What You Say to Yourself in the Morning

"First thing I say when my alarm goes off every morning at 4: 'Let's kick some ass.'"
(from my tweets, 2014)

I don't recommend the 4 a.m. alarm to everyone. But the second half of this tweet is worth keeping. Before anything else happened that day, I said something to myself on purpose.

We all talk to ourselves, out loud or silently, all day long. Psychologists call it self-talk, and a growing body of research suggests that what we say, and even how we say it, can change how we feel and how well we perform.

Self-talk can improve performance

Sports psychologists have studied self-talk for decades. In 2011, Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis and colleagues combined the results of 32 studies in a meta-analysis. They found that self-talk had a real, moderate effect on performance.

Two kinds of self-talk both helped. Instructional self-talk, like "keep your elbow up" or "follow through," worked especially well for tasks requiring precision. Motivational self-talk, like "I can do this" or "let's go," worked well for tasks requiring strength and endurance. Self-talk helped most when people practiced it in training, not just on the day.

My morning phrase was clearly the motivational kind. It was a way of turning up the energy at the start of a hard day.

How you address yourself matters

A fascinating set of studies suggests that the words you use for yourself make a difference too.

In 2014, Ethan Kross and colleagues at the University of Michigan asked people to prepare for stressful tasks, like giving a speech with very little preparation time. Some were told to think about the situation using "I." Others were told to use their own name or "you," as if speaking to someone else: "Ethan, you can do this."

People who used their own name or "you" felt less anxious, performed better in their speeches, and dwelled less on their performance afterward. Kross calls this distanced self-talk. Talking to yourself the way you would talk to a friend seems to give you a little emotional distance, which makes it easier to think clearly and coach yourself well.

But empty affirmations can backfire

There's an important warning, though. Not all positive self-talk helps.

In 2009, Joanne Wood, Elaine Perunovic and John Lee asked people to repeat the statement "I am a lovable person." For people with high self-esteem, it helped slightly. But for people with low self-esteem, it made them feel worse. When a statement feels obviously untrue, repeating it seems to remind us of all the reasons we don't believe it.

So the most helpful self-talk is believable. "Let's get to work" or "You've done hard things before" may work better than "I'm amazing" if you don't quite believe the second one.

What the philosophers said

Nearly two thousand years ago, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote a morning pep talk to himself in his private journal, the Meditations. It opens Book 5:

"At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work, as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for?'"

Even the most powerful man in the world, it seems, sometimes needed to talk himself out of bed. And notice how he did it: he addressed himself as "you," the same distanced self-talk Kross found so effective. He didn't flatter himself. He reminded himself of his purpose.

Some honest caveats

Many self-talk studies are short lab or sports experiments, and the effects vary a lot from person to person. Distanced self-talk is a relatively new finding and is still being tested. And self-talk isn't a substitute for sleep, preparation or real skill. A 4 a.m. alarm plus a pep talk won't help much if you're exhausted.

Still, we're going to talk to ourselves anyway. We might as well do it well.

How to talk to yourself better

• Pick a morning phrase. Choose something short you'll say when you wake up. Make it energizing and believable.
• Use your name or "you." Try "You've got this, [your name]" instead of "I've got this," especially when you're anxious.
• Match the words to the task. Use instructions for precision ("slow down, breathe") and motivation for effort ("keep going").
• Avoid empty affirmations. If a statement feels false, swap it for something true, like "I've handled hard things before."
• Remind yourself of your purpose. Like Marcus Aurelius, tell yourself why the day's work matters.
• Practice. Self-talk works best when it's a habit, not something you try once on a big day.

Today's reflection

What's the first thing you say to yourself in the morning? If it isn't helping you, what would you like it to be instead?

Sources

• Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Zourbanos, N., Galanis, E., & Theodorakis, Y. (2011). Self-talk and sports performance: A meta-analysis. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(4), 348–356.
• Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., Bremner, R., Moser, J., & Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–324.
• Marcus Aurelius. Meditations, 5.1 (G. Hays, Trans., 2002). Modern Library.
• Wood, J. V., Perunovic, W. Q. E., & Lee, J. W. (2009). Positive self-statements: Power for some, peril for others. Psychological Science, 20(7), 860–866.