Good morning and welcome to the Increase Your Impact podcast. This is Justin Sua, episode

1,775. Today, we are talking about a specific type of self-talk. I was once working with an athlete,

and this athlete told me that he was out on positive affirmations. And I said, what would you mean by that? He goes, I hear all this talk

about telling yourself that you should believe in yourself and you're the best and you can do this.

And he says, that's not how my brain works. If I tell myself, oh, I'm the best. I got this. You can do it.

Remember everything you've ever done. He says that his mind is going to

tell him, I see what you're doing. You're trying to give me this positivity story, make yourself feel good,

but the reality is you're not and then it's going to make things even worse. And so I introduced to him

a different type of self-talk. Rather than thinking

positive self-talk, think productive self-talk. Now, he was confused at first. He's like,

what's the difference? I said, well, productive self-talk isn't necessarily positive, but it's

helpful. You can utilize it to actually do something. And he goes on to ask, what does that

mean? I said, productive self-talk could be something as simple as a mechanical cue. It could be

telling yourself something you need to do. It could be telling yourself something you're going to

accomplish. It could be identifying and focusing on what you can control. It's not necessarily talk to

build yourself up to make you feel good, but it's talk to give you reminders to help you perform

good and perform better. So today, my tool for you today to go out there and practice is

productive self-talk. What do you need to accomplish?

What do you need to remember? What do you need to do? And as you fill your mind with these

mental cues, they help you put yourself in the best position to succeed. Once again, you might

have to replace your positive self-talk with productive self-talk.

Now, some of you out there, positive self-talk is great to tell yourself you're special,

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