“I’m Ted Fucking Williams!”

He’d yell it during batting practice before fans and the press arrived at the stadium. He’d taunt the pitcher while he did it. He had a point. 

Ted Williams was the last major leaguer to hit .400 in a season; he did so in 1941 before enlisting in the Navy, then Marines, during WWII. (He also flew 39 combat missions as combat pilot during the Korean War.) He’s considered the best pure hitter in baseball history.

Sometimes, he’d add a little more color to the statement. “I’m Ted Fucking Williams and I’m the greatest hitter in baseball!”

“Jesus H. Christ Himself couldn’t get me out,” was another of his favorites. He’d hit absolute piss missiles while shouting these “affirmations.”

Williams was psyching himself up to hit well during games. He had a singular goal for his life, and he was aligning with it. “All I want out of life is that when I walk down the street, folks will say, ‘There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.’” Goal achieved. 

Ted Williams knew what he wanted, and he sure as hell didn’t struggle with self-image. While he was shouting to everyone in ear shot, he was mostly talking to himself. 

Self-talk either makes or breaks our performance while also shaping our internal landscape and our identity. However, most hunters struggle with self-talk, especially during hard workouts and tough days in the mountains. They tend to talk to themselves like an enemy instead of a friend. The rise of positive psychology has also caused self-talk problems. It often motivates people to tell themselves flowery lies. Neither negative nor unrealistically positive self-talk works. Honest, instructional self-talk does. 

If you want to get the most out of yourself in training, in life, and on the mountain, you must master productive self-talk.

Why You Need to (Mostly) Avoid Negative Self-Talk

It’s good to tell yourself the truth about your circumstances. You know when you’re struggling; you know when something is brutal. There’s no sense in lying to yourself about it. The lie only makes it worse. The problem is a lot of people beat the hell out of themselves after acknowledging the truth. They judge themselves, call themselves names, catastrophize, and fuse their actions with negative thoughts and feelings.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re on a tough uphill climb with your hunting buddies and you’re falling behind. You say to yourself, “They’re smoking me because I’m a bitch.” It’s true that they’re currently smoking you, but the follow-up value judgment and negative identity statement is unhelpful. Here’s why.

Negative self-talk makes work feel harder. One of your brain’s main gigs is to conserve energy to keep you alive. That means you must persistently tell your brain that the effort is worthwhile. Otherwise, it will motivate you to slow you down and convince you to stop. Negative thinking and self-talk tells your brain that what you’re doing isn’t worth it. So, your brain makes the task feel more difficult so you give up. This is what the white coats call “quitting behavior.” Quitting behavior dramatically increases with negative self-talk.

Increased threat response is another outcome of internally flogging yourself. Your body goes into hyper-drive to confront the threat. Breathing shallows and sometimes becomes panicked. Involuntary muscle tension increases. You become more emotionally reactive. These factors meet at a confluence that flows to create a huge problem—fatigue. You wear yourself down.

Your motor control also tanks. This means you have decreased control over your movements and less access to your skills. It’s more likely that you’ll stumble on a rock and hurt yourself. It’s less likely that you’ll make a good shot. The increased threat response stresses you the hell out. Cortisol rises, bodily control sinks.

Chronic negative self-talk shapes your identity in…well…a negative way. You believe the things you say to and about yourself. You become that person. Self-efficacy plummets and you begin believing that you’re not competent or capable. The chronic stress created by negative self-talk also creates poor health outcomes. 

Current you and future you are counting on you to learn how to talk to yourself.

What Good Self-Talk Isn’t

Telling yourself nice things you don’t believe is not good self-talk. This happens most often when people attempt to be unrealistically positive. 

If you’re old enough, you might remember Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live. He’d stare at himself in the mirror and recite an affirmation. “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And, doggonit, people like me!”

He was silly. He came across as foolish. But the skits were funny. More than that, it was obvious that he didn’t have a handle on himself. That’s good, because it would be true if Smalley was a real person. Unrealistic positive self-talk does more harm than good.

It denies reality and creates cognitive dissonance. The further your thinking deviates from reality, the worse your situation gets because you stop trusting yourself. Your brain calls bullshit. This brand of self-talk has also been shown to make folks with low self-esteem feel worse because it’s too in conflict with how they truly think and feel about themselves. Positive lies don’t work.

Denying reality impairs judgment and decision making. Here’s an example. A fella is on a ball-busting hike. He’s under-fueled and dehydrated, but he just keeps telling himself it’s not that bad and he’s tough enough to handle it. Instead of stopping to improve his situation, he trudges on and completely depletes himself. Then he gets lost. He’s low on resources and has no idea where he is. Being “tough” walked him into a trap.

Unrealistic positive self-talk is also a form of emotional suppression. Suppressed emotions don’t disappear, they amplify. Instead of dampening discomfort, it makes it worse. Fear doesn’t disappear, it grows. In your head, it might sound like, “I’m not tired,” or “I’m not scared,” or “I’m calm.” But you know you’re lying. Trying to force out what you’re thinking or feeling only dumps gas on the fire.

It also makes you fragile. False positivity creates false confidence. It’s ego-driven and collapses when obstacles hold a mirror to your face. 

Your pal Jesus said it best. The truth shall make you free.

You might ask, “What about Ted Williams? He said all kinds of aggressively positive things about himself.”

You’d be right. But here’s the thing: He fucking believed what he said.

It also wasn’t false confidence. He proved it to himself.

Self-Talk That Truly Works

There’s no bullshit in productive self-talk. There’s no self-flaggelation, and there’s no bright and shiny fictions. It is honest, focused on the present, and defuses you from negative thoughts and feelings. When you use it, you gain more emotional control, improve your presence and attention, and decrease your perceived effort. You also improve your persistence, confidence, and decision making while uncomfortable. Below are six forms of self-talk that work.

Cognitive Defusion

Sometimes, thoughts feel like they’re coming from another person living inside your head. Other times, they seem like statements you make to or about yourself. You’re under no obligation to believe that other person or yourself. When you’re uncomfortable, it’s best to point a critical eye at these thoughts before you allow them to influence your behavior.

Cognitive defusion, and its counterpart, cognitive fusion, come from Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT), which is a derivative of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. ACT’s goal is to increase psychological flexibility—the ability to accept negative thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations without them dominating your behavior. It allows you to stay in line with your values and make the next good decision.

Cognitive fusion happens when you get entangled with your thoughts. You decide that they are true, and they take over your mind and body.

Cognitive defusion creates distance between you and your negative thoughts, feelings, and uncomfortable sensations. You see them as passing mental events instead of absolute truths.

Defusion self-talk is simple. You make a statement to yourself, in your head or outloud, that you notice the negative thought or sensation. Telling yourself that you notice it creates the distance necessary to keep you in control of your actions instead of being driven by negative emotions. Let’s look at examples of fusion self-talk vs defusion self-talk.

Fusion example: “I can’t keep going.”

Defusion example: “I’m having the thought that I can’t keep going.”

Starting the statement with “I’m having the thought” allows you to notice and accept that you’re having the thought without convincing yourself that it’s true. That little bit of distance does wonders for maintaining your sense of control. You accept the thought, let it go, and reorient yourself in the present moment. 

Bonus: Once you make the defusion statement, envision the thought on a leaf floating away down a stream or on a passing cloud. This helps you put it in its proper place as a passing mental event instead of as a truth you’re forced to believe.

Acceptance Self-Talk

This works well with cognitive defusion. During acceptance self-talk, you acknowledge your situation then instruct yourself forward.

Let’s go back to the example of the guy who smoked himself and got lost during his hike. He feels afraid when he realizes that he’s lost. Instead of lying to himself and saying that he isn’t scared, he’d say something like, “I’m scared, but I know I can stay present and figure this out.” 

He accepts the fear. Then he reinforces the conditions that keep him grounded. This increases the likelihood that he’ll slow down and make a good decision.

This works in all sorts of situations.

Getting through a hard ruck: “My legs are heavy, and I can keep going.”

Lack of motivation: “I don’t need to feel good to do my job.”

Wanting to quit: “My mind says quit. I choose to take the next step.”

Instructional/Cueing Self-Talk

We’re the only coach that’s with us all the time. So, we need to coach ourselves well. 

This brand of self-talk focuses on execution. It works well in different situations, but it’s most beneficial when we’re doing technical tasks under fatigue. However, fatigue isn’t a prerequisite. It keeps you present and performing well even when you’re fresh. But it’s good to keep in your back pocket on a tough climb or a technical downhill.

Instructional/cueing self-talk is simple. You just tell yourself what to do in one to a few. Here are some examples.

Hard uphill: “Drive.”

Technical downhill: “Control.”

Rising stress: “Breathe low.”

Hard run: “Snap off the ground.”

Heavy squat: “Drive into the bar.”

You match the talk to the task and coach yourself.

Motivational Self-Talk

Motivational self-talk is similar to instructional/cueing self-talk. The difference is that it’s focused on persistence, effort, confidence, and emotional control. It works really well during long endurance sessions, difficult hikes, long pack-ins and pack-outs, and as discomfort increases.

You use short, neutral-to-positive phrases to keep yourself going. Here are some examples.

Rising discomfort: “You can handle this.”

Wanting to quit: “Stay in the fight.”

Hard uphill: “Strong and steady.”

Hard packout: “One more step.”

These short statements are subtle reminders of who you want to be in the present moment. There’s nothing more motivating than staying aligned with your identity.

Process-Focused Self-Talk

Process-focused self-talk is also similar to instructional/cueing self-talk.

You make your processes conscious with short phrases to keep you task-focused. A shot process is a great example. Many hunters follow steps when shooting their bows and rifles. During process-focused self-talk, you remind yourself of a step in the process to keep you in the moment and focused on execution.

Here are some examples.

Calming down for a shot: “Find your breath.”

Shot execution: “Press the trigger.”

Backcountry self-care: “Pause. Drink. Continue.”

Talk to Yourself as if You’re Someone Else

Back in 1996, Bob Dole took a lot of shit for talking about himself in the third-person during his presidential campaign. It didn’t help that he looked and talked like a robot wearing a skin suit. Third person speech might be a death sentence for a presidential run, but it is a helpful form of self-talk. 

In 2014, researchers from the University of Michigan, Michigan State, and the University of California, Berkeley found that people who refer to themselves during self-talk, “influence their ability to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behavior…”

I’m not suggesting that you should Bob Dole yourself. But using your own name or saying “you” during self-talk is useful.

My favorite third-person phrase came to me when I was on a terrain ruck death march. I was trampsing on a roller coaster of a rocky trail during a 100-degree summer day with 70 pounds on my back. 

As you can imagine, the going got pretty tough. To keep myself going, I’d say, “You’re fine. You’re just uncomfortable.” It worked, so it stuck. It’s since become a self-talk battle cry for Packmule members and members at my gym.

You can use third-person self-talk in a lot of ways. Let’s cover some examples. I’ll use my name because I don’t know yours.

“Todd, breathe.”

“Todd, you’ve been through worse.”

“You can keep going.”

“Do your job right now.”

Create Self-Talk Scripts

Some productive self-talk comes to you in the moment, like when I came up with you’re fine, you’re just uncomfortable. However, it’s best to load your brain with self-talk strategies before they are necessary. This ensures that you won’t default to self-flaggelation or nice-sounding lies.

You know your usual struggles. Maybe you often talk yourself into quitting when sessions get long or difficult. It might be that you lose focus and forget about execution in the moment. Maybe you bolster yourself with false-confidence that leaves you fragile when the real shit rains down. No matter the scenario, you know your default settings. Program new settings ahead of time so they become your new defaults through repetition.

Review the strategies above to create scripts for yourself. Rehearse them before you need them. Then use them when negative thoughts creep in and discomfort rises. Keep scripting, rehearsing, practicing, and refining. You’ll end up with self-talk strategies that work for you.

Get More Out of Yourself with Good Self-Talk

Beating yourself up doesn’t work. Neither does comforting yourself with positive lies. Good self-talk is honest, strategic, and focused on the present moment. It improves your emotional regulation, decreases your stress response, and improves execution. Use the strategies above to develop and refine your self-talk. You’ll be far more resilient on the mountain and in life outside of hunting.