Using Self Talk to Motivate Your Day

There are moments in life when we lack motivation to do what we need to do. How we guide our thoughts at that first moment can be critical. Self talk is something we all do. We may not talk out loud, but we all use self talk and what we tell ourselves is important. Today I really felt sluggish getting up. That isn't a good sign as today is when I do dead lifts at the gym. Anyone who has ever used the dead lift as a workout knows how important attitude is. I caught myself thinking negative in time enough to use the tool of self talk. I told myself that I was going to enjoy trying to lift as much as I possibly could. At first my mind fought against this. My mind and body had already formed an 'alliance of the lazy'. I had to use self talk for a good 5 minutes to get myself to a point where my mind and body gave in. Self talk is a simple tool to use, but often people use it to talk themselves out of doing things they really need or want to do.

I think of the teenager who has been told time and time again by his or her peers that they can't do something. Maybe a girl really likes a guy, but her friends tell her he is out of her league. The girl not only starts believing this, but she starts using self talk to talk herself out of asking the guy out. That is criminal on two counts. First, those aren't friends telling her this type of thing. Those are people to stay away from. Second, letting others control what you feel is horrible. It is not the girls fault in this case. I would bet no one ever told her she was just as worthy and valuable as anyone else. The facts rarely align with the voices in these cases. The voices speaking to her and the doubt she now carries come from a place of lies. It also saps the girl's courage to ask the boy out. This is true of every aspect of life. I just use the one example here.

Learning that it is OK to lose or be 'turned down' is a concept lost on the kids of today. In fact, it has been lost for decades. We learn more from a loss than a win so why are we so afraid of it? It is simple. We let other voices seep into our mind and create a fear that isn't based on fact. After enough time, we use self talk to criticize our self and that not only gives us a poor self image, but it destroys our potential. In these cases, we need to use self talk as a means to gain courage to do the things in life we feel we need to do. In other words, do not sell yourself short. The girl mentioned before would have grown more as a human if she asked the guy out and was turned down. The fact is in many cases, the guy may have said yes. Either way, it would have been a better situation if she used self talk to gain the courage to try.

The development of self talk is really an important step. We tell ourselves 10,000 things a day. We need to discipline what we are telling ourselves. The biggest fact is we lie to ourselves about what we are capable of and those lies are mostly telling us 'You can't do that'. Discipline your self talk. Again, go back to my articles on using a journal. If you told yourself you are going to do this or accomplish that and that old negative voice pops into your head saying it is impossible, use your self talk to shut that voice down. You can start to monitor this and even write down in a journal how much of your self talk was positive or negative. You may have learned that there is something you wanted to do that was not what you thought it would be. Tell yourself, OK, I learned from that and now I go on to other things. If you don't learn from life continuously, you are not living up to your full potential. The great news is that it is never too late to learn to discipline your self talk to help you grow and find the joy in life.

The best time to start using self talk is right before you go to sleep and right when you get up. A goal should be to see if the self talk is consistent. Over time, you will learn that at night you may be too critical and in the morning you may have to fight to stay positive. It is a fight in both instances. Take that fight on and use self talk to control your emotions and gain your peace of mind. Be honest, but give yourself some slack. Life is a continuous fight. I urge you to use self talk to have another weapon in your arsenal to take that fight on. Over time, you will grow to know who you are and what you can achieve.

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Learn Quick And Easy Tips To Get Fit

To build stronger abdominal muscles, don't overdo it. You don't want to do abdominal exercises every day of the week. Just like the other muscles in your body, your abs need to rest between workouts. Do your abdominal workout, just two or three days a week for the best results.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7510369If you want to develop a great looking upper body, it is crucial to perform chinups on a regular basis. In addition to targeting your back, chinups also work your arms, shoulders, chest and abs. When performing chinups don't think about pulling yourself up, instead focus on bringing your elbows down. This will make the exercise seem easier and will allow you to squeeze out a few more repetitions.

If you really want to get great looking abs you shouldn't work them every day. In order for you to build up muscle you have to give it a chance to recuperate and regenerate in between workouts. If you want great results you should only work your abs three times a week.

If you are trying to build better abs, then you need to make sure that you do not work them every single day. The abs are just like any other muscle in your body. You should only train them 2 or 3 days a week so that they have time to repair themselves.

Never use a weight belt. While many trainers will tell you that they are great for everything, weight belts actually weaken your abdominal and lower back muscles. They put heavy pressure on muscles you are not working, causing your muscles to pull from areas they normally wouldn't, namely your abs and back.

Work out your abs without doing crunches. That's right, all you have to do is to take a deep breath and on the exhale, simply squeeze your belly to your spine and hold it for about 10 seconds. You'll be working your transversus abdominis muscle, which lays behind more prominent abdominal muscles but can flatten your stomach noticeably.

A good tip for weight lifters is to ditch their weight belt. While it is true that a weight belt offers support to your back, it is important to realize that continuous use of a weight belt can weaken both your lower back and your abs. If you must use a weight belt make sure to workout your back accordingly.

When you are concentrating your fitness goals onto your abs, remember they need to rest. You will not do them any favors with daily workouts. You should limit your ab training to three days a week. You should never do more than four days of ab training in a week.

Control your breathing! For fitness enthusiasts who are working on their abs, exhale as hard as you can - at the top position - when you are performing crunches or sit-ups. This pushes your abdominal muscles to work even harder, which should give you better results in not time!

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