Thrive in 2025: Check Your Self Talk

Hello, I'm Kate Cocker. This is your everyday positivity. Now, this is day four of 2025. And I am absolutely adamant that 2025 is the year for you and I to thrive. And to do that, it's really important to have some of those basics under your belt, that self care set of basics that you can deploy to help you cultivate a positive mindset. Because trust me, positivity, it's a skill. And when you can deploy it, it helps you get through an awful lot of stuff.

So this year I'm starting with seven pillars of positivity for you, things that you can practice on a daily basis or whenever you need to to help you to maintain, cultivate, create a positive mindset. Pillar of positivity number one was be selfful, the act of taking care of yourself so that you can and do take care of others.

Pillar of positivity number two, accept the nail, this idea that you can be present. Pillar of positivity number three is practice gratitude because gratitude is the key to happiness, they say. Pillar of positivity number four, check your self-talk. Your self-talk is what will make the difference between you thriving and surviving.

And I think the biggest thing I learned in 2024 was this idea of motivational states. There are three motivational states. There is the threat state, the drive state, and the soothe state.

Now, threat is often what we feel when we have anxiety or when there is something going on that we don't think is right. Often our self-talk is at its worst when we make a mistake or when something happens we weren't expecting or, you know, we're challenged in some way. That's when the self-talk can really start to build and it can sound like, you know, no, I'm not going to do that. I won't be very good at it. Or it could be like, oh, no, I'm going to get ill. Or it could be like, oh, I'm so busy. I haven't got time to do anything.

Those are the self-talks states that are in threat, right? And when you're in threat, you panic because your body is beautifully designed to protect you and it sets you adrenaline going and that can set the brain wearing even further.

Your sooth state is the one that helps you to become, it helps you to be relaxed. It's that kind of, imagine your most comfortable relationship and how that feels to be in it, that sooth state, right? Or things you really love doing. Like, I really love doing that because I feel really that sooth state, okay? And then the third one is drive state. And that's when you feel really energized. So you're like, oh, I'm gonna smash this out the park. I'm gonna get on with this. It's gonna be really great. I'm gonna get this done, done, done, done, done.

So when we come under threat, which is often where the negative self-talk begins, what can happen is, you make a mistake, the threat self-talk can sound a little bit like, oh no, what's going on? You know, we've done the really bad thing here. The way that we tend to lean to get ourselves out of that self-talk, negative self-talk, is to go into drive. But drive can sound a bit like a telling off. I knew this was gonna happen. Come on, you need to pull yourself out of this.

Come on, what are you doing here? Why have you let yourself get into this state? You always get into this state. It's a bit tally-offy, right? What I want you to think about when it comes to checking your self-talk is to look at utilizing the soothe state. And the soothe state is the heavily compassionate state. The reason that it's really important to get to soothe is because it's easier to get into drive from soothe than it is to get into drive from threat.

So threat comes in. You make a mistake and you're worried about what people are going to think. Oh, you always do this. Oh my goodness. What have we done here? This is going to be really awful. The catastrophized catastrophized catastrophies pull in the soothe state and it sounds like this. You are doing the best that you can and it's okay that this happened. You have been trying your hardest. No one is perfect and you are just a human. You are okay. You are safe. It's okay.

And immediately you can pull yourself out of that adrenaline rush and make yourself feel better. So today, I want you to think about that soothe state and the way that your self talk plays into that.

I'm not worried about you kind of going, yeah, come on, I'm the best at this ever. I want you to think about soothe. Think about the self-compassion. Think about, you know, you might be late, but you don't deserve to beat yourself up for being late. You can let yourself know that it's okay to be late, you know? It's that sort of thing. So I want you to really think about and check in on yourself talk today and really practice the soothe state.

I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of Everyday Positivity for you. In the meantime, remember, there is a January's goal setting journal journey available to you if you are a squirrel member in the Everyday Positivity Patreon. Patreon.com forward slash Everyday Positivity. And you can also get that journal journey completely. Just as a standalone piece that you can use every year, all you have to do is click on the link in the episode notes and you'll be able to see what you can do there. All right.

Thank you so much for listening. I'm really loving going through these pillars with you this year. I am excited that we can together thrive in 2025 and I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and remember you have 100% got this.