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“Hi! My name is Jennifer and I am a Negative Nelly.”
“Hi, Jennifer!” the group responds.
“I am a Negative Nelly but YOU will NEVER know that. You know why?!? Because I won’t be negative to you. I am only negative to myself!”
“If you need a friend, I am here for you.”
“If you are struggling, I will lift you up!”
“If you need motivation, I will motivate you and give you words of encouragement!”
“However, if I fail, I will beat myself up and say bad things to myself.”
Does this sound familiar?
Tonight’s meeting topic was all about self talk.
I walked into my Weight Watchers meeting with a pretty negative self talk going on in my head. I knew I had gained weight this week (I weigh every Monday morning at my scale at home) and I was not happy about it. I wasn’t surprised but I still wasn’t happy.
Sure enough, I gained 1.4.
The meeting topic was perfect because I have really been struggling with negative self-talk lately. I am really hard on myself and even got this email from a reader:
I know you give yourself “Gunny” talks, so I’m not going to throw a kleenex box at you and tell you to “man up” haha. You are very tough on yourself. You self talk to yourself the way I do. Can I gently ask you, “Would you give that talk to your Biggest Loser participants at your work? Or to your students about their grades?”
No. I know you wouldn’t, and I only have your blog posts to know the answer.
I’m pretty sure you are a perfectionist (which is not a bad thing) but it can work as a sabotage. Sometimes the expectations you put on yourself are so high…you are setting yourself up to fail (ask me how I know).
So..if I may be so bold…what advice would you give to ME if I was yo-yoing and in your position?
I think you are great Jennifer! Thanks!
WOW! That hurt and resonated truth all at the same time.
I can sum up the meeting in one sentence:
We need to talk to ourselves the same way we talk to others.
Plain and Simple!
When I called my mom to tell her about my weight gain, she had the perfect response. She said, “Well, you lost 1.6 last week so you are still ahead 0.2 pounds!” That was the PERFECT response!
Are you a Negative Nelly? Would you say to someone else struggling the things you say to yourself? This week, no more negative talk! If you start to say something negative to yourself, you have to say 5 positive things in its place.
Have a great, positive week!
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