3 Strategies for Self-Talk

Before I had decades of experience in the world of sport psychology, I was a basketball player.

The summer before my junior year of college, I needed to work out consistently to enter the season in the best possible shape. There was only one problem: I’d never been someone who said, “let’s go to the gym today” on my own. It was hard for me to push myself without the accountability of my team and coach. I worked with them hard because I embraced (and loved) being part of something bigger than myself.

So I tried something new—I brought my coach to me.

I put sticky notes on my mirror, the dresser in my bedroom, and my car. Each note had either a concrete goal, the team’s name that upset us the year before or declared my dream of making a run in the NCAA tournament. I saw these statements throughout the day, and I made it so I couldn’t escape my thoughts.

Without even knowing it, I was using self-talk to train my inner coach.

Self-talk can get a bad rap because many people think of it purely as an attempt to paint a rosy picture of life (“be positive”) or to refuse to engage with the negative. But I invite you to think of it like this: just as you wouldn’t speak to a three-year-old the same as a thirteen-year-old, your self-talk also needs to change as you meet life’s various challenges.

You can train your inner coach to a level of sophistication and maturity that meets you where you are currently—and give you what you currently need. Sometimes this means you might need to fire your inner coach and hire a new one. You don’t always want a Bobby-Knight-throwing-chairs coach. Sometimes, a sweeter Ted Lasso approach is what you need for a specific obstacle. Your ideal coach knows what to say and when to say it.

Here are three simple ways to begin training your inner coach:

1. Match your inner coach to where you’re at, age and experience-wise.

Going back to that three-year-old v. thirteen-year-old—you wouldn’t tell a thirteen-year-old to get their binky when they are upset, would you? You’d let them share and acknowledge the challenge they’re facing. You can use this approach with yourself when you need a pep talk. Acknowledge the situation, and ask yourself what an ideal coach would say to get you through that moment.

I’ve done this with my daughters. When they were younger, we ended most nights with a call-and-response version of self-talk. I would say to them, “I am strong, I am liked, I am important, I believe in myself, I am smart, and I am loved.” They would repeat each line back to me. I was showing them how to speak to themselves in the same supportive way a coach would, which was age-appropriate at the time.

Now that they’re older, we no longer do this every night. They’re at ages where they can coach and challenge themselves, rather than needing it to come from me. But I’m happy I helped them build that habit and skill much younger than I did myself. And why would I deny myself the same support I deemed so essential for them?

2. Your inner coach should be context-specific.

Think of the plethora of tasks you accomplish each day. You don’t need to coach yourself to complete a lot of them, right? You can write an email, meet a deadline, and handle quite a bit without thinking much about it. But when you start to get into tasks that are truly important or challenging for your current skill level, that’s when self-talk and your inner coach can make a difference.

For myself, when I need to take a task to the next level and be efficient, I use the self-talk phrase, “drill down here.” This means that I need to hone in, do some deep work, and knock this task out. That particular phrase triggers me to turn off distractions and really push myself in that specific area.

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3. Your inner coach gets stronger and more personalized through deliberate practice.

To improve self-talk, you can deliberately employ your inner coach and then monitor how that approach worked. This is called “deliberate practice,” the act of rehearsing a skill or behavior purposefully and systematically.

But remember: just as you wouldn’t expect to hit 10/10 free throws the first time you step up to the line, you can’t expect to nail your self-talk the first few times. There’s a decent amount of experimentation in terms of phrases, coaching style (challenging v. supportive), and the right timing to deploy phrases.

And practicing this skill matters. A favorite quote of mine from the movie The American President demonstrates why:

People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.

In the absence of a coach, our mind is freer to flood with negative self-talk examples that can hurt our performance or self-image, such as, “you’re blowing it,” or, “everyone can see you don’t belong here.” Being proactive in developing your inner coach prevents these thoughts from being able to seize the microphone easily.

At the end of the day, your ideal coach is the one who knows when to talk to you, what to say, and how to say it. For me, sometimes I need to “drill down here,” and for others, I simply need to hear that I am loved to make it through a tough day or deal with a setback.

Whatever your role, we all navigate relational, personal, and social issues. Those who train self-talk are able to take on more of life’s challenges—with the inner coach who’s always by our sides.