What Are Your Tapes?

Everyone of us has tapes. OK, OK maybe you’re too young to know what a “tape” is. Call them tapes, CDs, records, mp3s — whatever works for you. What I am referring to is something that plays in your head. See, everyone has stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. The problem with this is that we actually listen to the stories. We actually believe them.

My friend Mike told a story about this at The Journey Training once. It went something like this…

“Let’s say we put 110 guys in a room. 99 of them are amazing people and one of them was a scumbag. Who would you walk out with?”

Sadly, every one of you likely had a person come to your mind when picturing the scumbag. And many of you ladies unfortunately see yourself walking out with him. Why is that?

At The Journey Training we have had hundreds of people come through, hear this illustration, and almost all of them can tell you why so many see themselves walking out with the jerk. It’s not because of what people around them say. It’s because of the “self-talk” they say to themselves. It’s the tape they play and listen to in their heads about themselves.

When we see people in movies standing in front of a mirror saying things like, “I’m beautiful!” and “I am worth a million bucks!”, we often laugh. But practices like that are actually healthy things to do. Check out what this article from WikiHow says about building self-worth:

“Healthy self love is about being your own best friend. Self love is expressed not through preening oneself all day and constantly announcing how great you are (those are signs of intense insecurity); rather, self love is about treating yourself with the same care, tolerance, generosity, and compassion as you would treat a special friend. Treat yourself with care, compassion, and respect. Avoid overlaying how you think other people see you; how does it help you to capitulate to their idea of you?”

See? There IS some validity to psyching yourself up and going out to find that person that you used to think was out of your league. Remember: They may feel exactly the same way and think they don’t deserve YOU!