Recently I watched a short documentary about the two fastest speed cubers in the world. If you’re not sure what the hell that is, watch this:

What you are witnessing is a combination of an incredible amount of data, pattern recognition, finger dexterity and algorithms all coming together in under 7 seconds of brilliance.

The documentary tells the viewer that most of the professional speedcubers memorise up to 300 different algorithms that they can then combine to solve any of the 43 quintillion possibly permutations. When you think about it this way it’s quite an incredible achievement but in truth, it really is just about practice and muscle memory.

The concept of muscle memory is often just thought of in a sporting context. You teach your physical muscle to remember something by practising that thing over and over and over again.

I haven’t played the guitar in a couple of years but the other day I picked one up and strummed away. Muscle memory.

This documentary really got me thinking about what other kinds of muscle memory I use and teach myself every day. When I stopped to consider the endless things I do every day it’s actually quite overwhelming.

The one that I want to focus on is the one that we probably think has the least impact on our lives: self-talk.

Self-talk occurs when you tell yourself that you can or cannot do something. When you tell yourself that you do or do not deserve something. When you think you’re not smart enough or pretty enough or that you shouldn’t eat that or you should do more of something because of XYZ. These micro-moments throughout your day are either helping you to become a better version of yourself or they are teaching you to be too hard on yourself, setting you up for failure before you’ve even begun.

If you are considering a new venture or job, if you think you might deserve a better partner or a raise at work and you talk yourself out of taking that first leap you are teaching yourself that you don’t deserve good things.

Your brain remembers this and over time you don’t even have the conversation with yourself, you just stop trying.

The muscle memory we employ every day really does matter and just like any skill, you can teach yourself to be and do just about anything (within the limitations of the natural world of course).

Next time you catch yourself talking shit to yourself I want you to stop and think about why and then I want you to get irritated with yourself and stop it.

Positive self-talk takes a conscious effort to get right but frustratingly negative self-talk is easy to let slide and not notice. Take notice of how you talk about and to yourself because words really matter. But that’s a topic for a different article altogether.