I am a mirror talker. Not a surprise, if you know me. That means sometimes when I’m processing, thinking, I’ll do it out loud. Usually in front of a mirror. I know it’s kind of weird, but I was listening to Adam Grant’s podcast this morning and an exchange with a guest caught my ear. The guest was saying how she’d tell herself “you got this. you know your stuff” to stabilize her confidence and combat imposter syndrome.
Grant pointed out something interesting about how she put it: “She didn’t say: I got this. She said you got this. Psychologists find that the way you talk to yourself matters. In a series of experiments, people gave better speeches and made better first impressions when they were randomly assigned to talk to themselves in the second person rather than the first person.”
So the tip: you can help overcome your doubts by talking to yourself in the second person. It creates enough distance to really hear yourself. Just as if you were talking to a friend.
You’re amazing.
You can do this.
You can totally finish this fucking book.
And so on. See if it works for you.
With Love,
Natalie