An entrepreneur’s guide to a strong inner dialogue
I have tried this a million times -
I try changing a negative thought with sheer concentration and will power, only to see the thought entering my mind minutes later!
We say a million things to ourselves. Sometimes, there are so many thoughts in our head that we have no clue what’s happening inside. These thoughts feel so automatic that we don’t seem to have any say in them! How can we change these automatic thoughts? Is this even possible?
What is the predictable part of self-talk?
If we got to change something — we need a hook, we need something that repeats. We can then try changing this predictable part. Otherwise, we will end up having a street fight with every thought that we have.
What is predictable in our mind conversations? What is the pattern in our self-talk?
I was obsessed with this question for long! I tried meditation, I tried mindfulness, I did yoga retreat. I travelled. I exercised. I swam. I tried journaling. I noted all my thoughts — good and bad. I used mood trackers. I listened to Gurus.
Awareness is the key — I was told. You need to be aware all the time, notice the minute thoughts in your head and then decide whether you want to act on it or not.
I could say one thing about this whole experience — EXHAUSTING!
How long can I keep monitoring my inner self? I have a job, I have a family, I have a life.
Some times these thoughts do seem to be true even when they are very critical. Before I know, I get dragged into a street fight with these thoughts. Being aware and being distant from the thoughts — not everyone has the lifestyle to have this privilege!
What is one predictable thing about my self-talk? I was obsessed!
It took me a long time to realize this. At least a decade. But when I did find it, I felt dumb. The answer was in the question. I was too distracted to notice it. It’s so obvious. It was in front of my face all this time!
The one predictable thing in our self-talk is the questions we ask ourselves.
No matter what the situation is, we ask ourselves questions.
Am I good at this? Am I going to fail? Am I going to be ridiculed?
Our self-talk is the orgasm between our past and future. We look into our past to draw in emotional experiences. We use them to predict our future. And questions are a big part of this prediction.
What if I fail? What if she leaves me? What if my business fails?
By changing the questions we ask ourselves, we can change the answers we chase.
For example, instead of asking “Will I ever be able to do this”, asking “What is one step I can take towards this goal ?” will make a huge difference to our inner dialogue. Easy said than done right?
The biggest challenge with our mental health and emotional well being is that there is so much wisdom but very few ways to practice them.
Everyone has a lot of wisdom on how to live a happy life. How to practice them?
How can we change the questions we ask ourselves?
To answer this, we need to understand how self-talk is formed in our minds in the first place.
We see children talking out loud as they are playing. We have done it as children as well. In the early formative years, we have very few internal thoughts, we babble almost everything that we see. We seem to have very little inner dialogue.
At some point during our adolescence, we start internalizing these thoughts in our head. This is a critical part of our mental development. So a big part of our self-talk flows inside through the sentences we hear as a child. If we are brought up in a pessimistic environment, our self-talk will have questions and statements that are pessimistic. If our environment had a positive approach, so does our self-talk.
Like searching for something where we lost it, the way we affect our self-talk is the same way it was formed in the first place — talking and listening.
This is the core concept of — Konvos. Konvos asks you a series of questions based on how you are feeling right now. As you answer these questions with your voice, as you hear yourself answering constructive questions related to your challenges, your self-talk automatically changes and your subconscious learns from the activity.
Our subconscious has a lot of intelligence that if unlocked, can be greatly helpful to live a happy and fulfilling life. Asking the right questions is the key to unlock this intelligence. This is what we help people do through Konvos. This is how I changed my negative self talk to a strong inner dialogue. You can do it too!