How Can Students Improve Self-Talk for Success?

Self-talk is your inner-voice or the way how you talk to yourself, whether out loud or silently. Often, we ignore the strong impact that self-talk has on our lifestyle and being. It is true what people say that we are moved strongly by our words.

Self-talk is a natural process that is practised by every human being. Positive self-talk can help us flourish; on the other hands, negative self-talk can turn bad situations into worse. Students must understand the power of positive inner-voice and learn ways to improve it.

Here is how you can enhance self-talk to benefit yourself to the max.

Count Your Blessings

Stop telling yourself everything that you do not have at the moment. Instead, remind yourself how lucky you are to have everything that you’ve got. Imagine, you’re reading this on a device with the aid of the internet. And then some people do not even have a shelter, yet somehow they’re making it work.

Remind yourself every day of all the assets that you’ve got rather than saying stuff like “Oh I wish I had that, life would have been better”. The practice of counting your blessing and talking it to yourself brings a sense of completeness and joy. Every morning, tell yourself about the valuable things that you’ve got. Be thankful for the blessings and make the most of the day.

Adore Yourself

There is no shortage of people who will try and make you feel small in life. Especially when you’re a student, you might get bullied or hated for something. You must understand the value of self-worth and tell yourself the same. Ask your close friends which qualities in you they like the most.

Seek your inner self and utter the most adorable things about yourself. Remember, if you will not appreciate yourself, there is very little that anyone can do to help you cheer up. However, when you accept yourself for being who you are, your confidence level boosts up. Every morning, self-talk about why you adore yourself.

Practice Confidence, Avoid Arrogance

There is a very thin line between being confident and being arrogant. And that thin line is formed with your words. Say things like “I can do this” instead of “I can do this better than anyone else”. The former makes you a confident person, whereas the latter fills you with a sense of arrogance.

Stop justifying your arrogance as your confidence. Your confidence is simply your belief in your abilities. But when you start drawing a comparison with others and tell yourself that you’re the best, you’re creating a negative aura around you.

Be humble and modest, and you’ll never stop growing in life. To practice confidence, tell yourself how good you’re at certain things, be it academics or sports or music etc.

Motivate Yourself

Whenever you’re feeling down, tell yourself to dust off and pick yourself up again. There is no better coach for you in this world than yourself. Your mind is moved the most strongly by your own words. Here are a few examples of what you can tell yourself to achieve success.

• Don’t say: This task is impossible to perform.
  Do say: This is a difficult task, and I will execute it with courage and determination.
• Don’t say: I’m nothing compared to other people.
  Do say: I’m unique and will try everything to the best of my capabilities.
• Don’t say: I keep failing, I’ve no shot.
  Do say: I did not achieve my goals, but I learned from the mistakes and will go for it again.
• Don’t say: I am lost; I do not know what to do.
  Do say: I am right where I belong to at this moment and things are only going to get better.

Practice such motivational self-talk phrases daily to achieve better results in life. Be your own coach. Try motivating your friends as well to create a positive surrounding around you.

Stop Failing, Start Learning

One of the biggest mistakes, we as human, commit is to look at a failure in the worst way possible. When you fail at something, for instance, if you fail at an exam, your focus should be on figuring out why you failed and what needs to be done to perform better. Rather than spending your time feeling sad about failure and complaining, observe what went wrong and learn from the mistakes.

To master this, self-talk is very effective. Stop telling yourself that you failed because you are not good enough. Start telling yourself why you failed and how do you plan to do better the next time.

For instance, if you’re a student who failed a Physics exam, you should not say things like “Physics is too difficult a subject for me, and I can pass it.” Observe your mistakes and see where you can do better. Say things like “I need to put more effort into learning the laws of motion, and I will do so well the next time.”

Put an End to Negativity

This sounds too cliche, but we should avoid negativity. Often, we immerse ourselves in a negative environment created with our own words. Your inner words have the power to bring the best out of you.

However, if you practice negative self-talk, you’ll find situations getting bad to worse for you. Kill the negative vibes by telling yourself about your best attributes.

Tell yourself how courageous and determined you are. Immerse yourself in the aura of positive thoughts by practising positive self-talk. This is a sure-shot way to success.

Stop Being Over-protective

Often we are over-protective about certain things. There are several reasons for it, maybe we do not want to admit that we’re not good enough at something or maybe we don’t want to accept the fact that we need to do better. This attitude of being over-protective is a huge hindrance in personal growth. We need to address it if we are not putting enough effort into something.

We cannot run away from things with excuses like “well, this is me, and I can’t help it.” Self-talk in a way that you can accept your faults. Once you have done so, start telling yourself that you can change and do better in that particular field. Practice the same with close friends or write them on paper and read it to yourself frequently. This way, you can effectively improve self-talk for success.