you're giving your power away to something or someone else. You’re disempowering yourself and preventing yourself from taking action.

If you want something, there may well be sacrifice of other things to fit it all in. If you notice yourself making lots of excuses it might be time to ask yourself what you’re willing to sacrifice to make it happen.

Expecting to fail

Do you ever hear yourself say ‘I’m going to try to do that today’, or ‘I should really do that tonight’ or ‘yes, that’s a good idea but…’ – Each and every time you say one of these, you’re reinforcing to yourself that you expect to fail or that you don’t believe you can do it. Change your ‘should’ to ‘could’ and your ‘try to’ and your ‘yes, but…’ to ‘can’ and see how it feels.

Don't limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you.

- Mary Kay Ash

How we speak to ourselves matters for so many different reasons - not only can it impact our goals we want to achieve but it can have an enormous impact on how we feel about ourselves every day - on our confidence and our self-esteem.

The most important thing of all, is to treat yourself with kindness and self-compassion - wherever you are in your journey right now know that you're wonderful and exactly where you're meant to be.