The Incredible Power of Self Talk

culled from:hbr.com

What we say to others is not nearly as important as what we say to ourselves. All day, every day, our minds are flooded with thoughts that direct us to leading the lives that we live. This self talk determines our success, and our failures. If you want to make an improvement in any aspect of your life; whether related to health, fitness, career success or personal accomplishments, start by changing your self talk – you may be surprised to see what happens.

What is Self Talk?
We talk to ourselves at the rate of 150-300 words a minute, or, nearly 50,000 thoughts per day. While you are reading these words you are having a simultaneous dialog about what you think of this writing while also being distracted by the most important items on today’s “to do” list as well as other pressing matters. This internal thinking, or, SELF TALK, occurs through the conscious area of our mind.
What most people are unaware of is our self talk becomes instructions to our SUBCONSCIOUS, whose duty is to carry out the “orders” given to it by the CONSCIOUS area of our mind. The subconscious is our own personal servo-mechanism that works on our behalf 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
How Self Talk Works
Imagine an ocean liner crossing the sea with the captain of the ship barking our commands to the crew who may be located in the hold of the ship, below the water line unable to see where the ship is going. The captain is analogous to the conscious area to the mind. In this example, the crew is like the subconscious. So when the captain commands to the crew, “Full speed ahead, 15 degrees to the North, etc., “, the crew simple responds, “Aye Aye, Sir” and carries out its orders precisely. The crew does not care if it runs the ship into the rocks, collides with another vessel, or, gets the ship safely to its destination. It is totally non-judgmental and does not question “The Boss”, who in this example is the captain of the ship. This is a powerful metaphor of the relationship between the conscious and subconscious areas of the mind. These are not two separate minds, but, two spheres of the same mind.