Your self-talk can affect your mental health and your relationships with others. How can self-talk affect your mental health? It can lead to rumination, which is repetitive with intrusive negative thoughts. Negative self-talk can be repetitive and often does not reflect reality. It can sound like “I’m never going to be able to do this”, “I’m no good at this”, or “I’ve tried everything - nothing works”. It can make you feel like you are going to fail before you start.
It erodes your confidence and stops you from reaching your potential. It is pessimistic and focusses on the bad. Negative self-talk is when your inner voice is excessively negative, sounding more like an inner critic. It can be supportive and beneficial, motivating you, or it can be negative, undermining your confidence. Self-talk is important because it has a big impact on how you feel and what you do. This inner voice combines conscious thoughts with inbuilt beliefs and biases to create an internal monologue throughout the day. You might not be aware that you're doing it, but you almost certainly are. Self-talk is the way you talk to yourself, or your inner voice.
