The Transformative Power of Positive Self-Talk

A couple of weekends ago the US Open Golf Championship was held at Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California.  One of the great venues in golf, located in one of my favorite places on Earth.  It was a hotly contested tournament with Gary Woodland winning the tournament, three strokes ahead of the next contestant.

The 18th green at Pebble Beach Golf Links, July 2009

This story behind the story began in January in Phoenix, Arizona.  I’m not sure how this was arranged, but a young lady named Amy Bockerstette met Gary Woodland on the 16th tee at the Tournament Players Club in Scottsdale during a pre-tournament practice round.  To see what happens, check out this video.

Obviously, Amy is a talented golfer.  She is a Special Olympian, also.  Watching her drive that ball, then blast it out of the bunker right on to the green and the going on to hole the putt was quite the feat, inspiring to golfers and non-golfers alike.  It was not lost on Gary Woodland and his playing partner either.  Amy and Gary developed a real connection, resulting in sharing in the celebration of Gary’s win at the US Open.  Gary ended up surprising Amy while she was appearing on The Today Show (link to video).  There are a few other cool details to this story, but I’d like to draw attention to that original video (see above).

Agile Best Self Principle #5: Create a best self environment of motivation, trust, and support for yourself and others.

Agile Best Self Principle #5 is about supportive environments.  For us as individuals, “supportive environments” means regulating your own self-talk as a way to build trust in self. In this article from the Mayo Clinic, the benefits of positive self-talk are extensive, including increased life span, lower rates of depression, resistance to illness, improved cardiovascular health, and better coping with stress.

Back to Amy’s story, we see her and her parents working together to make this experience special.  Watching her father help her line up her tee shot, you hear the words “you got this, kiddo” and she echoes back “I got this”.  An amazing affirmation in what I would imagine being a stressful situation for any golfer, let alone someone with a disability.  In listening to the conversation leading up to this, one could conclude this type of supporting and affirming language is the norm in the family.

In my work leading up to the co-creation of the 12 Agile Best Self Principles there was a defining moment in late July of 2018. My work on mindfulness was finally paying off, and I remember the day when I made a choice to stop listening to the inner critic and choose positive language whenever possible in all I do, especially at work. The result was profound. Changing the inner self-talk at work freed me from my fixed mindset, and made it easier to try new things that improved my work results. The benefits continued into my whole self and helped with my overall outlook, and most notably my sleep patterns.

In our best self journey, our goal is to get a little better every day. The inner and outer dialogue is a large part of that best self improvement equation. What are your strategies for managing your own self talk? Could you improve your own inner dialogue? Could you apply improvements to your inner dialogue to your interactions with others?

Copyright © 2018 – 2024 Michaele Gardner and Brian Hackerson

Agile Best Self Time Management

I’ve tried a number of time management tools and tricks over the years. What was your favorite? For me, I loved my Franklin Planner in the 90s. I was sad the day electronic tools made it mostly obsolete.

Pursuing our best self is a considerable investment of time and energy. On top of all the commitments we have each day to our jobs, families, communities and so on, it’s hard to get significant blocks of time to do the hard, internal work.

Brian with Simon Sinek, April 2016

Principle 8 suggests that to sustain best self, we should prioritize ‘being more’ over ‘doing more’. So, how do we do that? It is a lot harder than simply making that choice and sticking to it. To find the answer, we need to go a little deeper. We need to find where our true motivation lives within each of us. Simon Sinek, in one of TED’s most prolific presentations, reveals the power of finding your own why and how it can inspire you so that you can inspire others. Sound familiar?

Finding your why can have a profound impact from a time management perspective also. Dr. Michael Gervais calls the “why” your personal philosophy. It’s the statement that guides you through your day. Dr. Gervais says that a personal philosophy has three characteristics for it to be effective.

  • First, it must be short: 25 words or less. How many times have you written a personal mission statement, only to forget it because it just had too many words?
  • Second, a good personal philosophy must be able to be spoken under duress. This implies it is something that has been internalized, memorized and is absolutely authentic.
  • Finally, when you speak about your personal philosophy with other people, something noticeable happens in your body. Michaele and I like to use the term activation to describe the phenomenon. For me, I will often feel it (as I am right now, honestly) across my shoulder blades or sometimes my eyes start to tear up.

So, how does this relate to time management? My experience is that when I established the personal philosophy in the way described above, making decisions about how I choose to spend my time got a lot simpler. I went through my days asking which things helped me “be a light” and which did not. It was remarkable how much power I had over my schedule. It increased the frequency I could say no to things that did not matter. This intentional step made room for more capacity to engage into things that matter — things that contribute to the development of my best self. I can be my best self when I schedule my priorities rather than prioritize my schedule. I’m not perfect, but I am getting a little better each day, week and month. That is the essence of Agile Best Self.

Copyright © 2018 – 2024 Michaele Gardner and Brian Hackerson