Self-talk

That s kind of how I deal with fear, you know. I just remind myself that it s not permanent, and do some self-talking. 

If you try pulling an all-nighter, you won t be able to think. So treat it the way athletes do a big match or game Relax and get to bed early. Get up in plenty of time to have breakfast before your exam. Use positive self-talk. You may find that you want to isolate yourself from the other students before an exam so that you don t get into a question and answer dialogue and panic yourself. 

Banish negative thoughts. Pay attention to your inner self-talk. When you hear a put-down about yourself, stop it in its tracks. Refer to your "positive traits" list, or call a friend who makes you feel good about yourself. 

I have left my previous occupation and begun writing and now I publish a quarterly newsletter. The difficulties of life are still here and my fears are often operative. What is different is that though things are somewhat the same, they look and feel different, feel positive. My negative self-talk is diminished. I have greater self-acceptance and am more at ease. I smile more. The world looks better. There is a calmness. I have a new reservoir of strength to draw from—I am more myself. 

Boost your confidence for exams by positive imaging (imagining that you have passed) and by practising self-talk and affirmations - provided that you have done the necessary study and revision. 

Ten suggested approaches to managing stress include the following worry only about things over which you have control, include physical exercise as part of your routine, have hobbies and destimulating activities in which you can lose yourself, plan ahead, avoid negative self-talk, rename the events that are stressful to you, build a support system, be decisive, put the situation into perspective, and use role models of others who have succeeded. 

Identify cognitive self-talk that supports irrational thoughts. 

Client to make a list of what he/she is anxious about in past and present (complete in session with worker). Encourage client to share feelings of anxiety and develop healthy self-talk as a means of handling anxiety. Assign participation in recreational activities and reinforce social activities and verbalizations. 

Either way, there is one intervention you can make right now that is within your control and might also help. That is, don t beat yourself up, says Castellon. When you find yourself saying, Oh, Tm so stupid, I can t do that, I should have remembered where I parked my car, try to stop the negative self-talk. The depressive and anxious... 

In Chapter 5, we discussed the Intrapersonal dimension of inclusion, which included the self-talk, internal thought, reasoning, attributional, and decision-making processes that individuals engaged in that made them include (or exclude) themselves. With respect to external stakeholders, the intrapersonal dimension of our Ubuntic inclusion model manifested itself as the intrinsic enjoyment of satisfying customers. 

Of course, the primary purpose of getting involved in a safety intervention is to prevent injury or improve a person s quality of life. Unfortunately, we rarely see these most important consequences. Thus, we need motivation, feedback, interpersonal approval, and self-talk. We tell ourselves the safe behavior is "the right thing to do," and that someday an injury will be prevented. We cannot count the number of injuries we prevent we just need to "keep the faith."... 

Behavioral scientists, however, do not deny the existence of internal factors that motivate action. There is no doubt that we talk to ourselves before and after our behaviors, and this self-talk influences our performance. We often give ourselves internal verbal instructions, called intentions, before performing certain behaviors. After our activities, we often evaluate our performance with internal consequences. In the process, we might motivate ourselves to press on (with self-commendation) or to stop (with self-condemnation). 

Interpersonal conversation defines the culture in which we work. It can create conflict and buUd barriers to safety improvement or it can cultivate the kind cfwork culture needed to make a major breakthrough in injury prevention. Interpersonal conversation also affects our intrapersorud conversations or self-talk, which in turn influences our willingness to get involved in safety-improvement efforts. This chapter explains the reciprocal impact cf inter- and intrapersonal conversation and offers guidelines for aligning both toward the achievement cfa Total Safety Culture. 

This chapter is also about interpersonal conversation and coaching, but the emphasis is on brief informal communication to support safe behavior and help it become more fluent. How we talk with others (interpersonal communication) influences their attitude and ongoing behavior, and how we talk to ourselves (intrapersonal communication) influences our own behavior and attitude. Therefore, this chapter also addresses self-talk—the mental scripts we carry around in our heads before, during, and after our behaviors. 

What are love, friendship, coinage, loyalty, happiness, and forgiveness Sure, you can describe behaviors that reflect these concepts, but where is the true meaning 1 think we derive the meaning of these common words from our conversations. Think about how we "fall in or out of love" depending on how we talk to ourselves and others. Likewise, we can convince omselves we are happy through om self-talk, and this inner conversation is obviously influenced by what we hear others say about us. 

Figure 13 A Negative self-talk can ruin a good thing.

Expect barriers and resistance to change warns Krisco. The greater the change, the greater the resistance, but remember, most barriers to change are interpretations or people s self-talk about perceived reality. Conversation, both interpersonal and intrapersonal, enables us to overcome the barriers that hold back the accomplishment of breakthroughs. 

Applying these techniques can also improve how you talk to yourself—your "self-talk." The payoff is increased self-esteem and perceptions of empowerment, which are essential for increasing our willingness to actively care for the safety and health... 

The strategies covered here for getting the most from interpersonal conversation are reviewed in Figure 13.9. Each technique is relevant for getting more safety-related involvement from others. Applying these strategies effectively can improve one s self-talk or intrapersonal conversation. This leads to increased self-esteem and perceptions of empowerment—person states which enhance an individual s willingness to actively care for the safety and health of others. Evidence for this is detailed in Section 5 of this Handbook. 

Remember that planting certain words in self-talk and conversations with others can improve your self-image and confidence as a facilitator of beneficial change. Tell others of your increased commitment to facilitate more effective safety conversations. Then, tell yourself the strategies you will use to improve interpersonal conversation and commend yourself when you do. In this way, intra- and interpersonal conversations work together to help achieve a Total Safety Culture. 

You need to keep a supportive conversation simple and to the point. Give your behavior-based praise a chance to soak in. In this fast-paced age of trying to do more with less, we try to conununicate as much as possible when we finally get in touch with a busy person. After recognizing a person s special safety effort, we are tempted to tag on a bunch of unrelated statements, even a request for additional behavior. This comes across as, "I appreciate what you ve done for safety, but 1 need more." Resist the temptation to do more th praise the good behavior you saw. If you have additional points to discuss, it is better to recormect later, after your praise has had a chance to sink in and become a part of the person s self-talk. 

By giving quality interpersonal support, we give people a script they can use to reward their own behavior. In other words, our quality recognition improves the other person s interpersonal conversation. Positive self-talk is crucial for long-term maintenance of safe behavior. In odier words, when we allow our recognition to stand alone and soak in, we give people words they can use later for self-motivation. 

Chapter 10 showed how this principle guides the development of more effective activators and Chapter 11 outlined procedures for improving the motivational power of consequences. In Chapter 9,1 introduced the concept of self-directed behavior, implying that we can provide our own activators to direct our behavior, as exemplified in Figure 20.4. Then, when we comply with a self-arranged activator, we can use positive self-talk as a motivating consequence. 

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