Success Secret: Change Your Internal Dialogue

Everyone in business knows that words are important. Some companies spend millionsof dollars to get the perfect wording for their corporate, marketing, and sales messages.

Since words are important, it’s absolutely crazy to be careless when you’re communicating with the most important person in your business world: you!

Just as the words you use to describe your company to customers predetermine how successful your company will be, the words you use when you talk to yourself (meaning in your own mind) predetermine how successful you will be.

If your internal dialogue constantly uses words that leech your energy, you’ll always be fighting an uphill battle. What’s more, that negative self-talk has a habit of slipping into the words you say to others, which can cast a pall on everything you do.

By contrast, if your internal dialogue uses words that uplift you, you’re greasing the wheels to become more successful. What’s more, a positive internal dialogue is inevitably echoed in your day-to-day speech, making those around you more success-prone, too.

How to Change Your Internal Dialogue

If you really want to be successful, you’ll spend the extra effort to edit your internal dialogue so that it supports your goals. This is not at all difficult, and here’s the basic recipe:

1. Listen to Your Thoughts 

As you go through the day, be mindful of the words that you use, in your own mind, to describe your experiences and those around you.

2. Write Them Down 

Recording your internal dialogue on paper will help you see more objectively the words you use, because you take them out of the context of your habitual mental use of them.

3. Categorize Each Term 

At the end of the day, mark each word or term as positive, neutral, or negative relative to what you’re trying to achieve.

4. Substitute More Powerful Words

For negative words, devise neutral alternatives. For neutral words, devise positive alternatives. For positive words, find alternative words that are even most positive.

5. Post the Alternatives Where You Can See Them

This is just a simple list with the old words in the first column pointing to the new words in the second column.

6. Make the Substitution Habitual

Whenever the old words show up in your internal dialogue, consciously substitute the alternative word. Continue until the substitution is automatic.

Here’s a quick example, taken from the world of sales:

• Rejection->Speedbump
• Frustration->Nervous Energy
• Afraid->Excited
• Failure->Sales Lesson
• Boss->Coach
• Feeling Good->Feeling Fantastic!
• Disappointed->Surprised
• Cold calling->Dialing for Dollars

The more time you spend transforming your internal dialogue in this way, the more your thought processes will reinforce your quest for success.

By Geoffrey James