Self talk

I know that I talk to myself all the time, sometimes even out loud, but I had a realization today just how negative my self talk is.

I never really thought of myself as being a negative self talker - mostly I talk to myself about what I'm doing, what I need to be doing etc. 

A few weeks ago I started working out at a Monday to Friday boot camp. I love it more than I can express. I wish I had started YEARS AGO. It kicks my butt. I am the heaviest I have ever been in my life and I am not accustomed to doing things where I feel quite so uncoordinated . The person I am in my brain is still as coordinated as I was over 20 years ago when I was teaching karate full time and kicking butt doing kata and fighting. 

The person I am in this current body is someone who can't do burpees and who gets all tied up in my feet trying to do step ups. In spite of my lack of coordinaton I have been working out ( almost diligently ) and I'm passed the inconvenience of not being able to walk for the first few days. 

This morning we did something totally different than we have done before. We started with 100 burpees to warm up. I can't really do them at all . I tried. After warm up we did 10 reps with weights of biceps and triceps and squats all intersperced with more burpees. Obviously I was not keeping up with anyone and I was getting down on myself. I realized as I was having difficulty keeping track of counting that I was repeating over and over in my mind " I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this " with every repetition. 

I was completely shocked ! I had never realized before how completely negative I am with myself. I know I am hard on muself but I don't ever remember being so aware of the self talk as I am going through my day - or in this case - my exercise regime. 

I realized there was no way that I would get anything done at all if I kept repeating over and over in my head that I couldn't. Now that it's over and I'm reflecting it would have made sense for me to simply change the "can't" to a "can" and continue with the mantra. In the moment however I was completely stumped as to what to do or how to change what I was thinking except to try and stop myself from saying I couldn't ! I wasn't entirely successful at stopping the negativity , and I was less successful at keeping. Up th the burpees the rest of the class was doing (they did 400 in an hour) - but I worked hard and did a lot more than I thought I could but probably less than I was physically able to. I need to be more aware of my self talk and make a plan for moving forward. I'll never get anything done if I keep telling myself it won't happen!