If you were to think of the script that frames your life and your leadership, what would you like it to say, how would you like it to sound?
Your voice, alongside your value and visibility, are key focus areas for amplifying your self-leadership. And great leadership starts with great self-leadership.
Your voice, starting with your self-talk, needs your attention. Your self-talk is the script that frames your life.
According to Healthline, the benefits of self-talk include:
- increased vitality
- greater life satisfaction
- improved immune function
- reduced pain
- better cardiovascular health
- better physical well-being
- reduced risk for death
- less stress and distress
As a leader, your self-talk will help your hinder you:
- decision making quality and speed
- feedback conversations
- preparedness to delegate
- clarity of setting boundaries and expectations
Interestingly, an article published by the National Science Foundation summarised a study that found, “Of those thousands of thoughts, 80% were negative, and 95% were exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before.”
Hearing your self-talk is the first step to doing anything to improve it.
Do you hear your self-talk?
Over a few days monitor and track your self-talk, you can simply mark when your self-talk is positive or negative, and track key words you use repeatedly.
Ask yourself why you’re thinking the way you are – what triggered that self-talk?
Name it to Shrink it
Social Worker and author Melody Wilding suggests naming your inner critic. Rather than saying you are talking negatively about yourself, separate the self-talk by creating psychological distance by personalising it. You might call that inner critic The Joker, Darth Vader, Voldemort, a monster … any name that separates yourself from your thoughts. What this process does is help increase cognitive defusion (to see thoughts as what they are, not as what they say they are).
The result of this is to reduce stress and negativity; to regulate emotions, and have clarity of thinking. All elements that contribute to better leadership.
What name will you give your inner critic?
