How Entrepreneurs Use Mantra to Overcome Negative Self-Talk
It’s story time, and time to think about stories. Now, not the type of stories that we read, but instead the type of stories that we’re telling ourselves inside of our minds already.
Some of these types of stories are things that we like to tell ourselves about the future and the dreams that we have, and some of them are things that just kind of pop into our minds without us necessarily wanting to put them there. Maybe some experience in the past or just an idea that floated along in the air that we sort of absorbed and picked up and turned into a pattern.
Those thoughts like, “Maybe I’m not good enough to do what I’m working on right now, my current project.” Or, “Maybe I’m not as smart as the other people around me or as smart as my competitors.” Or, “I just don’t have what it takes.” Or, “This is a bad idea or the wrong path.” Or, “I’m going to walk into a scary situation today.” Whatever it might be, there’s both these positive and intentional stories, and then there can even be negative and unintentional stories in our minds.
If this is something you’re struggling with, we challenge you to use the Mantra tool in the Founders First app to think about what those stories are that are in our minds already, and then think about the stories that we want to intentionally take in place into our minds.
There’s a finite amount of thinking and thoughts that can happen inside of our minds everyday, and we do have a lot of thoughts, and things that float in and out. But we also have the ability to control and influence what goes on inside of our minds by placing new stories there. We can do that through repetition, in the same way that if I want to increase our bicep muscle on one side, we would lift a weight repeatedly over and over to build that muscle. We can build the muscle around these stories in our own mind with intentionality and that’s what mantras are about.
Watch the Mantra tool and think about what mantras you have in your life, see if you want to pick up some of them from the tool, some positive mantras that we often use on a regular basis, and think about what the positive stories are that you tell yourself now, or you could be telling yourself, or you’d like to tell yourself more often going forward.
Then take a sheet of paper and write down your favorite positive mantra that you tell yourself, or you want to tell yourself more in the future, and then write something on the bottom half of that sheet of paper, which is what we’ll call a negative mantra, a negative or self-limiting story that we sometimes tell ourselves that maybe we could do with seeing a little bit less in the future.
So, write your favorite positive mantra that you’d like to use or use more at the top, and write your story that you’d like to get rid of at the bottom, and to actually put this into practice, tear the sheet of paper in half, crumple up the bottom half with your negative statement/negative story on it, and just throw it away. Let’s do a little exercise of moving ourselves away from things that aren’t serving us. Then take that top sheet of paper with the positive statement/positive story that you’d like to see more often in your life, and put it right next to your laptop, so you’ll see it the next time you sit down to work.
The Mantra tool is one of many tools available in the Founders First mindstate tracking app for entrepreneurs. See all the tools and get personalized recommendations on how to best invest your time each day based on your current mindstate by trying the app free for 7 days.
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