“I am the greatest of all time!” Now, who said that statement? Of course, it was Muhammad Ali. Now I was a little young, but looking back at that footage, he had that one skill that all of us could improve, which is his self talk. Think about it, our beliefs, what we believe we can and cannot do, a lot of that is programmed from our self talk. Now there’s been a lot of studies about thoughts and self talk, something like 60,000 thoughts per day. And guess what? 90% of what you have today, you said and same stuff to yourself yesterday, right? Same thoughts over, and over, and over again, are now programming you to have you believe in what you can and cannot do. So your belief system is really predicated on your self talk. So Muhammad Ali, he just professed to everybody, “I am the greatest of all time.”
And when we can now look at it as, “What are we saying to ourself?” is gonna create the program; I want you to challenge yourself today. I want you to start to catch yourself about when you’re about to say something about what you can and cannot do. So what program are you running? So, for instance, let’s do a little exercise, it’s a fill in the blank. Now if you’re a sales professional, for instance, “I am a blank sales professional.” What was that first word that came to you? Right? That’s your belief. “I am a great closer. I’m good. I’m bad. I’m … ” you know, that’s your belief. How about, “I am a blank public speaker.” Some people fear that, right, so, “Oh I hate that” and they’re already running that program. How about, “I am a blank parent. I am a blank spouse.” That blank is your belief.
So I would want to know, what are you saying to yourself over, and over again, because that is either gonna push you forward to achieve something, or it’s gonna stop you in your tracks. So today, first thing, let’s start changing the blank. If that belief system is not empowering, and it’s actually taking away from you moving forward, let’s challenge it. So it that word comes in, “Oh I don’t know if can … ” stop it in its tracks and replace it. “Yeah, I can do this,” or, “Yeah, I’ve done this pretty well in the past.” It doesn’t have to be, “I’m the greatest of all time,” but it certainly can get you going in the right direction.
So we have to be more aware of our self talk, which is our belief system, which is then, ultimately, our program. Think about your software on your computer. It’s running there in the background all the time. So we’re first aware, we’re gonna stop if we have negative self talk, we’re gonna replace it. So start today by reprogramming your belief system with a little bit better self talk.