Apply our problem solving method

• Learn to understand the nature and function of self-talk.
• Learn to identify and critique your own self-talk styles.
• Learn to use self-talk to boost your confidence.

“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” – Stuart Smalley

“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . . .I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could!” – Thomas the choo choo train in The Little Engine that Could

“I’ve overcome this kind of thing before, and I can do it again this time.” – anonymous graduate student

Self-talk is what you say to yourself silently. It is also known as inner dialogue, internal voice, or private speech. The concept of self-talk is similar to the concept of thinking habits (see How You Think), but it refers more specifically to momentary and self-directed inner speech. 

The quotes above are examples of positive self-talk statements that you can carry in your back pocket, so to speak, to get you through the ups and downs of graduate school.

Self-talk can be harmful. The metaphor of two voices inside your head, arguing about what you should or shouldn’t be doing, represents two types of self-talk. The “internal negative committee” is critical, judgmental, and wants to see you fail. The “the internal booster committee” is kind and forgiving, but also pushes you to do what is best for you, even when difficult. 

This module is designed to help you to pay more attention to the “booster committee” inside your head to help become your own top cheerleader throughout your career.

People vary in their self-talk styles: take a moment to reflect on what you say to yourself in difficult situations. 

For instance, are you always “in your head,” censoring your thoughts and actions before you put anything to words? Do you rely less on self-talk and more on others for guidance? Does what you say to yourself motivate you or make you feel worse about yourself, discouraging you further?

Four different continua of self-talk styles have been identified (Brintahaupt et al, 2009). These include the degree to which you are self-reinforcing, self-criticizing, self-managing, and sensitive to the assessments of others. Some styles of self-talk are more constructive than others.

Self-reinforcing behaviors include:

• Congratulating and feeling proud of yourself. e.g. “I rocked that presentation!”
• Giving yourself courage to do something, e.g. “I can do this!”
• Encouraging yourself and boosting your self-confidence. e.g. “Wow, I sure have come a long way since my first year here!”

Self-criticizing behaviors include:

• Criticizing yourself. “I blew that interview! No one will ever hire me!”
• Feeling ashamed of something you’ve said or done.
• Telling yourself you should have done something differently.

Self-managing qualities include:

• Giving yourself guidance and direction. “Just finish writing these last few sections and then watch the next episode of the new season!” 
• Telling yourself you “should,” “ought to,” or “have to” do something.
• Stopping yourself, as in “Don’t do it!”
• Going over different options of things you can say or do in your head.
• Focusing on success, as in “Do your best”

Sensitivity to the assessments of others includes:

• Going over what you have said to another person in your head.
• Wondering what others think about you.
• Rehearsing what you will say to others.

It’s not unusual to have overly negative or self-critical thoughts from time to time, but it’s easy to become stuck in a cycle of negativity. On the extreme, negative self-talk habits can lead to a sense of hopelessness and even depression. Luckily self-defeating self-talk habits can be broken.

A first step is to become aware of your negative self-talk. Whenever you catch yourself thinking negatively in a situation, rather than ignoring it, write it down right away along with what triggered it. 

Recording these instances will help you identify the content of recurring negative self-talk. Doing this will alert you sooner the next time and allow you to replace the negative with positive self-talk.

Self-test

When you notice you are engaging in self-talk, what should you do?

Learning to expand your constructive self-talk has many advantages. There are several ways in which positive self-talk builds you up, motivates you, and helps increase your motivation and chances for success. 

These include:

• Reminding yourself what’s most important to you (e.g., “I am not going to let this one undergraduate’s insulting comment get to me; his opinion is not one that matters to my career in the grand scheme of things.”)
• Preserving your sense of integrity
• Increasing your self-control abilities
• Maximizing your options of dealing with stress
• Maintaining your confidence in the face of stigma
• Sifting out the parts of your experience that have to do with you, and the parts that do not (e.g. “Wow, this person seems to be getting really upset, maybe I said something wrong, or maybe they are just having a bad day.”)
• Regulating your emotional reactions
• Monitoring bad habits

Even small changes to your self-talk can make big differences. Consider the following examples: 

• Think “I will graduate” and “When I graduate,” not “If I graduate”
• Say to yourself “Just don’t do it” when faced with demands on your time that would take you away from your priorities (also see Set Priorities)
• Think about the situation as if you were a “fly on the wall” or replace “I” with your name. This method is called self-distancing and helps with emotional regulation
• If it’s a negative thought, dispute it (see How You Think for more on this.)
• Remind yourself of past successes in similar situations
• Give yourself compliments

Tip: Be a friend to yourself. If your self-talk is overly critical, ask yourself whether or not you would say the same thing to someone you care about. Remember, you have the power to be just as hurtful or encouraging towards yourself as those around you.

You can’t help what type of thoughts pop into your mind, but you can reframe, or replace, negative self-talk. Replacing a negative thought takes gathering evidence against as well as in support of your thought. 

Ask yourself: What reason do I have to think this way? What are some other ways to think about this? Even if the thought is true, what is the worst thing that it might imply? Is it really so bad?

The first column below represents unhelpful things you might catch yourself thinking from time to time. The second column represents more accurate and helpful self-talk statements:

Motivating and constructive self-talk are not just about thinking positively. While it is important not to be overly self-critical, it is also important to be open to hearing feedback that could turn out to be helpful. (See Receiving and Responding to Feedback).

Sometimes we become defensive when we hear information that threatens our identity or integrity; in those situations, we might try to protect ourselves through self-talk that dismisses the credibility of the messenger or downplays the implications of the message.

Fortunately, you can maintain your open-mindedness amidst these kinds of perceived threats by reminding yourself of what is important to you. Keeping your values and life resources in mind helps you see more easily the everyday stressors in the context of a bigger picture. Getting a bad grade or receiving a paper rejection, for example, is not as big a deal when you remember that you are on your way to a Ph.D.

Activity:

When you have some time, try this exercise: write down what’s most important to you in life, what your values are, and/or what’s most central to your identity. Then, whenever you are in a situation you find threatening, remind yourself of who you are and what is important to you.

REFLECTIONS

It’s your turn to do the weekly presentation for your lab team. In front of everyone, your supervisor asks how you possibly could have thought this was the correct algorithm to apply to your data. You feel embarrassed and ashamed about the whole situation.

Which option below best represents how you can use self-talk to handle your embarrassment? Would you:

1. Remind yourself to talk with various friends, family members, and colleagues until you get enough confirmation from others that your advisor was being unduly harsh.
2. Ask yourself, “What was I thinking? I am such an idiot.”
3. Say to yourself, “Well my advisor should have taught me this if he wanted me to know it.”
4. Say to yourself, “That’s embarrassing. But, I am here to learn. I can only become a great scientist by getting feedback and guidance.”
5. Say to yourself, “I am just as capable as anyone else at becoming a great scientist; I’ve succeeded at almost everything I’ve put my mind to so far.”

Answers “D” and “E” best represent how to handle an embarrassing situation through the use of positive, self-affirming, motivating self-talk. 

Option “A” illustrates relying on others to feel better about the situation. Option “B” is an example of overly critical and negative self-talk. Option “C” is an example of a self-talk statement that might make you feel less embarrassed about the situation but is not a motivating or useful way to think about the situation.

Staying focused and inspired as a woman in a science and engineering graduate program involves strong self-motivation skills. Improving your self-talk, especially by becoming more self-affirming, can help build up your resilience and guard against frustration and burnout during graduate school. Think of affirming self-talk as another skill you are building along the way.

Below are questions you can use to keep your self-talk in check:

1. Is my self-talk reasonable and accurate? Where is the evidence?
2. Is my self-talk being a good friend to myself?
3. Does my self-talk keep me away from negative emotions?
4. Does my self-talk help me solve problems and reach my goals?

Brinthaupt, T. M., Hein , M. B., & Kramer, T. E. (2009). The Self-Talk Scale: Development, factor analysis, and validation. Journal of Personality Assessment 91(1), 82-92. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223890802484498.

Carden, L., & Wood, W. (2018). Habit formation and change. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 20, 117–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.12.009

Cohen, G., & Sherman, D. (2014). The psychology of change: Self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65(1), 333–371. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115137

Dieringer, D., Lenz, J., Hayden, S., & Peterson, G. (2017). The relation of negative career thoughts to depression and hopelessness. The Career Development Quarterly, 65(2), 159–172. https://doi.org/10.1002/cdq.12089

Hatzigeorgiadis, A., & Galanis, E. (2017). Self-talk effectiveness and attention. Current Opinion in Psychology, 16, 138–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.05.014 

Kross, E., & Ayduk, O. (2017). Self-distancing: Theory, research, and current directions. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 55, 81-136. Academic Press.

Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., Bremner, R., Moser, J., & Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–324. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035173 

Mischkowski, D., Kross, E., & Bushman, B. (2012). Flies on the wall are less aggressive: Self-distancing “in the heat of the moment” reduces aggressive thoughts, angry feelings and aggressive behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(5), 1187–1191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.03.012 

Oleś, P., Brinthaupt, T., Dier, R., & Polak, D. (2020). Types of inner dialogues and functions of self-talk: Comparisons and implications. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 227–227. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00227

Orvell, A., Vickers, B., ke, B., Verduyn, P., Ayduk, O., Moser, J., Jonides, J., & Kross, E. (2021). Does distanced self-talk facilitate emotion regulation across a range of emotionally intense experiences? Clinical Psychological Science, 9(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702620951539 

Quinn, J. M., Pascoe, A., Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2010). Can’t control yourself? monitor those bad habits. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(4), 499-511. https://doi.org/q0.1177/0146167209360665.

Senay, I., Albarracin, D., & Noguchi, K. (2010). Motivating goal-directed behavior through introspective self-talk: The role of the interrogative form of simple future tense. Psychological Science, 21(5), 499-504. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610364751.

Undergrad Science vs. Real Life Science (Part 2)

The importance of learning from your effort, regardless of the outcome.

Making the Decision Later in Life

How to sustain taking time off and pursuing the PhD later in life.

Asserting Yourself in the Face of Authority

The importance of standing up for yourself.

Stubbornness and Tenacity

Highlights the obstacles faced when trying to have research reviewed by the advisor and emphasizes the steps necessary to make adequate progress in the program.

Contrasting Genders in the Sciences While Looking at Models of Learning

The importance of recognizing the progress that has been made by women in science fields.

Looking Back on Raising Kids While Working

Explains the role children play in career choices.

Trade Offs and Choices

The tradeoffs and choices of graduate life.

Keep Looking for Faculty Support

The importance of finding the right advisor to support your research goals.