(This post about keeping a “Something I Like About Myself” journal is from friend of the blog John Tchoe. If you are interested in writing a guest post, please e-mail stevenraymarks at gmail.com.)
I don’t know how needs this, but I had an idea this morning that may help some of you out there.
Every day for the last couple months, I’ve been filling a page with sentences beginning with, “I am grateful…”
I’ve found that this simple exercise has made me feel happier and reduces stress. It makes me feel like a lucky and fortunate person, and makes me want to be more generous toward others.
Defeating Negative Self-Talk
So this morning, I thought, what if you were to turn that inward?
I know a lot of people struggle with negative self-talk, and in their heads, are constantly putting themselves down.
When they are thinking about doing something, they say, “You’ll probably just screw it up again.” When they are thinking about past events, they think of failures and embarrassments. When they talk to someone else, they take the worst interpretation possible.
There are many reasons for this. It could be a harsh upbringing, bad habits, trauma, whatever.
But how do you stop doing this? It’s hard to keep up mindfulness all day long, and it’s tiring to constantly apply brakes when you do catch yourself doing negative self-talk. And it doesn’t address the cause of the negative self-talk either.
A “Something I Like About Myself” Journal
So what if you were to start every day with a page of sentences beginning with, “Something I like about myself is…”
It doesn’t matter if it’s big or small. It doesn’t matter if you end up repeating yourself from day to day. It doesn’t matter if you forget it. All that matters is you do this consistently, and that everything you say is true and you believe it.
It might be really hard at first, to think of anything. That’s okay. You might hear the negative self-talk try to save itself by inserting itself into your sentences. “Something I like about myself is that I am a nice person.” “Well, remember that one time you weren’t nice?”
If you can’t convince yourself that voice is just a jerk, and you should ignore it, and that it’s still true that you’re a nice person, write something that it can’t deny. “Something I like about myself is [that time I was nice to my friend.]” The voice might say something about that, but you’re fighting it and making it harder to win.
Positivity Beats The Negative Voices
Once you have something you do like about yourself that the negative voice can’t say anything about, keep that in your pocket. Write it in your notebook every day. Remind yourself that that is something you like about yourself, and no one and nothing can take it away from you.
Keep a separate, special notebook for this, so you have physical evidence of your diligence and something solid you can hold as proof that the things you like about yourself are real. Use some of these thoughts as prompts for journaling, if you’re inclined.
Gradually, you will find it easier to do positive self-talk, and you will carry that glow with you all day long, and you’ll recharge every morning. And you’ll find that you prefer listening to the positive self-talk more than the other voice, and that the positive self-talk always tells you the truth, while that other voice is a liar, a sneak, and a thief.
If any of this resonates with you, give it a try. It will only take you a few minutes each day, and it might be the first step toward something great.
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