Positive Self-Talk
1. WHEN IT COMES TO THOUGHTS, YOU HAVE A LOT OF MIND
CONTROL!!
YOUR BODY LISTENS AND RESPONDS TO YOUR THOUGHTS!!!!
Your mental self-talk can be: POSITIVE or NE
GATIVE
1. Sports Psychology is a great example of the power of mind control. An athlete is
taught to stay positive, to stay calm, be focused, be confident, to “see yourself as a
winner,” and to “picture the ball going in the hole.” Many athletes find success with
this positive thinking and imagery.
2. Another way positive thinking and mind imagery is used in relaxation and
relieving stress. You can imagine a scene, place or event that you remember as
peaceful, restful, beautiful and happy. It acts as a retreat from places of stress and
pressure, the body actually responds with lower blood pressure, lower pulse rate to
calm down and relax.
3. Just as making positive statements to yourself helps you to build confidence,
improve performance, and improve your mental skills, negative thinking damages
these things.
Our sub-conscious mind can’t tell the difference between what
is real and what is imagined! It takes any pictures, any
thoughts that you send to it as reality. Once you direct an
image or visualization to your sub-conscious brain, it will work
24 hours a day to make that image a reality, coming up with a
plan to make those thoughts true for your life. So, choose your self-talk
very carefully, because your sub-conscious brain takes whatever you send it as real.
Examples: If you were taught as a child that all dogs will bite
you, your mind will automatically raise that fear every time you see a
dog. (even though your friend tells you that their dog is friendly, your
mind believes and sends the fear message! You have to re-train your
brain!!!)
If you continually say, “I’m really bad at math,” then your brain
will send thought reminders to you like, “I can’t do this, “ “this is too
hard for me,” “I’ll never get this because I am bad at math.”
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4. You can retrain and change your thinking by having positive self-
talk. It’s not easy at first…but it can literally change your life!!!
Today, we are going to practice this difficult, but powerful positive
self-talk.
Name:______________________________________________ Per:_____________ Date:_____________
Practicing Positive Self-Talk
Imagine you are a person who is really thinking the negative thoughts written below and write a
positive statement instead:
Rules: 1. You cannot just say “I am not . . .” Instead you should make your
message a positive one so your sub-conscious doesn't still hear the word "Not.")
2. You cannot just say the opposite like “I’m Stupid”- “I’m smart”
Try to be realistic and creative, like ”I can try harder and do better.”
1. I’m stupid. I do __________________________________________________________________________________________
2. I hate school. _______________________________________________________________________________________
3. Bad things always happen to me._________________________________________________________________
4. No matter how hard I try something always goes wrong.______________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. There’s no way I can pass that test. ______________________________________________________________
6. I’m always late, I just can’t help it. _______________________________________________________________
7. I’m always tired in the mornings. _______________________________________________________________
8. I’m just bad at science. ___________________________________________________________________________
9. I’ll never look as good as them. __________________________________________________________________
10. My sister and I can’t get along. _________________________________________________________________
11. I can’t control my temper. ______________________________________________________________________
12. My brother is always annoying. ________________________________________________________________
13. I don’t ever agree with my dad. _________________________________________________________________
14. I hate Mondays. __________________________________________________________________________________
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You may have found this exercise difficult! It’s actually easier to be negative than to
think positive thoughts. But, keep working on thinking positive thoughts about
yourself, and good self-esteem will follow!!
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