I spend a good deal of time talking to myself. I often do this while riding my bike. Sometimes I do it to motivate myself to get over a hill. Other times I do it because I’m puzzling through a problem and talking aloud to myself helps with that, I think. All that to say, TED-Ed has a new lesson all about the topic of talking to yourself. 

Is It Normal to Talk to Yourself? is a lesson about why we talk to ourselves and the effects of talking to ourselves. The big take-aways from the lesson are the positive self-talk can be good for you and negative self-talk is bad for you. That might seem obvious to many of us, but it’s a good reminder none-the-less. Watch the lesson here or as embedded below. 

As I was watching the lesson, I couldn’t help but think of Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich which I read about a decade ago. The book emphasizes positive self-talk. Before you run out to buy a copy of it, I should note that in recent years some of the book has been exposed as fabrication of events.