Positive self-talk and positive mental imagery:

Self-leadership theory can be described as the 'process of influencing oneself' as opposed to the influence of leaders over followers (Manz, 1983, 1986). We focus on and develop a model for a particular aspect of self-leadership - thought self-leadership emphasizing two primary elements, self-talk and mental imagery.


Thought self-leadership:The influenceof self-talk and mental imagery on performance" from JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, VOL. 13,681-699 (1992)

What's self-talk? Simply, it's your internal monologue. Making sure it's positive can help:

Self-talk or self-verbalizations can be simply defined as what we covertly tell ourselves (Ellis, 1962). Weick (1979) suggested the relevance of this cognitive strategy to organizations as he argued that 'organizations are presumed to talk to themselves' (p. 133).


Does it work?

For example, in the field of sports psychology, Mahoney and Avener (1977) studied 12 elite gymnasts competing for births on the 1976 men's U.S.A. Olympic team. Their findings indicated that self-verbalizations differentiated the best gymnasts from those who failed to make the Olympic team those that became members of the Olympic team practiced self-talk, non- members did not. Similarly, Meyers et al.'s (1979) study of nine male members of a university racquetball team found that better performersexhibited more frequent self-statements in training and competition.

Finally, Kendall et al. (1990) investigated the effects of self-talk combined with mental imagery and relaxation on the performance of a defensive basketball skill (cutting off the offensive players' baseline path to the hoop).

Is this something I can learn to do? Yes.


What about mental imagery? It's visualizing yourself doing things and doing them well:




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