The Most Important Conversation You Have

What is your attitude about yourself? What are you good at? What are you not so good at? Don't think about what others think of you. What do you think of yourself?

You have many beliefs about yourself. These beliefs control your ability to realize your wonderful potential. When you learn to change these beliefs, you can expand your skills and realize your potential. If you grew up thinking you were shy, then you are shy. If you believe that you are naturally overweight, then diets will only work for you for a short time-you will gain the weight back.

How you talk to yourself, your self-talk, has a powerful impact on you. Self-talk is the internal conversation you have with yourself all day long, every day. The beliefs you hold about yourself are what control the real use of your potential. Over the years you've been telling yourself a lot with your self-talk. You've been telling yourself you're shy or outgoing, a warm person or a cold person, a high performer or a low performer, a skilled presenter or a poor presenter.

Examples of negative self-talk many presenters carry into their presentations include:

• "This will never go well".

• "They expect me to know everything".

• "Giving these presentations makes me stressed".

• "The people in my audience are busy and will want to leave".

• "I can't relax. It will be the same experience as before".

We build and change our attitude about ourselves through our self-talk. Many of our thoughts are constructive but many others are debilitating. It is often said that if a friend talked to you the way you sometimes talk to yourself then the friendship would be over in a hurry. The greater our self-image or self-esteem the easier it is to deal with new situations and new challenges.

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