In this solo episode of the Proteus Leader Show, executive coach and author Erika Andersen explains how the constant inner monologue—self‑talk—can shape our emotions, decisions, and performance. She walks listeners through a four‑step practical process for turning unhelpful, often negative self‑talk into supportive, realistic internal dialogue. First, she urges listeners to become aware of the voice in their head, especially during moments of anxiety, fear, or anger. Second, she recommends writing down the exact negative statements to create psychological distance and make the thoughts visible. Third, she guides listeners to rewrite those statements into believable, constructive alternatives rather than unrealistic affirmations. Finally, she stresses the need for repeated practice to form a new habit of thought, noting that this habit can prevent self‑fulfilling prophecies and improve performance in leadership contexts. Andersen ties the technique to her broader philosophy of learning, referencing her book Be Bad First as a deeper resource. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to apply the method and a promotional plug for additional leadership tools.
You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you will get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.
Hi, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. I'm so pleased to have a chance to talk with you again. Now, as you know, I generally have a guest on the show, but today our topic is the voice in our head and how to manage it. And that seemed like the perfect subject for a chat just between you and me. So first of all, you know you talk to yourself all the time, right? Don't worry about it. We all do. If you're not aware of that voice in your head, or even if you are, I want to start by encouraging you to put the podcast on pause for just a minute and pay attention to that ongoing mental monologue. Okay, what were you saying to yourself? If you're like most of us, it was probably pretty random. What you're going to have for lunch, how that person at work made you feel, what you would have liked to have said to them instead of what you did say, wondering if your boss liked your presentation and perhaps predicting that she didn't like it and that you could get fired. And that's where what we say to ourselves starts to become problematic. When that voice tells us things that are unhelpful, unsupportive, not fact-based. And when that monologue then negatively affects our feelings and our actions. Imagine that you were thinking, my boss probably hated my presentation and I could get fired. When your boss then asks you to come into her office and go over the presentation, how will you go into that meeting? Tense, perhaps fearful, probably defensive. Because that voice in your head predicted a bad outcome. And because we tend to believe what that voice says to us, you'll go into that meeting all primed for bad things to happen. You'll feel weird and you'll probably act weird. And your negative self-talk can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you act weird enough, often enough, based on the bad things your mind tells you are going to happen, it just might endanger your job. So, as you probably expect, If you're a regular listener to the show, I'm about to help you out. Here's a way to control what you say to yourself so it's less likely to lead you down a bad path. The first step in learning to manage your self-talk is to hear what you're saying to yourself. Most of the time we're not even consciously aware that we're talking to ourselves, much less what we're saying. And you can't change your internal monologue if you're not aware of it. So first, you need to simply recognize what you're saying to yourself. It's especially important to pay attention to that voice in your head when you find yourself feeling anxious, tense, fearful, angry. Most often, those negative feelings arise out of negative self-talk, like the example I gave you just before of assuming that your boss isn't going to like your presentation. Now, the next thing I'm going to recommend may sound weird, but it's enormously helpful. When you recognize your unsupportive self-talk, just write it down. Now here's why. When you see it written out, the words will feel less like a part of you, and it will be easier for you to then change them. For instance, let's say you write down that self-talk statement we talked about earlier: my boss won't like this presentation and I could get fired. Just write that down. When you see it in print, your reaction might even be Yikes, that's pretty negative, and based on what I know of my boss, it seems unlikely. Once you're able to look at it more objectively, you often automatically start to see how it's flawed and unhelpful. And then you're ready for the next step, which is the core of the process. You revise what you're saying to yourself. Create alternative self-talk that's more supportive of your success and that you find believable. Now that part is really important. A lot of us have heard about affirmations where you say, everything's possible, I'm perfect. The problem with that is if you try to substitute self-talk that's falsely positive, you simply won't believe it. For instance, in this situation, if you say, of course my boss will love my presentation, how could she not? That's something you might not believe, and in that case you'll just bounce back to your original negative self-talk. You want to figure out something you can say to yourself in this situation that's believable and that will lead to a more positive response. Maybe something like, I don't know how she'll respond. I want to be open to whatever feedback she has for me. And then you write that down. And like making any other habit, managing your self-talk requires repetition. Substituting more hopeful and accurate self-talk for your negative self-talk will be helpful the very first time you do it, And you'll need to consciously repeat it again the next time that voice in your head comes up with a similarly unhelpful statement. And again. Remember, this is a process for creating new habits of thought. Whenever you find yourself falling into a pattern of unhelpful self-talk, either overly negative or overly positive, consciously substitute your revised, more realistic and accurate self-talk. I really hope you take this out for a test drive. My experience is that it can literally change your life. Once you get into the discipline of recognizing what you're saying to yourself, writing it down, figuring out how to revise it so that it's more helpful, more supportive, and yet still believable, you'll be able to manage that flow of self-talk in your head when it's most important for you to do so. And if you'd like to explore this art in more depth, I suggest you check out Be Bad First, my latest book. It's about how to be a great learner, and managing your self-talk is at the core of that. Thanks as always for being here with me. I hope you found this interesting and useful. Have a great life, and we'll talk again soon.
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