Be Careful What You Say to Yourself—Your Mind Is Listening

Your mind believes what you tell it.

Posted May 12, 2026 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

When you put yourself down, your mind believes what you say—that you are inadequate, flawed, incompetent, destined to fail, and so on. Your mind doesn’t take a moment to reflect, sift through the facts at hand, evaluate premises, and examine evidence to determine whether self-talk is true or not. It believes what it hears, and what it hears is what you say to yourself under your breath. What you say to yourself has sticking power, affecting your deepest feelings about yourself and sapping motivation to move on with your life.

Words have power, so isn’t it time to use the power of your inner speech to change how you feel about yourself?

Change Can Happen, But Only if You Make It Happen

Many people wait for life to come to them rather than making life happen. They may defer making changes because the status quo seems safer and more familiar, no matter how ungratifying it may be. Or they may believe that they need to deeply probe the recesses of their psyche before they can make meaningful changes in their lives. The insight fallacy—the belief that deep insight into the psyche is needed for change—keeps people from making changes in the "here and now" that can have profound effects on the lives they live. They may spend years waiting for that elusive magic moment when insight shines its heavenly spotlight on them, empowering them to make the changes they could have made much earlier. But change can only occur "in the now," not in the indefinite future.

Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

Some people act like their minds are anchored in cement. They outright refuse to consider that thoughts in their heads are only opinions, not statements of fact.

Thoughts have no power over us apart from the power we bestow on them. A thought is but a fleeting mental experience that passes through the mind to make room for the next one. But they can get stuck in the mind if left to rattle around unexamined, leading to persistent negative emotions such as anxiety , anger , worry, guilt , and depression .

We tend to believe what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears, even though we know our eyes (and ears) can deceive us. We also tend to believe without questioning what we tell ourselves and the beliefs we hold. We may have been taught to think critically when questioning claims made by others who are willing to doctor the truth to make a sale or win our vote. But have we ever learned to question ourselves, to inspect our own thoughts and beliefs? As the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy famously said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

To control negative emotional states, we need to identify the underlying thoughts that drive them and change the pitter-patter of negative thoughts that needle us mindlessly. But how do you change your mind about your own thoughts?

Know the Thought, Know the Emotion

What thoughts are bouncing around in your head that bring you down? Or make you anxious or worried? Or make you feel guilty or angry? We can become stuck in a mental trap whenever we allow unfiltered thoughts to darken our moods, as in the following examples:

Mental traps lead to conclusions that may seem like facts, but they are just interpretations or assumptions, many of which may be wrong. A mental trap is a habit of mind in which you get caught in a story of your own making and can’t seem to get out:

You respond emotionally as if it were true.

. . . . But, you are living inside a false narrative.

Most people assume their thoughts are simply true, existing as accurate slices of reality, generated by a mind they never question. Recognizing the difference between thoughts and facts is a first step to changing your mind to change how you feel. It begins with recognizing that thoughts are not facts. They are interpretations or impressions, and they make up the stories your mind tells you to make sense of the world. Thoughts may be helpful or harmful, but they feel real when you think them.

Thinking Is Easy, But Changing Your Mind Is Not

You can change your mind even about the contents of your own mind, but that doesn’t mean that it is easy. The most difficult thing for many people to do is to question their own thinking. As famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith quipped, "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." And as playwright George Bernard Shaw said, "Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything." It may not be easy to change your mind if your thoughts are working against you, but it is a necessary step if you want to change your life. The good news is that thinking is malleable. Like raw clay, we can mold how we think by questioning our thoughts and the stories we create that become mental traps. We are not our thoughts, nor are we bound by the stories we tell ourselves.

It takes but a minute, often less, to change a thought, to switch from making yourself miserable to telling yourself, “OK, what can I do right now?” Changing a thought can change a feeling. It can also change the story you tell yourself, giving you license to create new stories that can change your life. But first, we need to listen to the silent but powerful voice in our own head.

I invite you to check out the blog postings on The Minute Therapist to become more mindful of your own thoughts and to question and replace troubling thoughts that trigger disturbing emotions. But you first need to open your mind to what you are telling it, becoming more aware of the contents of your own mind. Fortunately, consciousness permits this form of self-reflection. The key takeaway is this: What can you do this very minute to change how you think to change how you feel?

General Disclaimer: The content here and in other blog posts on the Minute Therapist is intended for informational purposes only and not for diagnosis, evaluation, or treatment of mental health disorders. If you are concerned about your emotional well-being or are experiencing any significant mental health problems, I encourage you to consult a licensed mental health professional in your area for a thorough evaluation.

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Jeffrey Nevid, Ph.D. , is a practicing psychologist in New York specializing in CBT and a professor of psychology at St. John's University.

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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.