Self-Talk in Action
I am so grateful to receive direct feedback from my good friend for my previous article, How Self-Talk Could Ignite Self-Transformation. Through our Skype call discussion, I reflected on two ways I have used my self-talk.
The key ingredient to having fruitful self-talk is to be completely and brutally honest with ourselves. When I started this, it felt super uncomfortable. Self-talk has forced me — directly or indirectly, to revisit my darkest that I intentionally bury — or pretend that it is not there.
For the last two years, I have focused my reading on memoirs. I found the same pattern of getting into the self-transformation phase: it starts from within. It is to accept our current version — that can be messy, but when we start to observe the mess we befriend it — instead of hating it. Only then, we can define the right strategy to transform ourselves. To befriend the whole part of myself, self-talk is the only way I found works.
How using the “Five Whys” helps me get to the root cause of what I am feeling
I have learned the Five Whys from quality management training — I honestly wonder why this was not taught to any of us since early school. The Five Whys is a simple method that always leads me to understand the root cause of my disruption. Once I can’t ask the next why, the last answer is the root cause — the thing that I need to focus on. Here are some examples:
Common daily disruption: I don’t have a good mood today to work
- Why don’t I have a good mood? Because it is Monday.
- Why don’t I have a good mood on Monday? Because I feel I need a longer weekend.
- Why do I need a longer weekend? Because I couldn’t fulfill the chores I planned on Friday.
- Why couldn’t I fulfill the chores I planned on Friday? Because I ended up binged Netflix the whole time.
- Why did I binge Netflix the whole time? Because I feel lazy and keep postponing the work.
What do I need to do next weekend? Unplug all the cables next weekend, finish all chores, then I can start watching Netflix.
Next common at work disruption: I feel stupid because I got a bug report from a customer for the software I just released last week (experience on my very first public release software).
- Why do I feel stupid? Because there is a bug in my software.
- Why is there a bug in my software? Because this use case hasn’t been tested.
- Why did not I test this use case? Because I didn’t expect the customer to use the software that way.
- Why did not I expect the customer to use the software that way? Because I just created the software with my own understanding with my own work setup, not with the customer setup.
- Why did not I prepare the customer setup? Because I tried to work independently and avoid asking questions to others. I want them to think that I am capable.
With my introverted personality and low self-esteem, I repeated the same mistakes at the beginning of my career: avoid asking questions, working as independently as I can, but I set up the highest goal of all: to deliver the perfect result. I ended up feeling worse and worse, and could not get the actual thing I need to focus on. My problem was that afraid to ask questions and did not understand yet the meaning of working in a team.
Analyzing the gaps between “how we look” and “how we feel”
I got this idea from Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza. If you like to learn the science behind why we think and behave as we do, I highly recommend this book. One part of the book explains the gap between “how we look” and “how we feel”.
“How we look” refers to how we would like to represent ourselves to the world — online and offline. “How we feel” refers to how we feel about ourselves, deep inside — unfortunately it is human nature to make this part unseen from the outside. To put this into context, let me give you an example from my self-talk about my traveling plan in the past:
How the world is supposed to see me:
- I am the adventurous independent woman who explores the world
- So the world know I am having a good, successful, and happy life
How I feel:
- For them to see me that way, I have to take good photos on my Instagram
- As most people do, I will create Instagram stories on each place I visit
- But honestly… I don’t feel good to do this. I take some photos when I want to do it. I need quality time for myself and enjoy the trip.
When I focused more on getting people’s validation, I felt like I had to have tons of to-do lists. I wanted to fulfill these checklists to conform with society, but I didn’t feel like it. This is when the actual self-talk starts. If I don’t want to do it, then why do I do it? Using the Five Whys as I described in the previous section can help to lead us into a more objective way of thinking and reduce the emotion level on the process.
How I interpreted Dr. Joe Dispenza's teaching from the book is to remove the “how I look” part, and start all actions, thoughts, and feeling based on the “how I feel” part.
Here’s an example.
How I feel (think and plan) about traveling:
- I need some time alone in a new place to be disconnected from work and all routines
- I would like to have my next solo hiking trip to challenge my physical endurance to the next level
- Once I reach this spot they showed in the hiking apps, I will just sit there, sip my tea, writing a journal, while listening to my favorite playlist
- Probably I’ll take some pictures for my Instagram journal and also print them out for my dining room walls
- When I come back from this trip, I will feel energized, happy, and ready to continue the challenges in my daily life
I wish had I learned self-talk sooner.
It has made my life much happier, because I now realize all I need are simple things to make me happy in life.
Other presentations, podcasts, books, that have coached me through my self-talk journey:
