Episode 9: Using the Winning Language to Reach Your Goal with Donna Campisi

On this episode I talk about the importance of your winning language and being your best friend when reaching your goal…stick with me, listen for my explanation.

I was once asked in an interview about the chapter in my book that covers ‘Winning Language.’

He asked me: What does this mean to me?

My response: It’s about how we speak to ourselves, do we speak to ourselves in a kind way?

I always use the example especially when speaking at keynote events, I say ‘Be your best friend.’

People often look at me oddly, so let me explain.

I often advise people to talk to themselves as if they were talking to their best friend.

This may sound strange at first, but it helps get your mental and physical state off to a good start.

‘You’re sounding a bit crazy, Donna.’ Maybe, but we talk to ourselves all the time.

Those thoughts in your mind are like a number of voices in your head sometimes. When we think encouraging and motivating thoughts toward ourselves, then we see results in our ability to reach our big goal.

What benefits does this positive language give you? You feel good. It really helps when you’re struggling and it motivates you to keep going.

What would you feel if you didn’t do that? You’d feel down on yourself. You’d lose self-belief and confidence, creating negative energy. If you keep being so negative and down, people don’t want to be around you and that creates negative energy towards your big goal, and you’ll never get encouragement to reach your big goal. People will want you to stop going for it because they’ll see it as something that maybe isn’t a good thing for you. But you know it’s a great thing for you, because it’s a big dream that you’ve always wanted to achieve.

So our self-talk is very important, because it’s with us every day.

It makes you grateful. It reminds you to be kind to yourself and encouraging; sometimes we can be really hard on ourselves.

Giving yourself rewards, celebrating and being kind in the way you talk to yourself – that’s what I mean by the winning language.

Talk to yourself like you would to your best friend.

This is an important point to get your mindset started on the right track!

Be your best friend. You may say, ‘I don’t understand how to be my best friend, that doesn’t make sense.’ Think of the conversation you may have had with a good friend where they were struggling with something. What words of advice or encouragement did you give them? These words you need to give to yourself.

Another example could be:of when I started to learn to run again after a childhood stroke and not running for 34 years. and then training for a marathon. I was being hard on myself, because I am the kind of person who likes to have things done yesterday and I can get impatient with myself at times.

Anyway, there were days when I worked really hard, but still there were days when I would struggle, so it wasn’t always smooth sailing (especially at the beginning). I’d really get down on myself for slowing down to walk instead of running.

But that was just the beginning. I would have these horrible thoughts in my mind, talking to myself. ‘Come on Donna, you’re being slack, this is too hard, you can do better than that surely…’ blah blah blah – criticising myself. Sound familiar?

When I thought about this and I had a conversation with my coach, he said to me, ‘You need to talk to yourself in an encouraging way Donna.’

I totally agreed, and changed the way my thoughts, my bad habits of putting myself down, or being hard on myself, the language I used!

That’s what really helps you get to your goal, encouragement, yea?

I understand not everyone is going to have a mentor or a coach – whether that’s a life coach, business or adventure coach – for every goal they want to achieve. So, the important thing to remind ourselves is, that it all starts with you. How are YOU talking to yourself?

If I was to go do a training session, running along with a friend of mine, and she said, ‘Look, Donna, I have to slow down right now, can I just walk?’ I’m not going to blast her and tell her she’s being slack. Would you do that to your best friend? I don’t think so. I would say, ‘Okay, that’s fine, are you in any pain?’ If she’s not then, ‘That’s fine, we can walk – you’re moving forward and that’s a good thing.’ It’s as simple as that. It’s not giving a big lecture to her. You would be encouraging, telling her how good she’s doing and the distance she has done already, maybe even distracting her with conversation of what a great day it has been so far.

There have been people I’ve coached or lead in my adventure challenges who start out struggling. For example, they say: ‘I’ve only done a little bit of running Donna, I’m only walking, running, walking, running,’ I tell them, ‘That’s great because you’re moving forward!’ Often, we can be guilty of being hard on ourselves. My simple advice is: Stop it!

When using winning language, I find quotes have really helped me too.

Even if you’re not the type of person to put quotes on the wall or your fridge, if you have it in your mind it will help you with your winning language. I know people who just repeat their mantras out loud or in their head. I was doing that sometimes when I was struggling with running. I kept my motivation up by using those quotes in a positive way.

A number of years ago, I created another quote that is a favourite of mine: ‘The power is in me.’  This has a lot to do with choice. I remember thinking this and not even saying it out loud. It was a choice that I had once, when I could sit on the edge or actually dive in and give it a go. The power is in me, is about recognising that we have a choice. Are you going to sit on the edge or actually dive in and give it a go?  

Especially in reacting to obstacles, there are choices we make. With obstacles and resilience, we can easily curl up on the couch and just stay there, being the victim. But that’s not going to get us to our goals. That’s why I believe these quotes can help us in those tough moments.

You might be thinking now, ‘I can’t think of a quote that I like.’ The internet is awesome; I advise you to look up ‘inspiring quotes’ on any topic or goal you have. You’ll be surprised what you find – there’s lots of stuff online. But make sure it’s uplifting – words that are going to keep you going. There are plenty of quotes out there that are negative as well, we don’t want those.

I talk further about this topic in my book at The Unlikely Marathoner

Our self-talk is very important, because it’s with us every day. 

Feel free to share this podcast with someone who you think may need to be kinder to themselves and practice the winning language.

The Power is in Me…it’s in You too!

Get to it…. Ready! Set! Goal!

To book Donna to speak at your next event, contact her at: https://donnacampisi.com/contact/

Listen to more ‘Ready! Set! Goal! with Donna Campisi’ podcast at: https://donnacampisi.com/ready-set-goal/

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