2 Ways To Deal With Negative Self-Talk In Business

2 Ways To Deal With Negative Self-Talk In Business

When your mind is being really negative, it can be tough to really unhook from it. If you let it, your mind can really bring you down.

I’m in my third trimester of pregnancy at the moment, and I can tell you that I’ve been even more aware of that little inner voice saying all kinds of negative things!

For example, this morning, my mind was saying things like : “you really don’t feel like doing anything. Is there even point to doing your habits today? You’re so not in the mood. Ugh. Will it even make that big of difference if you don’t do anything? Just don’t do anything. You don’t feel like it anyway.”

I’m so grateful that I’ve been working on my mindset for the last few years because I was able to use the 2 concepts I’m going to share with you today!

Instead of buying into what my mind had to say, I was able to get on with my day and get through my key business habits AND better than that, I ended up creating some pretty cool results! Already, by 2.30pm, my mood had completely shifted.

The difference in how I felt at 2.30pm was worlds apart from when I first got up this morning!

One of my clients recently said that her mind often says things like, “you’re not good enough. All of those other businesses you’ve seen on Instagram are so much better than yours. You shouldn’t even try. It’s not worth your time. Just give up already!”

She said that this leads her to avoiding her business at all costs. She just ends up scrolling through Instagram and just watching video after video. Before she knows it, hours have gone by and she feels worse than she did before.

Her marketing habits don’t get done. Her sales activities get put off to the next day. And she hasn’t moved the needle forward in her business.

If you’ve done this yourself, you’ll know how irritating this is. You know you shouldn’t just binge Netflix or eat a bunch of chips…and yet on days like that? It’s all you feel like doing!

The problem is that you don’t end up making the kind of progress you want in your business. Your revenue stays about the same. And you get frustrated at the end of the week when it feels like you haven’t made any progress on your money goals.

It’s frustrating to say the least.

This kind of negative self-talk can really creep up on you. And unfortunately, it can leave you feeling pretty awful about yourself and your business. If your mind hooks you with its story, you can end up spiralling and ruminating for ages.

So what can we do about it?

Well, there are 2 specific concepts I learned about a while back now that have been absolute game changers for me in terms of dealing with negative self-talk.

1) The first one was understanding that ALL thoughts are merely suggestions. That’s all they are. 

Now that sounds pretty simplistic. But think about it:

Every thought we have is simply a suggestion. It’s not an order. It’s not a command. It’s not something we MUST buy into. It’s just a suggestion. 

We get to decide whether to opt in to it or whether to opt out of it. We get to decide whether to believe it and act accordingly. Or not.

I know this may sound obvious. But is it obvious?

So much of the time, we do NOT act like this. 

We act like our thoughts are orders that we’re not allowed to escape. We act like our thoughts are evidence-based fact.

And we just allow ourselves to get hooked by every little thought that pops through our mind.

More often than not, we don’t see a thought for what it is: a simple suggestion.

A suggestion that you can accept or disregard.

You choose. You’re in charge. You still have the power. Regardless of what your mind says.

Guess who’s in charge of their behaviour? YOU ARE. You get to override your mind with a new thought and a new action.

It doesn’t matter how convincing or judgemental your mind is being. You’re STILL in charge of it.

You still get to make a choice.

You can simply ask yourself: is this a helpful thought or an unhelpful thought? Cool, if it’s helpful I’ll take it. If it’s not, I’ll leave it and consciously pick out a more empowering thought.

So, for example, this morning when my mind was saying : “You really don’t feel like doing anything. There’s no point in doing anything right now.” I chose to see that as a suggestion.

I asked myself if that thought would help me achieve my business goals and live a value-based life… The answer? Was a clear no.

So instead, I thought a new thought: “Even if I don’t FEEL like doing anything right now, I’m still going to work through my daily business habits (mindset, marketing, and sales activities). Why? Because even though I’m really not motivated this morning, I know it’s important to me to stick to my business habits and make progress towards my goals.”

Next time your negative self-talk rears its ugly head, remind yourself that it’s just a suggestion. 

You get the final say. You choose what action you’re going to take regardless of what your mind has been telling you.

2) The second way to deal with negative self-talk that I came across was using visualisation. Let me explain:

When our mind is being negative, it’s very common to avoid taking action in our business. When our mind is chattering away with disempowering thoughts, it’s easy to want to run away! Am I right?

In these moments, we tend to want to numb those unhelpful thoughts with food. Or to just avoid them altogether by bingeing YouTube videos for hours. Even just doing random things around the house to avoid the negativity.

When your mind’s being critical, it tends to lead to procrastination. We end up avoiding behaviours that matter to us.

For example, we might avoid creating the Google Ad because our mind is saying that we’re not good enough.

We might avoid writing the email to our list of subscribers because our mind is saying that nobody will read it.

We might avoid making a new offer to our leads because our mind is saying it’s too expensive or that nobody wants to hear from us anyway. 

Do you see how if we listen to our minds all the time, we’d end up avoiding any productive action in our business? And therefore lose out on sales and new paying clients?

So, whenever this negative self-talk would show up, this is what I learned to do:

I would ask myself how I’d feel at the end of the day and I’d walk myself through two different scenarios. I’d visualise two different futures.

First, I’d imagine the first scenario whereby I’d imagine what my day would end up looking like if I bought into my negative thinking and basically procrastinated all day long.

I’d imagine how I’d feel when I’d get into bed that night. Would I feel fulfilled? Proud of myself? At peace? Or would I feel guilty? Frustrated? And annoyed with myself?

It was pretty easy to see that if I simply let my negative thoughts dictate my action that day, aka avoid doing ANYTHING productive in my business, I’d be left feeling annoyed when I’d crawl into bed at the end of the day.

Afterwards, I’d go through the second scenario. I’d imagine what my day would look like if instead of buying into my negative self-talk, I took LOTS of action in my business.

For example, I’d imagine myself doing my journaling, writing down my business goals, tracking my numbers, doing my marketing habits, sending out an email to my email list, reaching out to my clients to check in with them.

I pictured myself taking action despite my mind being really loud, and I thought about how I’d feel when my head hit the pillow.

Would I feel a sense of calm? What emotions would I have knowing I had NOT listened to my mind and instead taken action all day?

Turns out it was pretty clear I’d end up feeling way more accomplished at the end of the day with the second scenario. Even if I was still in a bad mood at the end of the day, at least I’d know that I’d moved the needle forward in my business!

It was obvious once I’d gone through both scenarios what the right answer was. Weirdly, just the act of walking myself through those 2 scenarios helped me immensely. 

This simple concept of visualising my future day gave me the insight I needed to overcome my negative self-talk in the present.

I’d love for you to give this a shot yourself to see how much it can help you deal with your own negative self-talk in business.

One last thing I want to mention is that the negative self-talk doesn’t just disappear EVEN on the days when I push myself to take action.

The negative thinking still shows up. And sometimes it lasts all day long.

So don’t be surprised if your mind keeps going and going and going all day long for you too.

We’re human so it’s normal to have disempowering thoughts pop up – unfortunately it’s just part of how we’re designed! However, I’ve learned you don’t have to succumb to it. 

You have options. You can choose to listen or not. You can choose to act or not.

Remember – YOU are in charge. Always. Even when your mind is SO argumentative and convincing all day long. 

I’m now able to see a negative thought for what it is – a suggestion – and continue with my key business habits anyway. As you can imagine, this has helped me make so much progress in my business.

It’s allowed me to hit my goals and really feel amazing about who I’ve become. It really increases your level of self-confidence too. You become someone who can rely on their habits. That feels pretty special – trust me.

Anyway, I wish I’d known this sooner in my business! I really hope it can help you crush your goals in business.

I’d love to know if these 2 concepts have inspired you. Let me know in the comments what you personally do to deal with your own negative self-talk. 

P.S. Need more help? I’ve made a free guide for you on how to overcome your self-doubt in business. In it, I provide 8 super easy steps that you can work through to build your self-confidence and finally grow your business.

You can grab it here for free: 8 Easy Steps To Overcome Self-Doubt!

Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions in the comments.

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