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Be Good To Yourself and a Quote From Viktor Frankl
This Week's Note
Be Good to Yourself
*It should be noted that I am not (in any way shape or form) an accredited or practiced partitioner of psychology. That being said, I am no stranger to working through difficult tasks in lieu of welcomed company. Somewhere along the way I defined (for myself) and began more poignantly applying positive self talk. Now, on to the note.
Positive self talk is nothing more than relying on yourself to say the things you need to hear. Put another way, positive self talk is being good to yourself, being the welcome, friendly voice whispering encouraging sentiments in your own ear.
In addition to being helpful, legitimate positive self talk is truthful and nuanced. When we are injured during a race we’ve spent months training for, positive self talk (PST) tells us that we’re more than our ability to finish, that even though we’ve worked hard we can’t go around intentionally damaging our bodies. On the other side of the coin, PST can be the determining factor that helps us cross the finish line. When our muscles are tired and a race ending crash seems just around the corner it's PST (and months of practice) that sustains our pace and pushes us over the edge. In essence, positive self talk is so impactful because we learn how to self-source some of the fuel we need to get through tumultuous times.
Unfortunately, PST is not a panacea for our difficult to solve problems, or our need for other people to approve and validate our decisions. Even when we are good to ourselves we’ll need others to help us along the way. Even when we believe in our ability to rise to the occasion we’ll need the assistance and expertise of our neighbors and colleagues.
PST is significant not because it decreases the importance of cultivating positive, empathetic relationships, but because it decreases the odds that we make challenges insurmountable by ragging on our abilities or refusing to tell ourselves the things we need to hear. When we realize that negative self-talk is (all but) fruitless, we’re freed up to communicate to ourselves how much we believe in our ability to check the challenge that stands before us off our list.
This Week's Resource
​A quote from Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning"​
When we are no longer able to change a situation-just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves.
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