DANIELLA BIANCHI
March 13th, 2022
As funny as it is, it is your opinion of yourself that makes you who you are. How you describe yourself to others (and effectively, to yourself), is how you will subconsciously build the idea of yourself up in your mind. Be careful what you say because often it becomes a reality. Here is
The brain is such a powerful and smart tool. Everyday, you are exposed to millions of different stimuli and it systematically categorises and stores this information. The brain listens even when you are not even aware of it. The brain uses past learnings as a guide for what to expect in the future. This means our present response, feeling and behaviour is largely informed by the past, including how we have described ourselves.
That’s why I urge you to be mindful when you’re making jokes about yourselves and quite frankly, consider eradicating that self-deprecating humour (which I so despise) from your cards of “jokes”. Even when you reason that you don’t mean it the fact that it’s been processed in your brain and is coming out of your mouth, cements this idea of yourself in your head which it’s not always the best thing.
Everyone has heard of the idea of manifesting success. There are many success stories that are borne out of this idea. Oprah Winfrey stands by “The way you think creates reality for yourself.” (2007), emphasising how using the power of mind and self-talk has contributed to her success. The same thing applies for the flipside - manifesting a weaker version of yourself. Let’s be honest, more people are bagging themselves out in front of others for a laugh rather than appreciating just how cool they are (thanks to the tall poppy syndrome so akin to Australian culture, why should we care that much about what others think of us but that’s another topic). The same principles behind building yourself up through positive words to convince yourself of what could be, also apply to the negative sense of self we may develop in front of people. Makes you think twice about how you talk about yourself, doesn’t it?
So the theory behind it makes sense and seems intuitive, so why do so many of us still feed into this public negative self-talk? Why have we given in to a society that promotes overly self-critical attitudes and an insane sense of shame in our achievements ? We should be celebrating our successes instead of highlighting only our downfalls. Doing so makes for a pleasanter conversation where pity or arrogance has no place. It comes down to a matter of attitude and how we can shape, shift and change the language of ourselves to better present ourselves to not just others, but in life.
So beware of this toxic self-talk cycle. The more you label and comment on yourself, the more you believe it. Plus, publicly identifying yourself in a certain manner plants a seed by also pushing others to believe it, who reinforce the idea of yourself. The more the label stays with you. So, then you get yourself stuck in this stagnant version of yourself and you fall into a sense of inactivity and you shouldn’t have to just accept it.
the go
on you are what you say.The brain is such a powerful and smart tool. Everyday, you are exposed to millions of different stimuli and it systematically categorises and stores this information. The brain listens even when you are not even aware of it. The brain uses past learnings as a guide for what to expect in the future. This means our present response, feeling and behaviour is largely informed by the past, including how we have described ourselves.
That’s why I urge you to be mindful when you’re making jokes about yourselves and quite frankly, consider eradicating that self-deprecating humour (which I so despise) from your cards of “jokes”. Even when you reason that you don’t mean it the fact that it’s been processed in your brain and is coming out of your mouth, cements this idea of yourself in your head which it’s not always the best thing.
Everyone has heard of the idea of manifesting success. There are many success stories that are borne out of this idea. Oprah Winfrey stands by “The way you think creates reality for yourself.” (2007), emphasising how using the power of mind and self-talk has contributed to her success. The same thing applies for the flipside - manifesting a weaker version of yourself. Let’s be honest, more people are bagging themselves out in front of others for a laugh rather than appreciating just how cool they are (thanks to the tall poppy syndrome so akin to Australian culture, why should we care that much about what others think of us but that’s another topic). The same principles behind building yourself up through positive words to convince yourself of what could be, also apply to the negative sense of self we may develop in front of people. Makes you think twice about how you talk about yourself, doesn’t it?
So the theory behind it makes sense and seems intuitive, so why do so many of us still feed into this public negative self-talk? Why have we given in to a society that promotes overly self-critical attitudes and an insane sense of shame in our achievements ? We should be celebrating our successes instead of highlighting only our downfalls. Doing so makes for a pleasanter conversation where pity or arrogance has no place. It comes down to a matter of attitude and how we can shape, shift and change the language of ourselves to better present ourselves to not just others, but in life.
So beware of this toxic self-talk cycle. The more you label and comment on yourself, the more you believe it. Plus, publicly identifying yourself in a certain manner plants a seed by also pushing others to believe it, who reinforce the idea of yourself. The more the label stays with you. So, then you get yourself stuck in this stagnant version of yourself and you fall into a sense of inactivity and you shouldn’t have to just accept it.