What To Say When You Talk To Your Self – by Dr. Shad Helmstetter

It’s sometimes said that your brain, and by extension the rest of your body, is listening to everything you say—including, of course, what you say just in your head.

So, how can we best make use of that? Dr. Helmstetter covers a lot more than just “be nice to yourself”, and discusses how to change habits and rewire attitude, solve problems and overcome personal growth stasis, and also how to navigate the nuances of situational self-talk, while keeping to the principle that “if it isn’t simple, it won’t work”.

The style is a little more personal than one might expect; notwithstanding the title being about what to say when you talk to yourself, the pronoun “I” is the one the author uses rather more than “you”, giving many examples of how he has done things, and telling stories involving himself. This is all illustrative and helpful, so it’s not a problem, just an interesting choice that may alienate some readers.

In the category of subjective criticism, the book is quite repetitive; it seems Dr. Helmstetter goes for the P. T. Barnum approach of “tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you’ve told them”, and repeats a few extra times to be sure. So, for those who find that repetition indeed helps learning, this book will very much fulfil that preference.

Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your self-talk to re-write your brain for the better, then this book will walk you through the processes very thoroughly indeed.

Click here to check out What To Say When You Talk To Your Self, and rewire yourself!