During the first eighteen years of our lives, if we grew up in fairly average, reasonably positive homes, we were told “No!” or what we could not do, more than 148,000 times!

Leading behavioral researchers have told us that as much as seventy-seven percent of everything we think is negative, counterproductive, and works against us.

At the same time, medical researchers have said that as much as seventy-five percent of all illnesses are self-induced.

You will become what you think about most; your success or failure in anything, large or small, will depend on your programming—what you accept from others, and what you say when you talk to yourself. It is no longer a success theory; it is a simple, but powerful, fact. Neither luck nor desire has the slightest thing to do with it. It makes no difference whether consciously accept it or not. The brain simply believes what you tell it most. And what you tell it about you, it will create. It has no choice.

Of all the self-help concepts I have uncovered, the concept of “programming” the brain with a more successful “new picture” of yourself is the most sensible.

The more you think about yourself in a certain way, the more you will think about yourself in that same certain way!

The longer you have bought the thought, the “truer” it is.

The human brain will do anything possible you tell it to do, if you tell it often enough and strongly enough!

What is Self-Talk, and how does it work? The definition of Self-Talk can be simply stated: Self-Talk is a way to override our past negative programming by erasing or replacing it with conscious, positive new directions. Self-Talk is a practical way to live our lives by active intent rather than by passive acceptance.

With Self-Talk, we have a way to give new directions to our subconscious minds by talking to ourselves in a different way, consciously reprogramming our internal control centers with words and statements which are more effective, more helpful to every part of us that we would like to improve. The Self-Talk statements paint a new internal picture of ourselves as we would most like to be.

Self-Talk gives each of us a way to change what we would like to change, even if we haven’t been able to do so in the past. It offers us the chance to stop being the old self and start to become a different, better self, a self which is no longer the product of conditioned response, but governed instead by personal choice.—What To Say When You Talk To Your Self by Dr. Shad Helmstetter

Want to make this idea a habit in your life?

We have just completed a Bible study to guide your group into meditating on and applying these truths. The Tongue is a Rudder is our Bible Study based on Nelson’s Searcy’s book Tongue Pierced: How the Words You Speak Transform the Life You Live. It consists of 8 ready-to-use question-based Bible Studies suitable for groups. It can be purchased on Amazon and is also available as part of Good Questions Have Groups Talking Subscription Service.