Today, we start a new book for our Dadly Daily Declaration series. Out newest book is Unfu*k Yourself by Gary John Bishop. This book is the shiznit. I’m telling you right now, you will be blown away by Bishop’s tome. It’s poignant, on the mark, and no nonsense about how to get into your life. I highly recommend you buy this book and dive into it. It will change your life.
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So, let’s dive into today’s reading from the first chapter of Bishop’s book. This chapter is an introduction to the thesis of the book and focuses on self-talk. Here are a few gems from today’s reading:
- There are two kinds of talk you engage in every day: talking to others and talking to yourself. Most of the conversations you have on any given day are with yourself — all enjoyed in the solitude and privacy of your own head.
- Huge swathes of your time are spend talking to yourself. You do it while exercising, working, eating, reading, writing, walking, texting, crying, arguing, negotiating, planning, praying, meditating, having sex and even in your sleep.
- Studies show we have over 50,000 thoughts per day. The kind of talk you engage in has a profound impact on the quality of your life. The language you use to describe your circumstances determines how you see, experience, and participate in them and dramatically affects how you deal with your life and confront problems both big and small.
- Positive self-talk can dramatically improve mood, boost confidence, increase productivity, and more. But, negative self-talk can leave us feeling helpless, put us in a bad mood, make small problems seem bigger and create problems where none existed before.
- Self-talk doesn’t have to be dramatic to have an impact; subtle self-talk can be as equally empowering or disempowering.
- The more you tell yourself how hard something is, the harder is will actually seem. Since we are constantly listening to a steady stream of our automatic inner thoughts and have become so accustomed to the critical voice in our heads, we often don’t realize how negative thoughts impact our mood and behavior in any given moment and, as a result, we end up doing – or not doing- things our rational minds want us to do.
- If you’re sometimes talking about how “unfair” life is, you’ll start to act according to that view, perceiving slights where none exist or putting less effort into your work because you’ve already determined it won’t accomplish anything. The unfair view will quickly become your reality.
- The person who views success as if it were just around the corner will not only work his butt off to achieve it but be energized and alive to it and all the while acting on that fundamental view of success.
- The easiest way to shape your thoughts is through conscious, decisive self-talk: the kind of talk that cuts through and takes control of your life. Just like building habits by repeating an action until it becomes automatic, use strong, assertive language over time to create lasting change in your life.
- You can determine your emotions by steering your thoughts. You can shape those thoughts by being conscious of and diligent about your words and the kind of language you engage in. This will come down to your basic tolerance of your current mindset and your willingness to change it.
- It starts by making a conscious choice to talk in a way that’s helpful rather than harmful. By using the right kind of language and framing our problems in a more readily accessible light, we can quite literally change the way we see and interact with the world. Remember, no matter how difficult, challenging or pressing life’s circumstances can be, how you fundamentally relate to and engage with those circumstances will have the biggest say in how they turn out.
- Create the reality you want to live in by beginning the process of having the kind of conversations that actually shape that reality. Reframe your “everyday” problems by relating to them as opportunity. They will become items in your life to educate and expand yourself.
Those gems lead us to today’s Dadly Daily Declaration:
It’s entirely within our power to determine how we think abut and talk about our problems. They can be a nuisance or a stepping stone. They can hold us down or lift us up. We create our own reality with our minds. How willing are you to consider that your life is the way it is, not because of the weight of your circumstances or situation, but rather the weight of self-talk that pulls you down? That what you think you can and cannot do is influenced much more directly by some subconscious response than by the reality of life itself?
If you keep looking outside of yourself to your circumstances and feverishly working to get out of them, you’ll keep getting the same response. No power, no joy, no vitality. At best, it’s a seesaw of success and disappointment, happiness and despair.
The answer is not out there; it is inside of yourself. It’s not that you have to find the answer, you are the answer. People spend their lives waiting for the cavalry, all the while never realizing they are the cavalry. Your life is waiting on you to finally show up.
