Second Cup: Transform your negative self-talk

A little trick to take the sting out of hurtful words

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that if you are prone to sweeping negative
self talk, as in I'm incompetent, I'm a failure, try

(00:27):
substituting the word banana for those weighted words and see
what happens. While this might sound ridiculous, you just might
be surprised at the outcome. Today's tip comes from Maura
Aaronsmela's new book, The Anxious Achiever, Turn your Biggest Fears

(00:48):
into your leadership Superpower. Many people suffer from some form
of anxiety, and some of those folks are going to
wind up in leadership roles. Mora asserts that it is
possible to manage anxiety and leadership and turn the care
and concern that are sometimes at the root of anxiety

(01:09):
into good things for your team while climbing through the
ranks of anything. Feedback is inevitable, Indeed, it's critical. None
of us is born perfect and we all need to improve. Nonetheless,
negative feedback can be hard to hear. As Mara puts it,

(01:30):
we make mistakes, don't hit sales goals, fall short of targets,
misread and mismanaged situations. That's just life. It happens when
anxiety is in the picture. Feedback can trigger such intense
imposter feelings that, as Mora says, we just want to

(01:50):
go hide. People start making sweeping self talk statements like
I'm incompetent, or I'm a terrible leader, or no one
wants to work for me, and so forth. But it
is possible to diffuse these negative feelings and get some
distance from them. Negative self talk relies on powerful words

(02:11):
that are designed to make you feel terrible. But words
are just words. Mora quotes doctor Russ Harris, one of
the world's foremost experts on acceptance and commitment therapy, as
saying that earlier in his life, his own impostor syndrome
would show up any time he made a trivial mistake,
and he would berate himself with the words I'm incompetent.

(02:37):
As a doctor, this was problematic to think, as it
interfered with helping solve people's health problems. Nothing worked, Moris
says until Harris learned to detach from his thoughts. He
realized that the I'm incompetent story was a mental reaction
that showed up automatically, and it was no different from
the thousands of other thoughts passing through his mind every day.

(03:01):
So he came up with this idea. He would identify
the negative thought that hooked him repeatedly. You can do
this too. Whatever your equivalent of I'm incompetent happens to be,
then substitute the word banana. So I'm a failure becomes
I'm a banana, I'm incompetent becomes I'm a banana. You

(03:27):
get the picture. Does this make you feel silly? Well? Absolutely,
But as Mara notes, I'm a banana is about as
truthful as I'm incompetent. You have, no doubt demonstrated your
competence on all sorts of things through life, and as
your mind immediately springs to note that no, you are

(03:47):
not a banana, perhaps that thought process can help surface
evidence that you aren't incompetent either. Does imposter syndromes start
to lose its sting after the hundredth time you've replaced
I'm incompetent with I'm a banana? Perhaps I'll note here
that none of this means that people can't genuinely seek

(04:09):
to improve on various dimensions. Critical feedback serves a purpose,
but there is a huge difference between noting that my
team members largely express that they want me to run
tighter meetings, and here are some strategies I can try
with thinking I'm incompetent. So if you find yourself repeatedly

(04:34):
berating yourself with broad negative statements, try the banana trick
and see what happens. You might just be able to
end a negative spiral and find practical ways to move forward.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

(04:55):
here's to making the most of our time. Hey everybody,
I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod.

(05:16):
That's b E the number four then Breakfast pod. You
can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcasts
at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out
with all the letters. Thanks so much, should I look
forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production

(05:39):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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