How to Kick Negative Self-Talk to the Curb

Aug 10

I am a skilled sales professional. I’ve been in sales now for 25+ years and really love it. But I had to return a phone call to someone the other day, and I was a little nervous to make the call. A thought flickered in my mind, “Don’t screw this up.” After all this time doing sales lead generation work, I still fail to speak kindly to myself sometimes.

So I posted the question on Facebook and to my Come and Go group sales coaching cohort, “What are unhelpful statements/thoughts that run through your head when you need to do something that you're scared to do?”

Here are some of their very real and honest responses:

I’ll embarrass myself.
Other people can do it but not you.
What made you think you were capable of ___ ? (Fill in the blank)
They will probably say no.
Maybe it’s not that important; I can just skip it.
Come on, ____, you loser. (They used their own name here)
Why haven’t you finished this yet?
It’ll be a waste of time.
What if I mess it up?
There’s something wrong with me.

All these boil down to one big question: Am I enough? Most everyone, even awesome sales professionals, have Imposter Syndrome to some extent. We doubt our ability. We doubt that we’re enough.

While these kinds of thoughts are nearly universal (which is a comfort on some level), they’re also completely unhelpful.

The National Science Foundation reports that people have between 12,000- 60,000 thoughts we have in a day, 80% are negative and 95% of those were thoughts repeated from the day before. We’re marinating in our own negativity.

So what can we do? We must catch ourselves in the act. Write down that statement as it flickers in your mind. Call it what it is, unhelpful, and tell yourself a new, true thing. Pick up the phone or write the email. I hope it encourages you to hear that you are not alone, and guess what? ...I didn’t screw it up. Don’t let your inactivity decide the outcome. You are enough!