You know the feeling, The alarm goes off for work on a dark morning and you just want to turn over and go back to sleep. Or you are running and you are struggling to keep going and something is saying “just stop, it’s alright, just walk for a bit”. Or you are in the gym, you are lifting heavy, and something in your head is saying “that’s enough, don’t need to train anymore, you are gonna drop that”.

Inner Voice

That something is your inner voice, your subconscious mind trying to stop you to achieve. All too often in this day and age people just accept and listen to this voice and do what it says!
Why??

Quite often ignorance, not actually realising it is a voice inside your head that has been programmed by you.

Yes YOU!

You see, your inner voice listens to everything, it never switches off. So if you are a negative person or even just someone who always gives in or keep themselves down, your inner voice will tell you to do just that, it becomes programmed by yourself to be negative and uses every opportunity to tell you.

Be Positive

This is where positive self talk comes in. Because your subconscious listens unconditionally, feed it positive things, you don’t even need to believe it, your inner voice doesn’t judge what you are saying, it just accepts it and over time you can condition the mind and it’s responses to positive messages that will actually help you.

DO NOT make the mistake of feeding your mind with negative information, be conscious of what you are feeding it, whether it be your thoughts, what you watch on the television, what you listen to on the radio, even what you read. Take positive action!

A.N.T.S.

Don’t have ants – Automatic Negative thoughts. Be mindful of what you are saying to yourself, what others say and what you take in by what you watch, read and listen too.

Of course this is only one facet, you need to do this in all areas of your life, having positive affirmations coming out of your head when you are hill sprinting for example, may not happen when you are lifting. The stimulus is different.

A few years back I did a few ½ marathons. I am a big believer in being prepared so I built up to run more than the distance and did speed training round the track. Every time I ran I used to chant a positive affirmation consciously. This had the effect of training my mind and blocking out the negative chatter from my inner voice. It was something like “I am fit, I am fast, I am relaxed, I am strong”. Notice how they are positive statements?

Over and over I did it. To the point now, that when I struggling, more times than not it is my inner voice telling me to keep going. It chants those words back. why? because I programmed it to and you can do it too. It just takes effort, just like when you exercise to look good, you have to do mental training too!

Positive Words

One thing you must must remember to do is use positive words. Phrases like “don’t quit” or “don’t give up”  or “limit less” are negative words, it enforces the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. Your brain read the words separately. Instead of hearing the meaning of “don’t quit” all your brain hears is “don’t” and “quit”. Yo gotta change that shit and quick!

A phrase like “always keep going” is always going to be better, because it is a positive phrase.

Next time you catch your self saying, “I could never do that”, stop, all you are doing is creating a self fulfilling prophecy, you are training your mind to believe that phrase!

No matter what you think, make sure it is positive. Remember the great thing is, you don’t necessarily have to believe what you are saying to yourself, all you have to do is enforce it by changing the way you talk to yourself and what you ingest through your eyes and ears.

Make sure it is POSITIVE!

Stay strong

Dean