Negative self-talk will do a lot of harm to you and affect your whole life. You may argue that you are not voluntarily thinking about the negative thoughts but that will not lessen the negative effects of such talk to your life.

You should therefore strive to get rid of the negative thoughts with all you have got. Getting completely rid of that talk is not easy but with practice and persistence you will get rid of the destructive chatter going on in your head. In this article I am going to show you effective ways you can use to quiet those negative thoughts continuously going through your mind.

1.Talk about it

Tell your trusted friend or a family member what you have been saying to yourself. This should be someone who is not judgmental or the exercise will have negative results. When you talk to someone else you also get a chance to listen to what you have been telling yourself. The most helpful thing though is that the person will weigh in and let you know that the negative talk is not true.

2. Love you imperfections

Most negative talk stems from the inadequacies in your life yet those are things you have no control over. What you should do in this case is to embrace and get used to what you cannot change about yourself. Once you accept the things you have no control over you will therefore not keep musing on them.

3. Critique your self-talk

Evaluate the negative self-talk and see if it is really true. Are the things you are telling yourself factual stuff. You may be dwelling on things that someone told you that are not even true. Weigh in on you’re the self-talk and check if it’s true and most of the times you will find that it has no basis.

4. Stop being a harsh personal judge
Can you tell the same things you are telling yourself to someone you care about? Are you being kind when telling yourself those things? Look at your self-talk from a third person perspective.

Learnt to weigh in on what you say to yourself and learn to speak to yourself like you were talking to a friend you care about. When you learn to do this you will become kinder to yourself and quiet the negative self-talk.

5. Distract yourself
When the negative thoughts come to you distract yourself by doing something else. You can do this by purposely thinking about something else or getting involved in an activity. This can be a creative art like drawing, painting or even writing. You can use this opportunity to call the people you love or you can write down cute things to say to your boyfriend later in the day.
6. Keep track of your thoughts

Pay attention to your thoughts so that you can catch yourself being negative. This way you will be able to immediately evaluate the thoughts and find out if they are true so as to crush them immediately. This way you will quiet the negative self-talk since you will refute it when it’s still fresh. This will become a usual practice and the unwelcome thoughts will not have a place in your head.

7. Use affirmations

Affirmations have been proven to be effect in quieting negative self-talk. This is because the affirmations will take the place of the negative self-talk. It’s advisable to keep them short, precise, present and of course positive. Any time the negative thoughts come up,shut them up with the affirmations. The best thing is that eventually you will come to believe the affirmations a true.

8. Have a gratitude journal

A gratitude journal is a place where you write daily for at least fifteen minutes a day. On this journal you write all the good things that happened each day. This way you will be looking for and consciously noting the positive things that are happening each moment. Eventually the positive things will be all you are focusing on quieting the negative talk by cancelling it out through concentration on the good stuff only.

9. Smile
Smiling is the same as faking it until you make it. A forced smile has the same effect as a genuine one and the more you keep smiling the more you will convince yourself you feel happy. Every time the negative chatter starts in your brain just smile even though you don’t feel like. Within no time if you keep smiling you will concentrate on the smile and not the negative thoughts hence quieting them.

To Wrap it up

Negative self-talk can make your life lag behind and make you withdraw from people. This is because with time you get to believe the voice in your head that is telling you lies about your life. You can reverse this negative voice and turn your life around. Repossess your life by using the above ways we have learnt. You can keep a gratitude journal, put on a smile, use affirmations, distract yourself and keep track of your thoughts among other things.

To start off, pick the one that best resonates with you and start on your path to recovering your life. Just like wit everything in life these tips will not work overnight. This means you have to be insistent to get the results you desire but the bottom line is its doable.