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What to say when you talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter is a self-help book that throws light on the importance of Self-Talk. This is one of the best books on Self-Talk. To know more about this book read book summary and review in detail in the article below.
About the Author
The author Shad Helmstetter is Ph.D in motivational psychology and the best-selling author of more than 20 books. He is one of the pioneer researchers to focus on the role of Self-Talk in programming the mind that directs life-path and personal motivation. He is also the founder of the Self-Talk training Institute which trains individuals to provide training in groups and organizations. Institute also provides training to life and business coaches in the U.S. and worldwide.
Book Summary of What to Say When you Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter
“You are everything that is,
Your thoughts, your life, your dreams come true.
You are everything you choose to be.
You are unlimited as the endless universe.”
The book begins with the above beautiful lines.
The author Shed Helmstetter throws light on one of the most confusing things which often makes us wonder about the rules of the universe.
Why are some people more happy, healthy, and more successful in the world?
What is this that makes the difference? Is it good luck?
Is the control of our life being in our hands?
If yes, then what stops us?
Most of us don’t know the answers to these questions.
To find the answers to these questions most of us had read many success books, listened to motivational talks, and attended many seminars.
But they hardly work for us.
According to Shad Helmstetter, they don’t work because we’ve overlooked them: That’s not how the brain works.
The human brain is capable of doing anything reasonable that you love to do. But you have to treat it in the right direction to get the desired results. If you give wrong directions to your brain then be ready for the consequences.
When we read self-help books or listen to motivational talks, we get excited and start following them. But after some time we return to our old habits. This happens to most of us.
Why does this happen? What is missing?
What would offer lasting success and fulfillment?
As suggested in the book What to say when you talk to yourself, the three important missing ingredients in almost all literature are:
1. The first missing element is permanence. Even the best idea work temporarily.
2. The second important element is knowledge of the psychological process by which the human brain accepts information, responds, and controls us. To make the permanent change you have to follow the rules.
3. The third most important element is a set of new programming for the subconscious mind.
“The only solution which includes all the three missing ingredients is something called self-talk” as described in the book.
To make a permanent change we first need to change our old programming.
The brain operates almost like a personal computer. We all know a computer has three main parts: a screen, a keyboard, and a hard drive.
The screen displays the results of the information that we store on a computer. A hard drive is a storage device where we record information. This information will change only when we erase the old one and replace it with the new updated information. A keyboard is used to type the information through which we give directions to a computer.
In humans, the computer screen is comparable to the actions and appearances that we show the world. A hard drive is our subconscious mind. Everything that we learn and experience is recorded in our subconscious mind. The keyboard is our five senses through which we feed all the information to program our brain.
Whatever “thoughts” that you have programmed into yourself, or allowed others to program into you are controlling everything about you.
Because we all started as children completely dependent on others, it is obvious that we listen and believe what others say. We learn to accept others’ ideas and we learn to believe them.
Most of the programming that we received during our growing years was the wrong kind. Seventy-five percent or more of the information that is stored in our subconscious mind is counterproductive and works against us. In short, most of us are programed not to succeed!
This bad programming is stopping us from achieving success and happiness.
If you don’t want to live with a bad program then you can reprogram your brain.
You can easily erase old negative programming and replace it with a positive one that works in your favor.
Our negative programming prevents us from achieving the desired results. Since we learn it from others it is obvious that we pass it on to more people around us.
We have told ourselves many times consciously and unconsciously things that do not work for us.
Five things that control our success and failures
1. Behavior: The first thing that controls our success and happiness is our behavior. Behavior means our actions. When you do the right things, you will achieve the right results. But sometimes we do not take the right things and take the wrong actions. There is something that stops us from doing the right thing. This something that always stops us is called
2. Feelings: Every action that we take is processed through our feelings. How we feel about something will influence how well we do it. What causes you to have those feelings? Your feelings are controlled and influenced by your:
3. Attitudes: Your attitudes are the way you see life. Our attitude affects the way we feel about something, which in turn controls how we’ll act about it. This ultimately decides whether we will do it or not. So, our attitude plays a vital role in helping us to become successful. Our attitudes are created and controlled by our
4. Beliefs: What we believe will determine our attitudes, creates feelings, and governs our actions, helping us to succeed or fail.
Belief does not require something to be true. It only requires us to believe that it’s true! That’s powerful stuff! as written by the author Shed Helmstetter.
That means for us the reality is what we believe whether it is right or not!
Most of us have many beliefs about ourselves. Some of them are true but most of them are not.
What makes us believe? Where do we get them?
The answer is our beliefs are created and controlled entirely by our
5. Programming: It is our programming that creates beliefs and the chain continues
1. Programming creates beliefs
2. Beliefs create attitudes
3. Attitudes create feelings
4. Feelings determine actions
5. Actions create results
That’s how our brain works. If you want to change results you need to start first by changing programming. You can change it by using Self-Talk.
What is Self-Talk?
“Self-talk is a way to override our past negative programming by erasing or replacing it with conscious, positive new directions.” as described in the book What to say when you talk to Yourself.
Self-talk gives new directions to our subconscious mind by talking to ourselves differently, consciously reprogramming our internal centers with positive words and statements.
Self-talk gives us a new way to change our past and paint our future in a way we like it to be.
There are five different levels of Self-Talks. The more you learn about them, the faster you will master the correct Self-Talk for yourself.
Level 1
Self-Talk: The Level of Negative Acceptance (“I can’t…”)
This is the most negative level of Self-Talk. You think or talk negatively about yourself and accept it.
Level 2
The Level of Recognition and Need to Change (“I need to… I should….”)
On the surface, it seems as though it should work for us. But the harsh truth is it will work against us.
At this level, we declare to ourselves and others our need to change. Level 2 Self-Talk creates guilt. This is not good programming.
Level 3
The Level of Decision to Change (“I never… I no longer…”)
This is the first level of Self-Talk that will work in your favor. At this level, you decide to make a change and state it in the present tense as if the change had already happened.
When you step on level 3, you will start stating old negative phrases in a new positive way. This gives directions to your subconscious mind to wake up and make a change.
Level 4
Level of the Better You (“I am”)
This is the most constructive type of Self-Talk we can ever use. Level 4 Self-Talk is least used but needs the most to achieve success in life. It motivates, demands, and pushes us to move forward. Level 4 Self-Talk challenges us to fight our fears and come up as a winner.
Level 5
The Level of Universal Affirmation (“It is…”)
Level 5 Self-Talk is often referred to as “affirmations”. This level of Self-Talk has been used for many years and so much motivational literature is on it. Level 5 Self-Talk gives a broader perspective of life as if seeing it from a higher overview.
Shad Helmstetter suggests following Level 3 and Level 4 Self-Talk. If you follow both levels correctly then Level 5 will be achieved in due time. He prescribes to unlearn Level 1 and Level 2 fast.
The Problem with Positive Thinking
We all know that positive thinking should work for everyone. But most of the time it shouldn’t.
We all know that whenever we decide to think positively for the rest of our lives, it only works for a very short period.
According to Author Shad Helmstetter, Positive thinking can work, if the negative thoughts we are told to avoid are immediately replaced with the opposite.
The concept of positive thinking will work only when it is coupled with the right words, the special activating, stimulating, and directing words of Self-Talk, it can work for a lifetime.
Just like positive thinking external motivation also works temporarily for most of us. External motivation comes to you from outside. It may guide you to make a change. But it fails to keep you on track, once the motivator is gone.
The best way to retain motivation in everyday life is by being your own motivation. The true motivation that lasts for a lifetime is internal. It will never fail you and will become your ultimate motivator.
Taking the Responsibility for Yourself
As written in the book What to Say When You Talk to Yourself,
“Personal Responsibility is at the root of everything we do, conceive, fail at, or achieve in our lives. It is the basis of our individual determination to accept life and to fulfill ourselves within it”.
We all know that Self-Improvement is one remedy that we all need in our lives on a priority basis, but we keep postponing it and giving importance to other things.
“For any self-improvement concept to be successful, it has to be simple. It has to be easy to use. And when put into practice, it has to work!”
The New Techniques
The New Technique that is described in the book, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself is simple to use and needs no time to practice it.
Five different methods are described by Shed Helmstetter in the book and some of them are easy to use. They are
1. Your Powerful, Silent Self-Talk: This Self-Talk continuously goes in our minds. You can use it easily, just by replacing negative Self-Talk with a positive one. It is an easy change to make. It takes more awareness initially but with time it becomes natural and automatic.
2. The Self-Talk You Use When You’re Talking to Others: Anything that you say to people around you matters a lot. When you talk about something negative about yourself or things that are not right in your life, you unconsciously give the wrong directions to your subconscious mind. Learn to create positive internal programs every time you speak. It is easy to do and will change your life.
3. Conversation with Yourself: Self-conversation is a method of talking loudly to oneself, by holding both the end of the conversation all by yourself. This is one of the easiest and most effective techniques as it involves your senses and helps you to program your mind more effectively.
4. Writing Self-Talk: As described in the book, writing Self-Talk will help you to change your old negative programming more effectively.
5. Listening to Self-Talk: This is one of the best ways that you can put into practice. It hardly takes any extra time and most of the work is done, it’s very effective and gets easily merged into a daily routine.
You can use the Self-Talk technique for yourself in whatever you want to fix first in your life. With time Self-Talk becomes a self-generating habit the more you use it. The self-talk technique will work for everyone irrespective of age, qualification, profession, and social status in society. This technique will also work for your children.
We Created It-We Can Change It
Some of us believe that whatever we create in our lives, we can change easily according to our situations and time. But changing will be a harder part as sometimes it creates despair and the despondency of depression.
Luckily, these types of depression can be lightened or removed by using Self-Talk.
After learning about Self-Talk the most difficult part is put into practice or getting started. We all want to change many things in our lives. Learning to manage, control, and redirect our minds is the greatest challenge we all face in everyday life.
To deal with all these challenges learn to talk to yourself. Use the right words, in the right way, and follow them every day. Make Self-Talk unconscious and self-directed habits. By doing it you will give yourself the greatest gift of life.
Book Review of What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter
This book is written in simple language. The author has thrown light on the importance of Self-Talk. The author had done lots of research on Self-Talk. He had found some of the best methods that worked but were difficult to put into practice.
Shad Helmstetter also mentioned three resources that help us to get through the day. Those are our Time, Energy, and most importantly our Minds. Whenever we want to improve something in our life, we have to compete with these three resources.
The author throws light on the importance of Self-Talk for improvement. We all know how Self-Talk is easy to practice.
You can use Self-Talk for habit-changing, attitude-building, motivation, problem-solving, or whatever you want to change in life. You will find a step-by-step guide to easily apply it in your daily routine.
You will find many well-written Self-Talks in the book that you can use to change your life.
Trust me I have read so many self-help books and tried to practice the steps described in them but after a while, I returned to my old self. But the Self-Talk technique that is described in this book, is easy to apply in everyday life.
To know about Self-Talk and its techniques in detail read What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shed Helmstetter and start reading to reprogram your mind.
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