Self Talk
+ (pos) VERSUS – (neg)
Self Talk and the Impact
Objective:
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To identify the effects of negative
and positive self-talk.
To identify how - self-talk sets one
up to fail.
To understand how to change
negative self-talk to positive.
Self Talk – warm up
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Write five things you are not good in at
school, work, exercise, eating, etc. Phrase
them as:
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I
I
I
I
can’t….
am bad at….
am unable to ….
don’t know how…..
Self Talk and the Impact
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Every human being thinks or silently says things to
themselves constantly. This continual dialogue with
yourself is called self-talk. Researchers who study self-talk
estimate that we send ourselves approximately 50,000
messages on an average day.
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Doesn’t that mean that we exert more influence on ourselves
than anybody else does?
Who else do we get that many messages from every day?
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It’s not only the number of messages we get that influences
us, it’s also the credibility.
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You may question what others tell you, but you trust yourself,
don’t you?
Self-talk is very powerful because you believe it. Even
when it’s not true, self-talk has tremendous credibility.
Self Talk – Main Activity
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4.
Read the following lines.
I am just a messy person.
I am no good at basketball.
I am always late.
I am not very smart.
Negative Self Talk - 1
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Remember the arm activity where the
student had to say “I am weak” while
another pushed down on their arms. If
you say to yourselves ’Economics is too
hard for me’, then when you sit down to
do the work you will have a lower energy
level, and consequently won’t do as well
as you could. That’s one way negative
self-talk sets you up to fail.
Negative Self Talk - 2
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There is a second way that negative selftalk sets you up to fail. Let’s take the
Economics example.
If your self-talk is “Economics is too hard for
me’, then how are you going to feel, what kind
of attitude will you develop about doing
Economics?
If that’s your attitude and feeling, what actions
will you take in Economics?
If those are the actions you do and the
behaviors you display, how will you end up in
Economics?
Negative Self Talk - 2
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It’s characteristic of humans to reason from the
particular to the general. That’s called
generalization. It means to assume that what
you know about a specific instance applies to
everything else like it. However that’s NOT
always the case. Generalizations are particularly
questionable in the area of human behavior.
Behaviors are not either/or. The truth is that all
behavior is somewhere along a continuum.
Good at Economics
x
Bad at Economics
Positive Self Talk
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To change negative self-talk one
must:
Recognize the continuum.
Figure out where you are on it at the
moment.
Figure out where you want to be.
Replace negative self-talk with positive
as if they were already true.
Positive Self Talk
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Go back draw a continuum for each of your
five statements with Good at …. at one
end and Bad at ….at the other end. Place
an x where you HONESTLY think you are
on the continuum. Place a 0 where you
would like to be. Rewrite those five
statements using positive statements as if
they were already true. Write below them
2 actions you can take to make your x go
to your 0. Share them with your group
Example:
I am bad at Tennis.
Good at ___0_____________X__Bad at
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I am good at Tennis.
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I will practice my over hand serve successfully
25 times each day.
I will work on my speed, agility and quickness
for 30 minutes Mon, Wed, and Fri.