Critical Self-Chatter and How to Manage It
I’ve written before on negative self-talk because it comes up quite often for my clients. That’s because we all do it. Ethan Kross writes about this in Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It, and his work (some of which I’ve included here with my own thinking) introduced me to some new ideas on this topic.
Negative self-talk is biological and instinctual. And like many things, it can be healthy and unhealthy. For instance, some negative chatter can be valuable because it can generate the initial anxiety or impetus to prompt our stress response, which helps us take action and adapt in critical situations. It can help us plan, take charge, control ourselves, and find quick solutions.
What happens, though, is that this negative self-chatter (and its accompanying stress response) can go on for too long, in ways that are damaging. In other words, we can get stuck in the anxiety that negative self-thoughts induce.
This can deeply affect our work performance and our relationships with others. After all, the brain only has a certain amount of power available to be in the present moment.
For example, if we need to be engaged with work, but are distracted by ongoing self-critical thoughts, not much work is being accomplished. Do you experience this? What can happen next is that the negative thoughts can then grow and become reinforced in our minds with the perceived failure of not being as productive, causing even more anxiety. Negative self-talk is vicious!
Likewise, with relationships, if negative chatter occupies too much of one’s attention and energy, it can make it challenging to be a good listener. And, relationships can be sabotaged by a person monopolizing others’ time by talking too much about his or her own problems.
These results are entirely understandable given what’s (literally) occupying our minds. And while it’s not entirely avoidable, it is manageable.
So, what can we do? There are a lot of tools that help and it’s all about finding ones that work for you. Below are some ideas to get you started using an example of a personal struggle of mine with accounting-related tasks. This has generated a fair share of negative chatter for me. (Believe me, I have far heavier personal examples of negative self-chatter, but those will have to wait for future posts.)
Coach yourself and use your name in third person as you do it. It’s easy to coach and support friends, but it’s hard to coach ourselves. This is why it’s important to use your name when doing so. I know this sounds corny—it certainly did to me at first. But, it works! For example, I might say to myself, “Come on, Judy. You’ve got this. It may take several hours to prepare that spreadsheet, but there is a lot of value to gain and it’s worth it! You’ll feel amazing once it’s done.” Remember: Language is powerful and can be constructive or destructive depending on how we use it!
Do something atypical when you find yourself engaged in negative self-chatter. Often times there is a sense of confusion and clutter in our minds when we are at the mercy of our negative self-thoughts which can prevent us from moving forward with work. Find other ways in those moments to regain control. For example, organize your desk or your office. Or, make a list of action items you plan to focus on immediately to cut the clutter and reengage with your work. Just make sure that whatever you do is a jumpstart to get back to your work in the moment, and not a distraction to avoid doing what needs to be done. That’s procrastination and a topic for another day!
Reframe your negative self-thoughts. Use those negative thoughts for you and not against you. As mentioned previously, negative thoughts about yourself allow you to mobilize and take quick action in critical situations. But, it’s important to then reframe them so that they don’t linger and become larger recurring problems that hold you back. Here’s one process to do that:
Look at the negative thought. What exactly are you telling yourself? Look for the actual truth and the actual facts and use them to challenge your negative thoughts. For example, I sometimes say to myself that I’m terrible with accounting and that I’m lame because I can’t learn to embrace accounting tasks. If I look at this, am I really “terrible” with accounting? No, I get to the right answers, it just takes me some time to get there. Am I “lame” because I can’t learn to enjoy accounting? No, we all have things we like and don’t like. I happen to not like working with numbers. Period.
Pinpoint what you are feeling when thinking those thoughts. Like most people, I feel frustrated with myself and anxious, almost resentful, about spending a lot of time on things I dislike. Monitor your emotions so you can identify your pressure points and embrace strategies that are well-suited to your individual triggers.
How do you want to feel instead? I, personally, want to feel capable and motivated to get through the project. Notice that I don’t want to learn to enjoy finance tasks—that may be unrealistic for now. Just feeling capable and motivated seems like a reasonable step in the right direction.
What would you like to think about yourself instead? This is where you can again throw in some of the self-coaching referenced above. Remember to talk to yourself as you would a friend (in third-person), and use true, factual statements that are constructive instead of destructive. How about, “Judy, you don’t like to create and analyze spreadsheets, but you’ve done it before and can do it now. The work product is important and offers a lot of value. You’ll feel amazing when it’s done and can then reward yourself with a [insert your reward of choice, mine might be a nice glass of wine] afterward.” As I said before, this sounds cheesy, I know. But it works! Again, there is power in positive (and true) words as much as there is in negative.
Find an anchor to help you tap into tools that work for you. Finally, think through an anchor you can use to bring you back to this process, or any process that works for you, the next time you find yourself thinking defeatist thoughts. An anchor might be a keyword posted on your computer or whiteboard, or it may be a daily reminder as part of your morning or evening routine, etc. The more often you remind yourself of what to do when you are experiencing critical thoughts about yourself (and the more you do it), the faster it will become an automatic habit!
The bottom line is to try different approaches to combat the prolonged negative thoughts you have about yourself. They aren’t serving you, so find productive ways to let them go and move on.
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Are you interested in diving in more deeply on this? Schedule a complimentary call with me to explore whether these techniques or other aspects of my coaching practice can help you improve your mindset and bring you more happiness in work and life.
