My pesky inside voice just wants to beat up on me, how do I change it?

How’s your inner chatter these days?  How you talk to yourself and relate to your thoughts is incredibly important, not just for your physical health, but even more so for your mental health and overall quality of life. 

Too often, most people simply operate life on autopilot.  Doing so is like walking through a landmine everyday!  No wonder fear and anxiety are through the roof for too many these days.

When you embark on training your mind, it can be a kind of the chicken and the egg.  What comes first?  Better physical health? Or better mental health?  For our purposes today, it really doesn’t matter.  What does matter is how you talk to yourself in good times, bored times and oh holy hell I’m living through a dumpster fire times. 

The mind in trainable and it’s never.too.late!!  Being willing to train your mind to quickly discard noisy and unhelpful thoughts so that you’re using more of your mental energy to support optimal health and your quality of life is worth the effort.  It’s a true game changer for those willing to put for the persistent effort.   

Here’s a short list of benefits or outcomes you’ll get by training your mind to work for you:

• Peace of mind you’re ok just as you are
• Releasing the desire for perfection
• Learn to pause when agitated, confused or defensive so you respond to life’s challenges with greater skill and kindness
• Increase in self-love, confidence and genuine compassion for yourself and others
• Nearly eliminate getting hooked in the spiral of fear and rumination
• Show up and speak in alignment with the real you

But how?  While there are numerous methods available to train your mind, the two resources I’d like to share with you today are:

• How not to be a jerk to yourself – click here (be sure to scroll through the page, there’s so much to choose from).
• Take the quiz How well do you know your inner voice – click here. You might be surprised by some of your answers.  The quiz is created by Ethan Kross, author of “Chatter, The voice in our head, why it matters, and how to harness it.”  I absolutely loved this book because it’s filled with aha moments that resonate and practical guidance to apply the teaching.  Definitely worth the read (or listen on Audible).

Did you click on one of those resources?  Maybe later?  Ok, circle back to it if you didn’t already because, just to put a bow on why training your mind is mission critical to good health and happiness, did you know according to a study done at USC, the average person has 70,000 thoughts per day. And some experts estimate 80-90% of those thoughts are useless and repetitive.  What an incredible waste of energy!  Good things there’s a way to harness your inner voice and reclaim your energy for better purposes.