How to Use Self-Talk to Build and/or Break Your Habits

While my self-talk has usually been one thing that had kept me in my comfort zone, it had also helped push me out of my comfort zone.

Things like launching this blog, starting a YouTube channel, starting other projects (secret shhhh.) 🙂

But one thing that self-talk had helped me with that can benefit you as well is developing your habits.

If you’ve read my blog post on the four books to building better habits, one of the books was What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter. This blog post will go into detail on changing habits through your self-talk.

Self-Talk

Self-talk specifically is all the directions that we give to our mind, regardless on whether we say it out loud or just thinking it in our mind.

It’s all the words and statements we think and say of ourselves. And of course, just like telling a lie to yourself over and over again that you’d eventually believe it, whatever you say to your mind, positive or negative, you’ll eventually believe it as well.

This is the self-talk that creates the programming and conditioning that makes us do the things we do. These go from our habits, to our attitudes, to the actions that we take.

Habits are a result of that very programming and conditioning, and it all depends on the self-talk.

How our Habits Come From our Self-Talk

I’m sure that you can list plenty of habits that you want to change. I know that there must be some habits that you want to break because they’re holding you back. There also must be habits that you want to form because it would benefit you greatly.

Now think about the habits that you have right now. Those habits had came from our previous conditioning and programming. It’s everything that we had learned to do, practice, and then it eventually became a natural way for us to behave.

So where does the self-talk come in?

The self-talk comes in when we need to work on a specific problem. That can be whether we want to break a habit because it has become detrimental to our lives, or that we want to form a habit immediately because we need the benefit of that habit.

Now our self-talk would either work for us or against us with this. Our self-talk directs our mind to either stop doing something or to keep doing something. We would follow that self-talk eventually, regardless on whether that self-talk is positive or negative.

If it’s negative self-talk, we can’t really expect that we can successfully break our bad habits and/or stick with our good ones. So now, how can we improve our self-talk?

If you want to stick with a new habit…

If you want to stick with a new habit, self-talk is crucial here.

Think of a GPS or navigation system. We put in the destination that we want to go to right? Put your end goal or result as your destination.

Now, pretend that your self-talk is the GPS system to get to where you want to go.

If we were going on an actual trip, on a plane ride, the pilot would need to determine the course, direction, altitude, and the speed to arrive to our destination.

It has to be specific. It’s not enough just to tell the pilot to go left without giving the compass direction for it. It’s not going to help the pilot if we’re just giving him vague directions such as “go left, go up, go down, go right”.

The course from the beginning to the end needs to be clear so that the pilot doesn’t get lost. It needs to be specific, because otherwise they won’t end up getting to their destination.

This is the same with your self-talk, especially when it comes to building and sticking with habits. You can’t be vague with your self-talk.

For example, if you have a certain body weight goal, it’s not enough to simply say these following statements:

You need to eat healthy – okay then, so what foods? What do I eat and not eat? Does this consider my dietary requirements? Does this consider all my food allergies?

You need to exercise – Okay, but for how long? How many times per day? Per week? What type of exercise do I need to be doing? What if I can’t do these particular exercises?

You may have noticed, that the directions to “eat healthy” and “exercise” are very vague. Just like with the pilot needing directions, you need to be specific with the self-talk as well.

Now when we make those above self-talk statements more specific, you’ll be able to see how much clearer it is, and it gives you a clearer understanding on what you need to do:

I need to eat healthy. Replace carbs with fruits and vegetables, limit dessert to twice a week. I’m allergic to fish so I’ll have chicken for protein instead. – now that’s way more specific, and you actually have a better understanding on what you need to do.

I need to exercise. I need to exercise five days a week, each for 30 minutes. I can’t lift weights at the gym, but I can go do some walks and runs – again, way more specific and clear.

Now let’s just say for example, doing these habits are too hard for you. Going back to the self-talk, and the idea that saying a lie to yourself over and over again makes you eventually believe it, what do you think would happen the more you say these following statements?

I can’t do that.

I can’t give up on those really good foods even though they’re unhealthy.

I don’t have time to exercise.

I don’t have time to cook.

Just like with a lie, the more times you say this statement, the more times that you would eventually believe it. And, if these statements weren’t even true in the first place, you didn’t even give yourself a chance to try it out, because you “lied” your way out of it.

Instead of saying those statements, put it to present tense, positive statements that would actually help you. Even if it’s going to be a lie at first, you’re eventually going to believe it right?

I can’t do that turns to It’ll be a challenge, but I can do that. Challenges excite me.

I can’t give up on those foods turns to It’ll be hard, but this is for my health and my body. It’ll be worth it.

I don’t have time to exercise and cook turns to I’m really good at time management, I’ll make time for this because it is important to me.

Would saying these statements be true at first? Maybe, maybe not. BUT saying these over and over again would eventually make you believe it, and you’ll end up living in it.

If you want to break a bad habit…

Again, the reason why we may have developed our habits is through our previous programming and self-talk. Whether that habit be procrastination, making excuses, or not being accountable, it all goes back to previous programming, which also leads back to self-talk.

And like what has been mentioned countless times before, the more someone continues to say a lie to themselves, the more that they would eventually believe it.

Lets take the example of the bad habit of forgetting names (that someone is me). The more times that you say it, the more times you’ll actually believe it, and at the end of the day… you’re still bad at remembering names. As you can see, it all goes back to the self-talk.

Think about it – are some of the bad habits that you have were the result of your self-talk? From the things that you have repeatedly said to yourself?

If the answer is yes, then it’s time to consider changing the self-talk.

First, choose the habit that you want to change.

Then, change the words that describe the change and put it into present tense. This is where you now use “lying to yourself” to your advantage.

When you change the self-talk, you put it into present tense. This is where you now “lie to yourself”. You say the self-talk as if the change has already happened.

For example, you have a bad habit of smoking. That’s the habit that you want to change.

Then you change the words that describe the change. Before, the self-talk may have been “I could never quit smoking” or that “It’s too hard to quit, I’ve been doing this for a long time already”. Now, with the change and putting it in present tense, it would be changed to something like this:

“I have officially quit smoking‘

“This is for my health and that’s why the change is easy to make. It may have been a long time that I’ve been doing this, but the change will be easier than expected“

Does this all have to be true? Well it doesn’t have to be. But what is going to happen when you continue to tell this “lie” to yourself over and over again? You’ll eventually believe it right? And once you believe it, you’ll actually start to live it.

It takes time, it’s not going to happen overnight

Self-talk and previous programming which had led to your habits may have started way back. It didn’t happen overnight. You didn’t develop the habits that you have right now overnight.

That’s why you need to remember that it takes time. It takes time to recondition yourself self-talk and change your programming for your habits.

Saying one negative statement about yourself once, won’t automatically make you believe it. But continuing to say it over a regular basis, then you would.

You’ll only really see a difference in results, positive or negative, if you’re consistent with the self-talk and habits that you have over a long period of time.

It’s a bit underrated on how self-talk can help us build habits and break habits. So be mindful of what you are saying about yourself, to yourself.

Book(s) this post was inspired by:

(not sponsored in any way!)

• What to Say When You Talk to Yourself – Shad Helmstetter

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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Related Articles:

The Compound Effect – how it’s going to change the way you look at habits

Read this before you start a new habit!

Books to Read to Help You Build & Break Habits

Train Your Mind to Find Ways… NOT excuses

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