Speak Your Success Into Existence

I spent a sad amount of time thinking about what to write this blog about. It annoyed me that my life and opinions were seemingly not interesting enough to show my peers. But as I was sitting in my room, staring at a blank doc, I began to talk to myself and think out loud. Maybe louder than I realized, since minutes later, my dad comes in, confused, and asks who I’m talking to. At that moment, I realized my topic for this blog while my dad probably concluded that his daughter is going insane, which leads to my question: is it insane to talk to yourself?

I used to think that I was the only one who found themselves whispering thoughts to themselves while doing other tasks or having mini debates with themselves when making a decision, but this outer self-talk is actually very common. An article I was reading mentioned our “deep, transcendental conversations at 3am with nobody else but our own thoughts to answer back,” and I’ve never felt so exposed. 

So why is talking to yourself so common? And is it good for us? 

The origins of talking to ourselves come from our childhood when we are first learning to speak, and this self-directed speech is actually what helps us develop and learn new skills. But talking to yourself doesn’t mean that you haven’t developed out of your baby habits; it means that you’ve continued to use it to help you strengthen your cognitive abilities. I found a study that sums up the impact of self-talk pretty well: 20 people were given an object, like an apple or loaf of bread, to go find in a supermarket. In the first trial, the participants had to be silent, but in the second round, they repeated the name of the item out loud. The study found that the people were able to find the object with much more ease in the second round, as “saying things out loud sparks memory. It solidifies the end game and makes it tangible.”

But besides finding milk faster at the grocery store, talking to yourself has a multitude of other benefits. The emotional impact of self-talk is by far the most interesting aspect of the activity. As an article by NBC News put it, “What we say to ourselves, when we say [it], and how, has a tremendous impact on our self-esteem, beliefs about self-efficacy, and overall sense of worth.” I’ve found in my own life that the simple act of telling myself that I’m capable of achieving something or that everything is going to be okay, has had a large effect on my mindset. We often are quick to yell at ourselves or think negatively, but when it comes to motivating ourselves, these ideas may seem cliche or ineffective. But once you get past the idea of it feeling weird to talk to yourself, you begin to form a much healthier relationship with your own emotions, which leads to a greater sense of balance within you. 

I have to admit, the transition to a more positive self-view is much harder than it seems, but it makes sense: we’ve wired our brains to think a certain way for so many years, so breaking those habits take time. But to be able to speak your success into existence, and understand what you’re feeling and move past that is an ability that will carry you for the rest of your life. Even the simple change of not saying you’re screwed for the next math test or that you definitely won’t do well in a class, but instead putting your best effort in and being confident in your potential will already make a huge difference. 

We tend to rely on others for comfort; we text friends when we’re stressed, rant to family about our problems, but fail to acknowledge the person who understands us the most: ourselves. So the next time you have something on your mind and can’t seem to express it to those around you, try materializing those emotions and see where the conversation takes you.