How's Your Self-Talk?
In working with young people over the years, I found it essential to understand each young person's self-talk in order to be able to coach/teach them. It helped me learn the 800/100 rule. To me, that tells me that if I am telling someone they can accomplish something (at a rate of 100 words per minute,) while they simultaneously are saying, "No I can't" (at a rate of 800 words per minute,) then I lose. They are essentially un-teachable because their own thoughts dominate the situation.
So many people see themselves in a negative way, and do not have very high self-esteem. This is because of the voice inside their head controlling their opinion of themselves. It's powerful. And very hard to overcome.
Therefore, teachers, coaches and parents must help young people examine their own-self talk. Since we all talk to ourselves more than anyone else does, we must make sure that we have positive self-talk the majority of the time.
This concept is easily explained by one of the greatest books ever written– The Little Engine That Could. The words "I think I can" are repeated over and over. That self-talk is real and very powerful. It can make you feel capable of doing things you only dreamed about. Having positive self-talk is an essential element of self-improvement. How do you talk to yourself?