Positive Self-Talk has been something I always do before a presentation or game. It is good to be positive and uplifting to yourself, but through class and our readings we have found a better way to prepare yourself, through Interrogative Self-Talk. Interrogative Self-Talk is simply asking yourself questions on how you could improve and answering them yourself.
Interrogative Self-Talk
1. Questions set us up to pursue real answers. They give us problems to solve and solutions to seek, answers to find.
2. They inspire us to look for motivations and reasons within, resulting in real action. The power of authentic motivation is unleashed in addressing the question.
When you are simply being positive it is building you up, but this “fake-it-till-you-make-it” approach can cause you to sell yourself on something that does not match reality. This goes hand in hand with positive ratios as well. It is important to be positive, but no so positive as to block out reality. When in sales you need to keep this balance and apply it to interrogative self-talk so you are asking yourself questions about a potential negative situation and how you would recover from that.
BoweryJE22
I too use positive self talk often before doing something that is a bit strenuous. I’ve recently been trying to use interrogative self talk instead. This comes hard though because i’m so used to just making positive statements and not asking questions. At firs it seems a little weird, but i’m sure with more practice it will be beneficial like Pink asserts.
Interrogative self talk is a great way to prepare yourself for some of the questions that you are going to face in real selling situations. Positivity is always a good thing to have in selling, but at the same time, it doesn’t prepare you for the questions that prospect’s might ask you. You have to be ready for anything and interrogative self talk is a great way to do that! Great post!