These are some of the words I tell myself. My husband calls himself a knucklehead. My daughter calls herself dumb. My friend calls herself fat. I tell myself “I can’t do it” on a regular basis. I don’t know about you or them, but if I keep up this negative self talk it will eventually take me down.

I am a worrier at heart. Even when I go on vacation, it never goes away. My brain is constantly visualizing a car crash or having some internal conversation about how everything is going to go wrong. Three years ago, we went on a vacation with some of our close friends, and these friends know my freaky tendency to worry. We decided our mantra (or really the thing we told ourselves) for the whole vacation was “It’s going to be fine.” Whenever I would start stewing about anything, they would all tell me, Becca, “it’s going to be fine.” And guess what, It WAS FINE. Matter of fact, it was one of the best vacations we’ve had.

For most people negative self talk becomes a habit, and most don’t even realize they are doing it. Recently, because I know I have this habit, I decided to start listening to the voice in my head. Come to find out, it is not very nice. After 48 years (and many years of therapy) I have finally learned negative self talk breeds fear and doubt. This speak will inevitably creep into my mind, and like the movie Inception, will plant a seed. Like fertilizer, the more of those negative thoughts I have, the more the fear, self doubt and poor self esteem will grow.

And now that I own a business, to be totally honest, there have been many days I have thought “what the hell are you doing?” “you are going to fail,” “you can’t do this” or “YOU ARE AN IDIOT!” One thing I know for certain, if I keep talking to myself this way, I will achieve a self fulfilling prophecy of failure.

So let’s try this again: “I absolutely can do this, and I will succeed!”

Let me be clear. I will make mistakes, I will have doubts and at times, I will be fearful of what lies ahead, BUT the only path to my success (and the future of my business) is to believe in myself and my abilities. That starts with the way I talk to myself.

You are not an idiot. You will succeed and you can do it. Try it with me.