Have you ever heard of that saying that the more we tell ourselves a particular lie we’ll eventually start to believe it?
You’ll be seeing this be mentioned a lot.
But the title is true, we’re going to break down how to lie to ourselves… just not the way you think.
And it particularly relates to self-talk.
Self-Talk and Lies
Pretty much, self-talk is the way that you talk to yourself… DUH.
But all jokes aside, self-talk is more specifically the directions we give to our mind. This goes from everything we say to ourselves out loud and in our thoughts.
The way our self-talk is programmed is the same with how we eventually believe a lie that we repeatedly tell ourselves.
With a lie, when we repeatedly tell it to ourselves and even to other people, we would eventually start to believe it.
With our self-talk, when we repeatedly tell words and statements about ourselves, we would end up believing it… and living it. It becomes automatic.
This is regardless on whether the statements we make to ourselves are positive or negative.
If we are repeatedly saying negative statements to ourselves, just like the lie, we would eventually believe it.
If we are repeatedly saying positive statements to ourselves, it’s the same. Like with the lie, we would eventually believe it.
Which “lies” do we eventually want to believe?
Changing our “Lies”
So if telling a lie to ourselves over and over again eventually makes us believe it, maybe we could end up using it to our advantage?
Since most of our self-talk is automatic, if we wanted to change it, it’s probably a good idea for us to be more conscious of it, and change the self-talk until it becomes conditioned and automatic.
There are different kinds of self-talk, and they either work for us or against us. What matters most is using the correct kind of self-talk that would benefit us rather than put us down.
It’s the same with the lies. There are many lies that we can tell ourselves, but we don’t have to make it bad lies. We can tell the right kind of lie to ourselves that would actually end up improving our lives.
I’ve experienced how both my positive and negative self-talk had influenced some areas of my life. Funny enough, the solution to overcoming my negative self-talk and turning it to positive self-talk was… to lie.
What we’ll break down is four of the five levels of self-talk that was outlined in the book What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter. The area of my life that I will use as an example is my study life.
LEVEL 1 – The Level of Negative Acceptance
“Bad Lies”
The lowest level of self-talk is the least beneficial self-talk. It’s the most harmful self-talk as it is full of the negative and bad statements about ourselves.
I have noticed how this sort of self-talk is the easiest to spot. They usually begin with words like “I can’t”, “I could never do that” or “If only I could…”. Since it is the easiest to spot, that usually means that it’s the most used form of self-talk.
It’s common sense that all of these negative self-talk at this level do come from fears and doubts, and we don’t even have to do this self-talk out loud.
This is so similar to telling lies to ourselves – the more we say it, the more we end up believing it. So imagine what our mind would be like if we keep saying those negative self-talk statements.
I’ve experienced this level of self-talk when I started my first semester of studying law. The workload kept increasing as the semester went on, and that was the time when I started saying negative things about my ability to keep up with all of it.
And then when the content just got harder, those who may have studied with me may have heard me say out loud that “I can’t do this…”, “I’m going to fail”, “This is so hard, I could never do this”. It got even more challenging when I felt that I couldn’t possibly get good grades like my peers did. One negative statement came one after another.
All of these negative statements that I ever said either in my head or out loud to myself or anyone else, came from my fear of failing (really, my fear of the consequences of failing) and doubts about myself to actually keep up with everything.
I’m relieved that negative self-talk like this did not apply to the other areas of my life. BUT imagine if it did. Imagine if we went through life just having that negative self-talk.
To be fair, those statements I was saying to myself were probably not even true. If they weren’t true, then that meant that they were lies. Do I really want to end up believing those lies?
LEVEL 2 – Level of Recognition to Change
“Still bad lies”
This was an interesting level of self-talk when I first read about it. It does look helpful but when we go deeper, it actually ends up working against us.
This level of self-talk is filled with statements such as “I need to…” or “I should”. Upon reading those statements, they look better than the level 1 self-talk statements.
However, simply saying that we “need to” do something or “should do” something only ends up telling us that we have a problem. There’s nothing stated in those statements that creates a solution. Ultimately, it’s another negative level of self-talk.
I know that with my studying at uni, I always used to say statements such as “I should really stop stressing” or “I need to review my notes on a regular basis” – all that really did was just tell me that I “needed” to do it or “should” do it because I’m not doing it.
Saying those statements such as “I’ve got to keep up with all of these readings and assessments” and “I should study better” just kept getting into my mind, and I eventually ended up thinking that I could never improve.
Instead of motivating me to stop stressing and improve my study skills, it just made me feel more guilty and disappointed.
Again, just like with the Level 1 self-talk statements I had, they were probably not even true… again being a lie. These “lies” may have looked innocent at first, but from my experience they ended up creating more guilt.
LEVEL 3 – The Level of Decision to Change
“Good lies”
This is one of the first levels of self-talk that would actually work for us rather than against us. The types of “lies” that would actually benefit us.
This is the self-talk where we recognise the need for change BUT the difference from the Level 2 self-talk is that we actually decide to do something about it.
For instance, instead of me saying that “I should stop stressing”, the Level 3 self-talk would be “I no longer stress”. In this statement, it is stated in present tense, as if the change had already happened.
The same with the other statement of me saying that “I need to review my notes regularly” and changing it to “I never fall behind in reviewing my notes”. We’re saying the statement as if I had already made that change.
Remember what I mentioned earlier (and many times) about how telling a lie over and over again would eventually make us believe it? It’s the exact same with this self-talk.
Instead of telling those negative lies to ourselves, we can tell these positive lies to ourselves, and we would actually end up believing and end up making the change.
This had happened when I was trying to improve my concentration and be fully mentally present in class (because I would be thinking about other things).
When I told myself, either out loud or in my thoughts that “I never get distracted in class.”, I was really programming myself to end up believing it.
Eventually, just like a lie told over and over again, I would end up believing it, and every time I found myself daydreaming in my classes, I would go back to being fully present.
LEVEL 4 – The Level of Better You
“Still good lies”
What to Say When You Talk to Yourself had named this level of self-talk as the most effective kind of self-talk we can ever use.
This is where we had moved forward from our past. It’s where we had got rid of all the negativity that we once said to ourselves, and changed it towards a better us.
Statements that would usually start with the words “I am…”
An example would be – “I am organised. I am proactive. I am on top of everything. I am good at balancing my studies with all the other areas of my life” – I don’t know about anyone else, but this does sound better than all the Level 1 self-talk statements.
A great difference between the Level 1 and the Level 4 self-talk is that instead of putting ourselves down because of our challenges, we look at those challenges as opportunities.
When I was in Level 1 self-talk, I used to say that “I can’t do this, this is too hard”. When it’s in Level 4 self-talk, it turns into “It’s going to be challenging but this is an opportunity for me to increase my knowledge”. It’s the opposite of Level 1 self-talk.
When we’re in Level 1 self-talk, it’s filled with “I can’t” where Level 4 self-talk is filled with “I am” and “I can”. It is those vibrant statements that would push us forward and challenge our fears and doubts.
Me saying that “I can’t do this” didn’t get me very far. But switching it to “This is a challenge, I can do this, it’s a learning experience either way” would most likely take my results to a highly better direction.
They may seem like lies at first, but when we eventually live up to them, they’ll become the truth.
Using the way our mind works to our advantage
Our mind is weird and it’s quite funny on how its programming works.
So again, if saying a particular lie over and over again is going to make us believe it, then we could use that to our advantage.
If we have any of the Level 1 and 2 self-talk, the “cannots” and the “I can’ts”, those are not the lies that we want to end up believing.
We want to be able to replace those two negative kinds of self-talk and replace it with the more positive self-talk in Level 3 and 4. If we are going to tell ourselves lies, why don’t we tell lies that would actually benefit us and make us better?
Maybe we still won’t lie to ourselves that way. Just remember, if we tell these positive lies to ourselves over and over again, and we start to believe it, we can start to live it.
Then the lie eventually becomes the truth right?
Book(s) this post was inspired by:
(not sponsored in any way!)
Disclaimer: If you think that any of what I had written was good, the credit actually belongs to the one whose book was the inspiration for this post. If there’s anything on here that you think is quite stupid, that’s 100% blame on me 🙂
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, this is Lauren! I’m a law grad from Melbourne, Australia. On laurenbarri.com, I create content on all things personal development, productivity, self-care, and habits! I am super passionate about these topics because of how they helped me in all areas of my life, and I want to share it with others!
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