No matter how social we are, it seems a good bet that 70% or more of the talking we do is to ourselves. The talk may be silent. It may not come in complete sentences or even in words at all. It is self-talk nonetheless.
This talk is important because it is often self-fulfilling. It's even possible that all of our thoughts are self-fulfilling in a certain sense. If you believe you can't do something, you usually can't. Even if it turns out you can, your negative self-appraisal, your questioning of your abilities, has left traces in the neural networks of your brain.
That is: What we say to ourselves teaches our brains. Self-talk teaches us how to think of ourselves and the world. So we need to pay close attention to GIGSI: garbage in, garbage stays in.
If the idea of self-talk implies self-teaching, what concept accounts for learning?
Interestingly, a word meaning 'learning' is the origin of the two words 'disciple' and 'discipline.' Thus, we could say that a disciple is one who learns while a discipline is a learning.
But what of our more common understanding of discipline? We normally say things such as, "Teachers need to discipline students." Or we say that self-discipline means self-control.
Here now we get to the crux of the matter: self-discipline is self-control, yes. But discipline is also how a person learns.
How does this learning work in practice? If you're like me, the idea of discipline brings to mind images of drill sergeants yelling at recruits. Teachers putting dunce caps on misbehaving pupils. People who have screwed up asking themselves, "Are you ever going to learn, you moron? Straighten up and fly right!"
These approaches to discipline assume that we are stubborn mules. We need to be whipped into shape. If we could have done it right on our own, we would have done it right. We are misfits.
Is that true? More importantly, are berating ourselves for mistakes and driving ourselves with a whip the most effective ways to teach ourselves self-control? Or are there better ways? Could it be that self-criticism does not help us control ourselves, but only makes us more likely to act like the stubborn mules we keep assuming we are?
Consider the effects of saying the following to yourself: "I act in noble ways, because I'm noble, and I'm going to prove that again and again. I can do this. I deserve the rewards of a job well done. Do the right thing, because that's the kind of person you are."
If self-talk is self-fulfilling, then telling ourselves we expect ourselves to do noble things because that's the kind of people we are should turn us into heroes.
A discipline that encourages rather than tears down teaches us to strive to be better. We might have to shade into a bit of negativity when we make mistakes because we do want to acknowledge that we erred. However, even this finger-on-a-hot-stove learning can be framed more productively. Instead of, "Get it together - quit screwing up," we could say, "You're better than that."
Which is more effective discipline ... which is more effective teaching ... which view of ourselves do we want to create in our brains? What do we want to learn? Who do we want to be?
