Have you ever noticed the things you say to yourself — and believe?

I could never do that.
They don’t like me.
I am such an idiot!

You wouldn’t talk that way to anyone else, yet phrases like these constantly flow through your mind, leaving you insecure and defeated.

Girl, I have been there too! The things I said to myself shook my confidence and kept me stuck in defeat until I learned how to get rid of those lies and start speaking positive, biblical truth to my soul.

Do you want to get rid of some of your stinking thinking? Do you need to change what you say to yourself? Yep… even if you’ve got a pretty good habit of not beating yourself up with your words, we all need to review what we say when we talk to ourselves, refresh our inner vocabulary and refine what we say so it matches up with God’s Truth.

So, here are three easy steps… and they are easy to remember because they all start with the letter R!

1. Recognize

Pay attention to what you say when you talk to yourself. Here is an easy way to determine if what you say to yourself is what God would want you to speak to your own soul. Ask yourself: How would I feel if someone could read my thoughts? Would I be embarrassed? Or… How would I feel if someone I admire, like my pastor or a mentor, heard what I say when I talk to myself? Or… Would I be willing to write down all the things I say to myself and give them to my child and say, ‘Here, this is how I want you to talk to yourself?’

Well, sister, if you cringed or answered, “No way!” on any of those questions, chances are you recognize that how you talk to yourself is more destructive and damaging than it should be. Don’t worry, that leads us to the next R…

2. Refuse

So, if you recognize that your self-talk could use some improvement, then you can start refusing those lies and ugly words. You don’t have to let those lies into your Thought Closet. Yep, between your pierced ears and beneath your colored hair, you have a Thought Closet. It is full of everything you say to yourself.

It’s time to stop stocking it with such ill-fitting junk — you can hold those destructive thoughts outside the door of your thought closet and not repeat them to yourself. You don’t have to agree with them any longer and you don’t have to throw them into your Thought Closet. What you put in your Thought Closet you will wardrobe your life with. So, do what Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5, and hold every thought captive. In other words, recognize the lie and refuse to agree with it until it agrees with God’s Truth. Which leads us to the third R…

3. Replace

You can replace the lies you have told yourself with the Truth that God tells us. So, if you are a name-caller… you know, maybe you call yourself an idiot when you make a mistake, you can hold that thought captive outside the door of your Thought Closet and make it obey the Truth. The truth is that you are not an idiot… you are the workmanship of God! (Ephesians 2:10)

Here’s the thing sister, our self-talk is a habit and we, through God’s power, can change that nasty old habit! The more you practice the 3 R’s, the more beautiful, well-fitting Truth you will have filling your thought closet. And girl, Truth always looks good on you!

In the comments below, please share a lie you’ve believed about yourself and the truth you’re going to replace it with.