One of the strongest influences on your attitude and motivation to make a change is what you say to yourself. By controlling your inner dialogue, or your “self-talk,” you can impact your motivation and your ability to follow through with your healthy change. Your degree of motivation can be decreased by your personal belief systems, including fear of success, fear of failure, your sense of personal power or self-efficacy, perfectionism or self-doubt.

You can talk yourself into feeling incapable of making the change and prevent yourself from moving forward. You can talk yourself into thinking that the change is too much work or that you don’t have time. (Inner critic)

Or…

You can talk yourself into feeling calm and confident. You can recognize your past successes and your abilities to achieve your goals. You can focus on the benefits of the change and the rewards you will receive at the end. (Inner cheerleader) 

Barbara Small, www.barbsmallcoaching.com