Childhood causes of negative self-talk in your clients (Where does negative self-talk come from?)

Listen to the podcast version here:

Today we will explore where negative self talk in your coaching clients comes from.

We can define negative self talk as thoughts which stop your clients from taking action towards what they want.

As a result, they do not achieve their goals, they do not blossom to their fullest potential and they fail to create the life that they want. They may end up feeling unfulfilled and unhappy with life.

It is good to know where our self talk comes from. So that when we catch our minds having a negative dialogue, we know that it comes from something our parents said to us when we were growing up, for example.

When your clients can filter out thoughts which originate from other people, they may not be so affected by these negative thoughts. They will still have the drive to move towards their goals.

On the other hand, if we do not care where our self talk comes from, our thoughts will control us. We will be ‘slaves’ to our thoughts essentially. And this is harmful because our thoughts are not 100% correct. Negative self talk can be harmful because it brings up feelings like fear, shame, anxiety, doubt.

If we let these negative thoughts and feelings run our lives, we will not grow as a person. So it’s helpful to filter out which of our negative thoughts are planted in our minds by other people.

There are many things which cause negative self talk. But today we will focus on how our upbringing can produce negative self talk in us.

When your clients have parents or caregivers who expect perfection or who only show love when they achieve success, this can really ‘screw’ them up as adults.

Let’s explore the 3 childhood causes of negative self talk.

Childhood cause of negative self-talk #1: “You (or your work) are never good enough. There is ALWAYS room for improvement.”

The first childhood cause of negative self-talk is hearing this message often: “You are never good enough, there is always room for improvement.” This message can be said indirectly by parents, family members, teachers or even friends.

If your coaching client heard this message too many times when they were young, they may grow up to be perfectionists. They may not take action towards their big goals because they never think that they are good enough. Or, they may overwork to be as close to excellence as possible. 

This trend is common amongst clients who come from families who value high achievements or if they were enrolled in top, high-performing schools when they were young.

Now, if you are a coach who wants to help your clients overcome negative self-talk, then you can check out my done-for-you Overcome Negative Self-Talk workshop.

The workshop is already done for you, so you can conduct your own workshop by tomorrow and sell it to your audience. Now with that out of the way, let’s move on to the second cause of negative self-talk.

Childhood cause of negative self-talk #2: Only receiving love and attention when they did something ‘good’.

The second cause of negative self-talk is experiencing conditional love when we were young. Some parents only give love and attention to their kids when their kids did something ‘good’.

These parents may even reject or punish their kids when they do not meet the parents’ expectations. But when these children obey their parents, get straight As in exams or achieve some kind of success, their parents will shower them with praises and affection.

These kids may grow up into adults who think that they have to be successful or achieve big things in order to get love and approval. It’s actually quite sad when you think about it. 

Childhood cause of negative self-talk #3: Endless comparison

The third childhood cause of negative self-talk is constant comparison. If your clients’ parents compared them endlessly to their siblings when they were young, they will feel that they are not worthy as individuals.

They will feel as though they are living in their siblings’ shadows. They may even think that they have no identity of their own. They may grow up believing that they have no unique talent or nothing valuable to offer the world. They may not even be able to pinpoint what their strengths are. 

They may have low self-esteem, no sense of identity and may blindly follow what other people are doing instead of honouring their own interests and talents.

Now, at this point of the video, you may be looking for tools to help your clients overcome negative self-talk.

That’s why your next step is to check out my done-for-you Overcome Negative Self Talk workshop where you will get the slides, the script and workbook all done for you so you can launch it fast.

That’s all for now - I’ll see you when I see you.

Shikah

PS: If you want to create a negative self-talk workshop but feel overwhelmed with the many things you have to do everyday, I have a done-for-you workshop which has the 1) slides 2) workbook 3) script all done for you.