Are you really ready to achieve your goals? The answer to that question depends on your beliefs about yourself.
If your boss said, “It’s my intention to promote you to a manager and give you a $10,000 per year raise,” how would you react? I’d hasten to guess you initially might respond, “That’s fabulous! I’d love that.” After all, you have dreamed of becoming a manager and making more money, right?
But what would you say to yourself after that? You might believe your mental conversations would revolve around how wonderful it would be to get that promotion and raise. This could be especially true if you’ve previously been given tiny promotions and raises. Why wouldn’t your self-talk be positive, right?
It’s possible—even likely—that your self-talk might take on a very different—and negative—tone. You might think, “Who am I to be a manager?” Or you might say to yourself, “I’m not ready to take on that amount of responsibility,” or even, “I am not sure I have the skills to warrant that type of position or salary.”
How do I know? Because that’s what happened to me—and I’ve also seen it happen to my coaching clients. And when self-talk goes South that indicates you aren’t ready to achieve your goals.
My Negative Self-Talk
Recently, my literary agent said, “I plan to get you a five-figure book advance.” My response was pretty much the same as mentioned above: “That’s fabulous! I’d love that.” I was excited and optimistic.
Then, my negative self-talk set in.
I’m not the kind of writer who gets a five-figure book deal.
I don’t write the kind of books that get large advances.
She will be disappointed when she realizes that publishers won’t pay that much for my work.
I don’t have the kind of author platform to command that amount of money.
Even though I genuinely want a publisher to pay me a significant advance for my book, I don’t believe I deserve it or am worthy of it. (If you don’t know what an advance is, it’s the amount of money you receive from a publisher when they purchase your manuscript or book idea.) I’m sure I have more negative thoughts floating around that I’m not even conscious of. Yet, these were the ones that almost immediately bubbled up into my consciousness, indicating that I am not ready…yet…to receive that big advance.
Common Negative Self-Talk
If you are anything like me or my coaching clients, you probably have similar thoughts when something good happens that aligns with your goals or dreams. These might include:
- I’m not worthy.
- I don’t deserve it.
- I’m not good enough.
- I can’t do it.
- Who am I to ___?
Those statements represent common negative thoughts. Most people talk to themselves this way regularly. As a result, they struggle to succeed in general and fail to achieve their goals. Their negative thoughts and beliefs about themselves keep them stuck and challenged to create desired change.
Even if they achieve their goals or some modicum of success, they sabotage it with their negative mindset. It’s hard to succeed when you continually tell yourself you can’t, won’t, or aren’t deserving or worthy. You must improve your mindset to become ready to achieve your goals.
How to Override Negative Self-Talk
Your negative self-talk prevents you from achieving your goals. Maybe you’ve heard the adage that thoughts are creative, and what you focus on expands. It’s true.
Your thoughts create your reality. Plus, negative thinking, which is not much different than negative self-talk, creates what you do not want rather than what you do want.
It would be easy to dismiss these negative thoughts, but they won’t disappear. Even subconscious thoughts impact your ability to create what you desire.
You could turn your negative self-talk into affirmations. Sticking with my initial example, you could repeat positive statements daily, like “I am worthy of a promotion,” “I am the type of person who gets paid a six-figure salary,” or “I am an excellent and skilled manager and leader.” That would help reprogram your brain, creating new neural pathways and ways to speak to yourself.
Reprogramming your brain is what you must do to achieve your goals by reducing negative thoughts and beliefs. You must change your mindset or how you see and think about yourself. You also need to improve how you speak to yourself.
Change Your Identity
While affirmations help, the most effective thing you can do to stop the negative self-talk—and the results of that mental chatter—is to become someone who has already achieved your goal.
How do you do that if you haven’t yet received a promotion or raise, or your negative self-talk prevents you from being someone who has or can create what you desire?
Change your identity—how you see yourself, what you believe about yourself, your characteristics, and who you are “being.” Your mindset and habits will align with this new identity.
You will forever be stuck with your current results and find it challenging to achieve your goals if you don’t change who you are being. You will struggle to land that promotion, get the raise, or realize your unique dreams unless you are being a person who has that experience. You will remain stuck until you stop telling yourself you are someone who can’t create what matters to you.
Again, I tell you this because I know it is true. I know because I’m a Certified High Performance Coach and Transformational Coach as well as an author. I know because I’ve experienced the adverse effect of misaligned identity and negative self-talk—and the positive results of changing both—and so have my coaching clients.
How I Became a Well-Paid Author (Before Landing a Big Advance)
After the conversation with my literary agent, I listened to my self-talk and realized something important. As long as I believed I was not an author who could (for whatever reason) be offered a five-figure advance, I would not get one. I had to change how I saw myself.
More than that, I needed to change how I was “being”…who I was “being.” I needed to choose a new identity as a well-paid author. Only then would I be able to receive that big advance.
Not only did I need to choose this new identity, I had to become that person…fast! Accomplishing such a transformation is not as difficult as you might think.
Act “As If” You are Someone Different
Once you choose a new identity, act “as if” you are already that person. For instance, adopt a manager’s habits and mindset (including self-talk) right now.
How would such a person behave, or what habits would they have that helped them become a manager, for example. How would they speak to themselves, and what would they do consistently? Adopt those behaviors and habits right now. (Yes, immediately.)
I adopted the identity of a “well-paid author.” I asked myself, “How would a well-paid author think? What self-talk would they engage in, and what would they believe about themselves and their work?” Then, I took on that mindset…immediately. I didn’t wait.
By doing these things, you aren’t just acting “as if” you are a manager or earn a higher salary; instead, you take on that identity and become a manager in mindset and habits. That’s how you set yourself up to get the promotion and earn more money.
I also suggest you learn self-hypnosis and use it daily to reprogram your brain to who you have chosen to be. (I teach this to the members of the Inspired Creator Community Even without knowing self-hypnosis, which is easy to learn, you can spend five or ten minutes two or three times per day visualizing yourself as a manager, someone who earns six figures per year, or even a well-paid author. Imagine what that would be and feel like, the ways it would impact how you show up in the world, and the results you could achieve.
It could mean the difference between being ready to achieve your goals…or being unprepared.
Quickly Get Ready to Achieve Your Goals
You may believe changing your identity will be difficult or take a long time. That’s not true.
How do I know? I’ve seen my clients and myself change overnight simply by deciding who to be and then showing up as that person.
If you’ve been a sugar eater all your life and you decide to be someone who doesn’t eat sugar, you can be that person the moment you choose to be. Might you have a little bit of sugar withdrawal? Sure. But you could still be someone who doesn’t eat sugar from that moment forward—simply because you shifted your identity.
Do that, and your habits and mindset will shift, too. When you see a candy bowl, you will tell yourself, “I am no longer someone who eats sugar. So, it is no longer my habit to eat candy.”
The same is true of becoming a manager. Decide that is who you are. Then, align your mindset and habits with that identity. Tell yourself, “I am a manager. I consistently get promotions. I have the ability to lead, provide value, and get paid for those qualities.”
Boom. You have changed your identity.
Do that, and your results change, too. Why? Because you are someone who gets different results. You are ready to achieve your goals.
What results do you want to get? What goals do you want to achieve? Be someone who gets those results and achieves those goals.
Are you ready to achieve your goals or is your negative self-talk preventing that from happening? Tell me in a comment below. And please share this post with those who might benefit from reading it.
Image courtesy of yourapechkin.
