Do your thoughts impact on your life? How important are your thoughts about yourself and others? Do these thoughts become the basis of your life’s direction? Do your thoughts influence your self-image? Do your words influence how you see yourself? Do you behave as you think you want to? Do you pay attention to your thoughts?
Use mostly positive self-talk
Your image is based on your perception of yourself and the feedback you get from others, plus what you read and what you see around you. This self-image, which becomes your personality, is fed by your self-talk (your ongoing conversation with yourself), and your image of who and what you are.
“I always thought I was ugly because I was different. It took me until twenty-four to accept that I am really quite attractive.”
Denise, 34
All your thoughts are reinforced1 by your self-talk. You talk to yourself from when you wake up in the morning until you drift2 off to sleep at night. Your self-talk never stops. You have a running dialogue in your head about what you believe is happening around you, how people are behaving and what you think they think of you.
Try this acid test3. If you were your best friend, would you put up with the way you talk to yourself? If you were your best friend would you be happy with the way you are talked to, by you? This is an interesting test. Although you instinctively4 know that you need to be caring and mostly positive to maintain a friendship, you may not have the same rules for your relationship with yourself.
“I reckon my mates are great. But I’m a piece of shit.”
Jase, 16
Your self-talk reflects the way you see yourself, and the way you present yourself. The picture you have of yourself is constantly built up or broken down by your self-talk. What feedback do you give yourself? Is it mostly positive and mostly supportive, as it would be if you were talking to a friend？
“I discipline myself to stay positive when I wake up, it’s so easy to start thinking bad thoughts.”
Paul, 17
What is your self-image?
You program yourself by talking to yourself at 500+ words/symbols per minute, from birth to death—what are you talking to yourself about? Be careful what you talk about. You become what you think and talk about. As you see yourself, so you act—it is impossible to consistently exceed the level of your self-image. If you want to change your image you need first to change that picture of yourself. Watch how you talk to others, usually this is a reflection of your self-talk.
“Whenever I made a mistake in class I would be really angry at myself for the rest of the day. I’d hardly hear what anyone else said, my mind would race with what I did that was so stupid.”
Greg, 16
Speak well to yourself
We’ve established that we learn through mistakes and that no one is perfect; 100 percent perfect is impossible for anyone.
What will influence your life most is your ability to focus on talking to yourself well, most of the time. Adopt a more balanced view. Overall 80 percent of what you do is great, on target, and 20 percent is about mistakes, learning. Adopt an 80 percent/20 percent way of speaking to yourself; give yourself the self-talk you deserve and the self-image you deserve. Your words become who you are.
“I was the first person to notice my mistakes. My teachers gave me a hard time, but it was nothing compared to the time I gave myself.”
Jill, 14
Damien didn’t realize just how his own words affected him and his self-image:
“I was the class nerd5 at school. I couldn’t get why the rest were so slow and, worse still, I got on well with my teachers. Everyone thought I was a smart-arse6 and a suck-up7 but I didn’t care. Everyone hated me; in any class group activity I always ended up on my own and the teacher had to step in and put me in a group. It was humiliating8 but who cared?”
“Outside the classroom, everything I did seemed stupid. I was shy and everything I did just came out dumb9. I didn’t know how to stop it, everyone hated me and I hated everyone. In my mind I was the good guy and everyone else was a jerk10. I guess I was creating my own bad space.”
“People seemed to react to me exactly as I was expecting them to. It was as if they knew how badly I felt about myself, as if they were tuning in to my mind. My main thought during this time was: No one likes me, they think I’m a nerd, I’ll never be like them, I’m hopeless.”
“Then I decided to take up basketball. I knew that if I didn’t start doing something well outside schoolwork, it would just get worse and I would hate myself all my life. I practised at home until I got the hang of it11. I figured I just wanted to be good at something the others were good at, but I was scared to join a team because I wanted to be really good before I did.”
“I loved it! I was always thinking and talking to myself about the game and I was happy, really happy for the first time since I was a kid. When I joined the school B grade team I was pretty good at it. Soon the rest of the team started to notice me and talk to me. I just got better and better. Things were looking up.”
“Some of my team were in my class so they started talking to me in school. It felt so, so different than before; for the first time in my life I had friends. I started to become more confident about myself. It felt great. It was like the picture I had in my head changed, because the way I see myself is so different now.”
Damien, 17
Like Damien before he found a way in, it’s easy to focus on the challenging 20 percent. But is it fair to focus on that smaller percentage as if it totally represents your life? No, it isn’t; talk to yourself positively about the 80 percent of what is great and focus on your mistakes only 20 percent of the time.
Life is full of small annoyances12 that come into the 20 percent category. Make sure you don’t spend more than 20 percent of your time thinking about the small irritations13 in life.
你的想法对你的生活有影响吗？你的想法对自己和他人有多重要？这些想法是否决定了你的人生方向？这些想法会影响你的自我形象吗？你说的话是否影响到你的自我认识？你是否按照你的本意行事？你注意过自己的想法吗？
多肯定自己
自我形象的建立来自于自我感觉以及从别人那里得到的反馈，再加上随处所读所见。这个自我形象——会成为你的个性——由你的自我对话（你和自身的交流）与你对自己的看法所滋养。
“我总以为，和别人不一样意味着我很丑。直到24岁我才觉得自己其实相当迷人。”
丹尼斯，34
你的每个想法都会被自我对话所强化。从早上醒来直到晚上坠入梦乡，你都在跟自己讲话，自我对话从不停歇。你的大脑里进行着一场不间断的对话：你觉得身边正在发生什么、人们如何行动、以及他人如何看待你。
试试这个重要的测试：假如把你当成自己最好的朋友，你会忍受你对自己说话的方式吗？如果你是自己最好的朋友，你会乐于接受这种自我交谈的方式吗？这是一个有趣的考察。虽然本能上你知道要有爱心，要尽量积极主动地维持一段友情，但对于你与自身的情谊，你并未如此。
“我觉得我的朋友都很了不起，可我一文不值。”
吉斯，16
自我对话反映了你看待自己、以及表现自己的方式。你心中的自我形象不断被自我对话所塑造或摧毁。你对自身的反应如何？是否像对待一个朋友那样通常都是肯定和鼓励呢？
“我训练自己一起床就要保持积极乐观的态度，因为往坏处想太容易了。”
保罗，17
什么是自我形象？
从生到死，你以每分钟500多字或符号跟自己交谈，规划人生——你说了些什么呢？当心你所说的话。你怎样想、怎样说，便会成为怎样的人。你怎么想自己，便会怎么做——你不可能一直超越自我形象。如果想要改变形象，首先要改变你的自我看法。观察你是如何与别人交谈的，通常这是你的自我对话的反映。
“每当我在课堂上犯了错，那一整天我就会特别生自己的气。我几乎听不进别人说的话，脑子里老是想着我干的那件蠢事。”
格雷格，16
用言语鼓励自己
我们明白，人可以通过犯错误而学习，人无完人；百分百的完美对任何人来说都不可能。
多数情况下，以积极的态度与自己交谈的能力极大地影响着你的生活。用一种更平和的心态对待自己。你所做的事中80%很棒，正中目标；20%出错，处在摸索阶段。采取这样二八开的方式与自己交谈；进行积极的自我对话，赋予自己应得的自我形象。你的言语就塑造了你。
“我是第一个注意到自己错误的人。老师们让我难受，但更让我难受的却是我自己。”
吉尔，14
戴米恩完全没意识到他的言语如何影响了他和他的自我形象：
“我在班上不讨人喜欢。我不懂其他人怎么都那么迟钝；更糟糕的是，我跟老师们相处得很好。每个人都认为我自作聪明，是个马屁精，但是我不在乎。每个人都恨我；每次课堂小组活动最后总是剩下我一个人，老师不得不介入，把我安排在某一个小组里。真丢人，但是那又有什么大不了的？”
“出了教室，我什么都干不好。我很害羞，做什么都会弄砸。我不知怎么结束这一切：人人恨我，我恨人人。在我心里，我是个好人，其他人都是坏蛋。我感觉我正把自己的处境搞得一塌糊涂。”
“人们对我的反应似乎正是我所预料的那样。就像他们知道我的自我感觉有多糟，好像他们猜透了我的心思。那个时候我的念头就是：没人喜欢我，他们觉得我是个讨厌鬼，我永远都不会像他们那样。我没救了。”
“于是我决定开始打篮球。我知道，如果我不开始在学业之外会点儿什么，情况会变得越来越糟，我会恨自己一辈子。我在家里练习，直到入了门。我觉得我只是想把别人能做好的也做好，但我怕加入球队，因为我想在加入之前能打得非常棒。”
“我爱上了篮球！我脑子里总想着它，对自己念叨着这项运动，我很开心，打从是个孩子起就没这么真正开心过。当加入校B级球队时，我已经打得相当好。很快其他队员开始注意我，跟我说话。我感觉越来越好。一切都在好转。”
“有些队员是我的同班同学，他们也开始在学校里和我说话了。这与以前相比非常非常不同；我一生当中第一次有了朋友。我开始变得更自信。这种感觉棒极了，就好像在我脑海中的那幅画面已经变了，因为现在我看待自己的方式与以前不同。”
戴米恩，17
如同戴米恩找到转折点之前一样，你很容易就会把注意力放在难对付的20%上。只注意较小的这部分，就像它能完全代表你的生活一样，这公平吗？不，不公平。用积极的态度对自己讲述那80%的了不起的事，只用20%的时间来关注你的过失。
生活中充满了这类20%范围里的小烦恼。记得别花费你20%以上的时间来想这些令人不快的事。
1. reinforce v. 加固，强化
2. drift v. 漂流，漂泊
3. acid test 决定性考验
4. instinctively adv. 本能地
5. nerd n. 讨厌鬼
6. smart-arse 自作聪明的人
7. suck-up爱拍马屁的人
8. humiliating adj. 丢人的
9. dumb n. 笨蛋
10. jerk n. 坏蛋，浑蛋
11. get the hang of it掌握做某事的方法
12. annoyance n. 烦恼
13. irritation n. 恼火的事