Our mind does not remain calm even for a moment in today’s stressful life. There is always something going on in it. Sometimes it is about the future, sometimes about the past. A lot of times it is also about the excitement of going somewhere new, and so on.
When someone is in front of us, we often tell them all of our thoughts in words but it is not always possible to have someone with us. So, in such a situation we begin to talk to ourselves, which is known as self-talk.
Dr Spandan Thakkar, an Ahmedabad-based psychiatrist, explained this in detail in an article in the Dainik Jagran newspaper.
According to Dr Spandan, there is a portion in our brain that keeps creating a picture by mixing what you say to yourself. After that, you react to the mental image created by the brain.
Your words play an important role in creating a picture; that is, the brain prepares a picture based on the words you use. All of this is our inner voice, which psychologists refer to as self-talk.
Self-talk also includes our conscious and unconscious thoughts that are unconsciously involved in our actions. The majority of the ‘self-talk’ is very rational. For example, “I have prepared so what is there to fear?” “I have full confidence to go ahead and properly understand and deal with the problem, so there is nothing to fear”, so on and so forth. However, some self-talk is negative, such as “I’m going to get stuck badly, there’s no solution now, I haven’t tried hard enough, I have given up hope now,” etc.
When we talk about negative self-talk, in such a situation, a person begins to view everything through a critical lens, and this criticism is always negative. Fear of failure is the main reason for this. As a result, it is important to address it to boost your self-confidence.
Negative self-talk will be difficult to overcome at first, but with consistent effort, it can be mitigated. To begin with, learn to recognise negative thoughts and how to avoid paying attention to them. Because no one else can understand your thinking better than you, you will be able to find a way to deal with them if you give yourself some time.
