The Language of Change: How to Use Self-Talk to Build Confidence and Momentum

Episode 10:  In this episode, Career Change Coach Dana Stevens helps you to shift your perspective on something that can quietly shape every part of your life: your self-talk.

If your internal monologue is unhelpful and unkind, Dana explains how even small phrases can have a powerful impact. They could be keeping you stuck, holding back your confidence, and slowing down the change you want to create.

Dana explores why the language you use with yourself and about yourself matters so much, and how shifting it can completely change how you feel, think, and act. You’ll hear real examples of common negative phrases and learn practical ways to reframe them into supportive, empowering language.

By the end of this episode, you’ll see why committing to more compassionate, encouraging self-talk is one of the best gifts you can give yourself and how you can start making that change today.

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/
Free Coaching Consultation: https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free clarity call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Transcript

Hello, how are you doing?. I have to say, excitement levels are high in my house at the moment because it really is almost Christmas. Just a few days to go and I LOVE Christmas. Like, really love it - I’m one of those who puts the tree up early, celebrates all through December, carols every day - one of those  people. All the mulled wine, all the cheese, all the festive days out - I’m here for it. This year I even did a Christmas Lights tour in London that was also a 10k run! It was a bit bonkers weaving between drunken revellers and fighting through the crowds on a Saturday night in central London but it was a great experience - and look, that’s what it’s all about isn’t it. New experiences, fun experiences, joyful experiences. 

I often think about that since I have changed my career and changed how I live my life - I’m honestly thinking about how I can build in moments of joy and different experiences into the way I live. After being stuck in what felt like a corporate treadmill for a long time - I like to ask myself ‘how can I bring texture to my life?’ ‘How can I bring glimmers?’ Sorry I will get to the main heart of today’s podcast in a moment, but hey it’s Christmas so I’m sure you’ll allow a brief diversion. 

But this year I bought a poster for the wall in my office - I bought it to go on the wall just behind where I sit. I knew it would be visible on all my Zoom calls with clients so I’ve been waiting for a few years to find the right piece. And I spotted this lovely artwork on Instagram with words by a poet called J.K. Kennedy and it has one phrase which is someone saying “That’s a beautiful little life you have there ” and in the next line the reply is “Thanks, I made it! It has pockets for all my treasures”

And I love that. The idea that you can intentionally create a life that has pockets for your treasures and moments to treasure. And I really do like to think about my life in that way. So I just thought I’d share that with you as Christmas is often a great time to sit and reflect on what you have and what you’d like to add into your life. So you can ask yourself, is there space in my life currently for all my treasures? If not, think about what you want to change next year.

So let’s get into  today's topic. Because of the festive timing I wanted to make sure that the topic of this week’s podcast was really helpful and constructive so it could challenge you to think differently so that you can take the time over the holidays to reflect on it. 

Today I want to talk about how powerful language is when you are creating change in your life and why supportive self talk really can be so important when you’re building up your confidence and trying to create momentum.

The language that you use and the tone, the way you say things is really, really impactful. It sounds like a really obvious thing to say  - but YOU are always listening. And so if the way that you talk to yourself is unkind, or even down right mean - then you are listening - and over time you will start to believe those things that you are constantly reinforcing. 

What do I mean by Self-talk? I mean that internal monologue going on in your head. The inner critic - that voice that pops up when you want to try something new and says ‘actually I’m not sure you can do that” or “are you sure you should try that?” What if it goes wrong and what if you fail?’

Or even “you don’t know what you want” or “you’ll have to ask other people”

Or after you’ve been in a meeting and your brain jumps in with “You should have prepared more or that wasn’t very good”

The way we talk to ourselves, when it is unhelpful, unkind or mean is often very closely linked to our Limiting Beliefs - beliefs about ourselves or others or a situation that limit us  - and I explain more about those in episode 8 of the podcast if you want to go back and listen to that. 

If our inner voice is negative - there is often a clear correlation between that and our level of self- confidence -  how much trust and self belief we have in ourselves. 

So in order to make changes in your life and career you want to start working on those things. Changing the beliefs that are limiting you and holding you back and intentionally working building up your confidence  - and YOUR LANGUAGE is going to be key to that

(As an aside, i talked about the power of taking back control of your confidence in last week’s episode which is episode 9 if you missed that.)

YOUR SELF-TALK

I want you to take a moment now and reflect on how you actually talk to yourself. 

What is the flavour of that internal monologue? Is it supportive? Or is it full of doubt and worry? Are you constantly questioning yourself? Are you being mean? 

Would you talk to other people the way you talk to yourself? That’s an easy way to check in on whether it’s kind or supportive or not.

Do you like the way you speak to yourself?

Maybe you hear an echo of someone else’s voice in there? Maybe a parent or sibling or even a critical manager.

As yourself, do you really want to be giving that voice prominence now, at this stage of your life?

The good news is that you can change how you talk to yourself. It takes practise but it is possible. 

The first step - as with some many things about thought work and mindset management but the first step is awareness. Noticing it. Noticing how you talk. 

And then deciding what you want to do about it.  

If you decide today that you want to make a change then great. Consider what you want that change to be. 

Is it using a more compassionate tone? Is it about showing yourself more understanding? Is it about using kinder words that are more aligned with your values?

What if you decide today that instead of being your own biggest critic, that you could be your own biggest cheerleader?

You could be the first person to notice when you’ve done something well. You could be the person to say the kindest thing about it. You could be your own hype woman.

You could pick yourself up when you are down with the power of supportive advice that you would offer a friend.

What if you decide today that you could be your best most supportive ally and friend.

How would it change things for you? Think about how your understanding and reassurance helps your friends.

Why wouldn’t you want that for you? Would it make you feel happier? More capable? More open to trying new things?

Just think about that because really I can’t see a downside to being nicer and talking to yourself in a more supportive way.

Let’s run through an example, one thing that I’ve worked with quite a few clients on is language about not being good at something. Usually I’ll pick up on it and notice that they are saying it frequently things like “I’m rubbish at that…”.... “I’m no good at that” or “I’m terrible at that..” And for different people it’s different things - for one client it might be they are telling themselves they are rubbish at doing presentations, for others it might be being no good at speaking to senior management or I’m terrible at making decisions or I’m crap at communication.

Now the thing is when your brain offers you a doubt or a limiting belief like that about yourself and then you constantly repeat it - you reinforce it through your self talk. 

And how you say it to yourself and how often you say it to yourself really matters.

Let’s take “I’m terrible at talking in front of large groups of people” - you might have latched on to this idea that you’re bad at it, you’re not good at meetings or presentations. So you try and avoid it wherever possible and then you get the fear when someone asks you to do it and you are anxious about it beforehand and work yourself into a state. 

Now I want to imagine that a child is feeling nervous about talking to a group of people -  could be their class or their assembly - you can imagine your own child or if you don’t have kids imagine someone of about 7 years old. And when they’re confiding in you that they are feeling worried about it - you say to them “Yes, you are terrible at talking in front of large groups of people” you’re really bad at that. Don’t do it. Just don’t try because it will probably go badly, you’ll mess it up, people will probably laugh at you, people will make fun of you, they’ll expect you to do badly, it will be a nightmare, you’ll never get over it….”

 These are the sorts of things your inner critic may say to you - just imagine saying them to a kid who is nervous and scared.

And then imagine, a new example comes up - they say ‘I’ve been told by the teacher I do have to try and talk to the class about my project tomorrow” and you just went “No, don’t do that. You’re bad at it, you’re terrible at it, You’re not good with big groups of people, let’s think about all the ways it could go wrong.”

And then next time, it came up and you did it again…”no, no - don’t even try. You’re terrible, remember.”

What do you think would happen to that child?

They would be crushed. Their confidence would be on the floor. 

You just wouldn’t do it! It would be soul destroying. Hearing it over and over again every time they thought about trying it or just before they tried it - they would believe it.

They would think. “Oh it really must be true that I’m terrible. This is impossible. There’s no way I can get better. I shouldn’t even try. I should give up. This isn’t for me. Who am I to think I can try this?”

And on it goes, the spiral of negative self talk continues eating away at confidence every time.

This is what you are doing to yourself every time you continue this way of talking. You are shutting yourself down. You are telling yourself - this is you, you are bad at this thing, there’s no hope of you getting better - just keep believing this definitive truth about yourself.

Stop trying. Just stay there, not believing, not improving.

No. You’re not going to do this to yourself any more. I’d love you to give yourself the best Christmas present this year - I’d love you to commit that you will at least try to start being aware of how you talk to yourself and that you will start using more supportive self talk.

Notice I’m not saying that you have to be super positive, as with thought work and changing beliefs the key is not to try and take yourself to this super positive place that doesn’t feel believable. It’s not about suddenly telling yourself “I’m brilliant at communicating with large groups” - that won’t feel believable and then you’ll just get annoyed at yourself that you’re not buying into it.

You don’t need to do that. You just need to commit to SUPPORTIVE SELF TALK. How can I talk to myself in such a way that it helps me feel better about myself - even a small bit?

How can I talk to myself that reminds me this isn’t how it will always be?

How can I talk to myself to encourage me to think about how I can change?

How can I remind myself this isn’t always true? Or that I can adapt or learn new things? Or get better and improve?

This might just be a shift to - “I’m working on getting better at communicating in a big group”

“I’m prepared to see how I can improve at talking in a big group”

“I’m figuring out how to do this differently”

If we go back to that child, just think about how you would talk to them. 

Firstly you would adopt a kind and compassionate tone - you‘d say that it’s OK to feel nervous or worried. 

But you’d very likely focus on their capacity to change or get better or improve.

You might say something like “you might find this hard now, let’s think about what you can try that might help…”

Or you’d say “If you haven’t done much talking in front of groups it can feel overwhelming but people aren’t waiting for you to fail, They want to hear what you have to say 

Or “this will gets easier with practise, lets practice together now”

Or you might give them practical techniques such as box breathing to calm their nerves… you see the way you’d talk to them, would be solution focused - highlighting how they can improve.

Thats the approach you want to take with yourself.

So I want you to really think about the way you are talking to yourself and whether that is one of that things that is keeping you stuck, keeping you repeating the same patterns

Now as ever - and I know I say this in almost every podcast episode but I’m going to keep saying it - this is not an opportunity to start judging yourself, if your critical voice is very noisy and loud - it might latch on to this and start going “see, here’s another thing you’re bad at - you can’t even talk nicely to yourself’.....

Awareness to help us change is about noticing things in a judgement free way - there’s no need here for any blame and shame - we just want to notice with kindness and compassion and curiosity.

This is also not just about how you talk to yourself, but you might also notice how you talk about yourself to others. It could be those same unkind words or phrases that you find yourself repeating out loud.

I actually think it’s quite an ingrained British thing to do - this pre-emptive self-deprecating - I better get in there with that negative thing about myself before someone else does. Like if I don’t say I’m rubbish at presenting, maybe they’ll think I’m too up myself or too big for my boots. This kind of thing is often formed at school where banter and what people thought of you was way more significant. But you’re an adult now, you don’t have to get in there first and put yourself down. No one wants or needs you to do it. And doing it repeatedly is actually causing you a lot of harm. It’s affecting your confidence - confidence you need to take control of your career.

And it can actually create unease or doubt in other people’s minds.

Let’s say, there’s a bit of chat in the office that you’ve been chosen to present at the next a company meeting and there might be some gentle banter - “Oh Gemma, get you! Max chose you to lead the presentation’ - our reflexes kick in and you might say something like “yeah but I don’t know why he chose me, I’m not even good at doing presentations” or “I hate talking to big crowds”

And then you start sewing doubt in other people’s minds - colleagues might think " oh I know Gemma doesn’t like doing presentations as she always says that so I’ll bring someone else to lead that next meeting or I won’t get Gemma on this project as it will involve lots of presentations…”

And these people, your colleagues might up until this point have thought you were actually good or had no idea you were battling nerves and now you are creating this situation that means you’re not getting the opportunities you could be to improve.

“I DON’T KNOW”

I want to focus on another bit of language that comes up a lot. And this is a phrase that people can say to themselves - and to others a lot “I don’t know”... Now while this isn’t apparently very negative language - it isn’t the most supportive either.

You might say this to yourself when you’re thinking about how you want to change careers, so let's think about it in that context. You might be saying this to yourself repeatedly “I just don’t know what I want” and maybe if people ask you - you keep saying “I don’t know”

The thing about “I don’t know” is it shuts things down. It almost gets you off the hook. If you don’t know then you don’t have to do anything about it. You don’t have to take action or move forwards. You can sit in the familiarity of not knowing.

If you don’t know then you can keep asking other people for their opinions - abdicating responsibility for what next in your life.

If you shift that just a tiny bit to “I’m figuring it out” - that feels different. You’re no longer stuck in ‘I don’t know” - you’re doing something, you’re in motion. Then your brain starts offering you options, avenues to explore. If you say that “I’m figuring it out” to other people they’ll be like “great, tell me more - what do you know so far, what are you still working out.” And it just changes how you feel and act. Focus on what you do know, because there will be things you do know - even if its things that you don’t want from the next chapter of your career.

And just in a broader sense - if you find yourself telling yourself that you don’t know or you say it all the time at work or to other people. Be on to yourself.  Notice if this is what you are doing.

When people ask your opinion at work - or ask you what your plans are or what happens next - do you automatically find yourself saying “I don’t know” - do you really mean it? Is it really true?

What impact is it happening on you when you say that to yourself all the time?

How does it affect other people when they hear you saying that you don’t know?

It creeps in in really small ways to, for example sometimes when we’re trying to be really polite sometimes it creeps in. You might say “I don’t know if I really understand the point you're making” … or “I don’t know if I’ve got this correct but…”

And when we’re constantly saying that, like I said before it reinforces this narrative that we don’t know…. And makes other people believe we don’t know

But sometimes we really do - or we could just reframe the language so it’s not about us feeling deficient in some way.

So instead of  “I don’t know if I really understand the point you're making” … you could say “Could you clarify what you mean by that?”

Instead of  “I don’t know if I’ve got this correct but…” you could say “this is my current understanding of the situation”...

CHRONIC APOLOGISING

And finally, one last thing I want to say - its less of a self-talk but is one that can come up a lot in the workplace and relates to how you position yourself to others and how you feel about yourself. And that’s “I’m sorry” - again it comes back to a Britishness, a politeness but the fact is that this way of talking - prefacing statements or questions with “I’m sorry…” indexes way higher for women than men and is linked to confidence.

This might sound like

“I’m sorry to ask you to do this Jenny but….”

Or “I’m sorry if that's not clear” or “I’m sorry to remind you of the timelines on this…”

Are you really sorry? Do you need to be sorry? What if you weren’t sorry? What if the thing you are asking or the information you are relaying is just part of your job and actually you want or need to be communicating these things?

It can not only make you feel hesitant, but you can start to believe that you should be apologising. That you don’t have the right to ask for something or push for things.

Are you a chronic apologiser? Is it a habit? Is it a language tic? Something that just rolls off the tongue?

WRAP UP

That’s what I’d love to offer you this week - think about giving yourself this gift of becoming your own best friend or biggest cheerleader. And adapting your language and self talk to help you do that. 

Hopefully over this festive period, you are having some time off work. So use some of what I’ve raised today as an opportunity for reflection.

How could you change how you talk to yourself to be more supportive?

How could you change how you talk about yourself to others?

What words or phrases do you want to change?

What could you change them to?

And feel free to message me on Instagram if you’ve found this helpful. You can find me @ Dana_Stevens_Coach and you can DM me or comment on my posts and tell me what language you’ve started to notice and what you’re going to be changing.

That’s it. I wish you a very merry Christmas. I’ll be back next week to tell you about something new and exciting that I have for you in January so check back then.

Bye for now

a