Pushkin

Surveys show that this year's top New Year's resolution, the thing that more than 50% of folks who made January resolutions have committed to getting more of in 2023, is exercise.

Which, from the perspective of a happiness professor like me, should be a good thing.

Because there's lots and lots of scientific evidence that working out regularly can significantly improve our self-reported happiness.

But the research shows that our bodies aren't the only things that could use a good workout this year.

In fact, our guest today argues that we might want to swap at least some of those New Year's bench presses and leg curls for a different kind of training.

One that focuses on toughening something that we often forget can have a big effect on our stress levels, our performance, and our happiness.

We'll see today that if we really want to feel better in 2023, we probably need to devote at least a few of our workouts to improving our inner self-talk.

So get ready to sweat out your inner critic and strengthen those self-compassion muscles.

Because the happiness lab is about to hit the gym for our first ever New Year, New Year, New Year self-talk workout.

Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy?

The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction.

You're listening to the Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos.

A lot of people live in that space of putting themselves down all the time. And it's a pretty powerful habit.

So it's one we've built up over years and decades, and it can seem a little bit daunting to change it.

This is psychologist and Seattle University professor, Rachel Turo. But if you've ever tried a new workout, you know that the first few times are kind of weird sometimes, sometimes a little bit uncomfortable. But after you do it, the more and more you do it, it becomes more natural.

And the same is true for how you treat yourself.

Rachel is the author of a recent book called The Self-Talk Workout, Six Science Backed Strategies to dissolve self-criticism and transform the voice in your head.

As you might guess from the title, Rachel thinks we should all be doing training drills, not just for our biceps and our thighs, but also to tone up those harsh voices inside our heads.

So that instead of being mean to ourselves, we're more encouraging, more supportive, and kinder. The idea is to build up these resources, these capacities, so that they are ready to go when you need them and so that you're stronger in general.

But before jumping headfirst into our new inner voice workout plan, I wanted Rachel to start by explaining a bit more about what she means by self-talk, and how we sometimes get a little nasty with our inner voices.

I consider self-talk to be the way that you relate to yourself in your mind. It could be with words. Some people really talk to themselves in words like, okay, I should do this, why do you do that? I should really be better at this. But it might not be in words.

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