The 4 R's of Combating Negative Self-Talk
Our thoughts can influence our feelings which then can affect the actions we take. As a result, negative self-talk can often become a vicious merry-go-round of negativity. So how do you get off the ride? Here are four steps you can take to combat your negative self-talk and start to break the cycle.
RESPECT
Respect yourself and your feelings by acknowledging, yet not judging, your negative feelings. The first way that people get stuck in the quicksand of negativity is by beating themselves up for having negative thoughts in the first place. For many of us, our negative thoughts are automatic. Changing our automated thought process takes time and training. In the meantime, we need to be kind to ourselves. Acknowledging the feelings without allowing them to trigger us into more negativity is the first step to breaking the cycle. This interruption of the cycle allows us to move on in the process to combat the negative self-talk.
REFLECT
Once we can acknowledge the negative thoughts we are now in a position to explore them a bit more. Reflect on what might be causing these feelings and write it down. This can be through a regular habit of journaling or a one-off exercise. Helping ourselves understand what might have caused these feelings can help us identify our triggers or identify when we are displacing our feelings.
As an example, a colleague tells us that they don’t have time to help us with a project this week which triggers your negative self-talk that no one likes you. By exploring and questioning what is causing these feelings, you might recognize that you are really just stressed that you won’t be able to deliver your project on-time or perhaps it was triggered by personal circumstances like when your friend told you they were too busy to catch up this week. In either case, you are able to understand if there is more to your feelings than what exists on the surface level.
REFRAME
Often when we have negative thoughts they are based on assumptions and inferences we make. As a result, it's important to reframe and separate your thoughts from the facts. One way to do this is to restate your negative thoughts by using the phrase, “The story I am telling myself is…”. This emphasizes that your negative thoughts aren’t necessarily facts. They are most likely based on assumptions and inferences you drew that are unfounded. To combat these thoughts we need to first recognize that they aren’t facts.
If we continue with that previous example, we recognize that we made a leap from our colleague telling us they don’t have time to help us to thinking it's because they don’t like us. That is an inference we are making, not a fact. Our colleague didn’t tell us they didn’t like us. There may be plenty of logical reasons why our colleague can’t help us such as they are too swamped with work themselves. As a result, we reframe this as “The story I am telling myself is that my colleague doesn’t like me and that is why they aren’t helping me”. This helps us distinguish from the facts.
REMIND
Finally, now that we are able to separate our assumptions from facts, we can replace the story with actual facts. In order to do this, remind yourself of your positive qualities and strengths. Since we were able to reframe our negative thoughts as stories, not truths, we now have the opportunity to acknowledge real truths. By spending a few minutes thinking about your best qualities and your strengths, you are able to replace your negative thoughts with positive facts.
In this case, you may remind yourself that you have built a lot of strong positive relationships with your colleagues and you are in fact well-liked. You might remember all the times your colleague has helped you with projects in the past to prove that this is a one-off incident. These new facts can help override the negative assumptions and thoughts you had and may allow you to take a new set of actions.
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Combating our negative thoughts and self-talk takes work. Approach this as a tool to use frequently so that the process becomes more familiar. Over time, you will start to automatically prompt yourself to utilize this process to combat the negative thoughts. Eventually, with enough practice and mindset adjustments, you can even replace your automated negative thinking with positive thinking.
