First, notice what you're already saying.
I used to talk down to myself: I failed again. I can't talk. I bombed that. Nobody is going to like me. Those thoughts were in my head for far too many years.
My first change wasn't some enormous positive affirmation. It was a more neutral statement: “It's too early in the day to hate yourself.”
I'm not suggesting that was the best possible phrase. It's the crutch I used. I needed a way to interrupt the same harsh conversation I kept having with myself. That was my first step.
Later, I explained how to draw on a small moment when speech went better. Think about a time you were more fluent than you expected. What did you say to yourself afterward? I gave examples like saying your phone number or address, then noticing a quiet thought such as, “Man, I nailed that.”
For me, that had to go alongside practice. I was working on my speech and giving myself new experiences to think about. The positive self-talk had something real behind it.
Pay attention to that conversation in your own head. What do you say immediately after a difficult moment? That was where I started. I had been very good at attacking myself. I had to learn another way to talk to myself.
How harsh was the way I spoke to myself?
I used to talk to myself in a disgusting way I'd never let anyone else talk to me in. I would put myself down. That's how I described it in my notes about self-talk and the crutch I used to stop it.
What if positive self-talk feels impossible to believe?
That was part of the problem for me. If I said something positive and immediately dismissed it, I didn't have much to build on.
I needed to be happy enough with myself that I wouldn't just think, “Oh, that won't happen.” I wasn't talking about suddenly loving everything about myself. I needed a place to start.
Committing to work on my speech helped. My speech wasn't good yet. But I'd made a promise to myself to put the time in, and that gave me something I could feel better about. I was doing something.
The point is to find something real to build on. For me, that included the commitment I'd made and the small successes I could otherwise have overlooked.
What if it was already late at night?
I still said it. Morning or late at night, it was too early in the day to hate myself. That was the phrase I used to stop myself from shit talking myself.
I said it to myself thousands of times. You can borrow the phrase or find words that feel right for you. What I wanted to interrupt was that familiar conversation in my head where I kept attacking myself.