The Self-Talk Struggle Is Real: How To Win At Work With Sports Psychology

By Amy Rigby
https://blog.trello.com/negative-self-talk?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=trello-nov2018_newsletter2
October 19, 2018

In the 1998 NBA Finals, down by one point and with only 18 seconds left in the game, Michael Jordan tore the ball away from the opponent and made the winning shot of his last game with the Chicago Bulls.

That pivotal moment would go down as one of the greatest in sports history, but the remarkable thing, besides the observable aspect, is what was going on behind the scenes—more specifically, inside Jordan’s mind.

“When I got that rebound, my thoughts were very positive,” Jordan reported later, according to the book The Mindful Athlete by George Mumford, his sports psychologist at the time. Years before that championship game, Jordan and his entire team had been working with Mumford on mastering mindfulness, including harnessing the power of self-talk.

What Is Self-Talk?

Self-talk is anything you say to yourself, whether in your head or out loud. It can consist of positive statements, such as “I can do this” or “I’m going to win,” or negative ones, such as “I always mess up” or “I’m going to fail.”

Self-talk is quite natural, but ignorance of its effects can hinder your performance. Mastering self-talk is already a major part of the sports world. Why do star athletes such as Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, and Tiger Woods work with sports psychologists and mental coaches to train their brains to respond better to stress? Because they know that a huge part of winning the game is mental.

And if an athlete’s inner dialog affects their performance on the court or field, why wouldn’t your self-talk also affect your performance in the office?

How Does Negative Self-Talk Affect You?

1. It can make you feel depressed.

Therapists know that one of the main things to look for in a client who may be depressed is the amount of negative self-talk the patient uses. In fact, nurse Jaclene Zauszniewski developed an eight-item survey for healthcare providers to use to detect when someone is in a downward spiral toward clinical depression. One of the biggest predictors? Excessive negative thinking.

2. It can make you feel anxious.

One study of children 8 to 18 years of age showed that negative thoughts were among the strongest predictors of anxiety. Another study of counselor trainees found that high negative self-talk was correlated with high anxiety levels and that lower negative self-talk was associated with lower anxiety levels and improved performances in video-taped counseling interviews.

3. It can make you lose.

In a tennis study, researchers watched 24 tennis players in tournament matches and recorded their observable self-talk, gestures, and match scores. Afterward, players also reported the thoughts that were going on while they were competing. These researchers found that negative self-talk was associated with losing, and the tennis players who believed positive self-talk was useful scored more points than the players who didn’t think it was useful.

Further, a study of elite wrestlers vying for spots on the Canadian World Wrestling teams found that those who ended up qualifying had fewer negative self-thoughts one hour before competition than those who did not end up qualifying.

So if negative self-talk is so detrimental, is positive self-talk helpful? Let’s see what science has to say.

The Power of Positive Self-Talk

While negative self-talk is linked to depression, anxiety, and losing, positive self-talk, on the other hand, is associated with improvements in your performance and mood. And while it may sound hokey to “talk nicely” to yourself, the supporting evidence from scientific research might have you singing a different tune.

1. It can improve your health.

One study of elementary school children found that positive self-talk was positively related to self-esteem. And a study in Denmark found that heart disease patients with a positive attitude were more likely to be alive five years later, which might be because optimistic patients are more likely to exercise.

If you’re in the habit of constantly telling yourself “I’m incompetent” or “I’m going to get fired,” then feelings of worthlessness are soon to follow, impacting your mental health and your work performance. As you saw earlier, negative self-talk can lead to depression. And in the workplace, depression costs us an estimated $44 billion a year in lost productivity.

Reframing your perspective with self-talk such as “you’re going to get better” and “look how far you’ve come compared to last year” makes for a more optimistic view that might encourage you to seek opportunities to improve.

2. It can boost your performance.

In a review of the literature on self-talk and mental imagery, researchers from Arizona State University proposed that constructive thought management, which includes positive self-talk, can improve employee and organizational performance.

In a water polo study, two experiments tested very specific kinds of self-talk: instructional versus motivational. Experiment one had the participants complete a precision task of throwing the ball at a target, while experiment two had them complete a power task of throwing the ball for distance. Researchers found that when precision was needed, instructional self-talk (“elbow high” and “hand follow the ball”) helped the most. But when power was needed, motivational self-talk (“I can”) worked best.

So if you’re, say, pitching a business idea to potential investors and feel nervous about your performance, telling yourself, “deep breaths” and “remember the talking points you practiced” are instructional self-talk examples that will help you do your best. But if you’re doing a task that doesn’t require much thought and you just need to power through it, such as organizing files or entering data, simply telling yourself “I can do this” should do the trick.

3. It can help you land a job.

A study conducted on unemployed managers divided them into two groups: One group received training on monitoring their functional versus dysfunctional self-talk, while the control group received no training. Nine months later, 50 percent of those who had been trained to increase their functional self-talk had found jobs, versus just one percent of the control group.

Bottom line: positive self-talk can help to boost your confidence and give you that extra drive needed to land your dream job.

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