How Third-Person Self-Talk Can Help You Overcome Nerves and Perform Under Pressure

The Voice Inside Your Head: Why How You Talk to Yourself Matters

Most of us spend more time talking to ourselves than we do talking to anyone else.

And this running commentary follows us into boardrooms, onto playing fields, through difficult conversations, and into moments of self-doubt. Yet despite the power of this internal dialogue, most people pay surprisingly little attention to how they speak to themselves and pay the price when it works against them.

When people think about self-talk, they often focus on whether their thoughts are positive or negative. While the content of our self-talk matters (an important topic we'll explore in a future post—research suggests there may be an even more important question:

What perspective are you speaking from?

The Difference Between First-Person and Third-Person Self-Talk

Imagine you are preparing for an important presentation or game.

Let’s compare:

"I'm nervous. What if I mess this up? I need to calm down."

vs.

"Erin, you’re nervous and you've prepared for this. You know your material. Just focus on delivering the message."

Notice that the content is similar, but the perspective changes. A lot.

Rather than speaking from within the experience, third-person self-talk involves using your own name or the pronoun "you" when talking to yourself. At first glance, this can feel strange. However, a growing body of research suggests that this small linguistic shift can have surprisingly powerful effects. First-Person self talk tends to keep us immersed in our current state. Stated simply, we are less effective at managing anything when we don’t have sufficient space to evaluate and respond.

Why Third-Person Self-Talk Works

Psychologist Ethan Kross and colleagues have spent years studying what they call distanced self-talk. (Dr. Kross’ book Chatter is a great way to dive deeper on this topic). Kross’ research suggests that using your own name rather than saying “I'“ creates psychological distance from an emotional situation. Instead of becoming immersed in anxiety, frustration, an impulse, or self-doubt, you begin to view the situation more like an observer—or like a coach speaking to an athlete.

This distance matters because most of us are far better at giving advice to others than we are at giving advice to ourselves. When a friend is struggling, we tend to be thoughtful, compassionate, and rational. When we are struggling, we often become critical, emotional, and reactive. Distanced self-talk helps bridge that gap.

the Research

In a series of studies, participants were asked to reflect on stressful experiences using either first-person language ("I") or their own name.

Researchers found that third-person self-talk reduced emotional reactivity while requiring very little additional mental effort. Brain imaging studies showed reduced activity in regions associated with self-focused emotional processing, without increased activation of areas associated with effortful cognitive control. In other words, people appeared to regulate their emotions more effectively without having to work harder to do so.

Other studies have found that non-first-person self-talk can improve performance under pressure, reduce distress before stressful tasks, and decrease unhelpful rumination after challenging experiences. Participants preparing for public speaking tasks performed better and experienced less anxiety when they used non-first-person language compared with traditional first-person self-talk.

More recent research suggests that distanced self-talk may be particularly useful in preparatory situations—moments when we are getting ready for a difficult conversation, competition, presentation, or performance challenge.

Imagine an athlete standing on the starting line of an important race.

First-person self-talk might sound like:

"I'm so nervous. What if I don't perform well?"

Distanced self-talk might sound like:

"You've trained for this. Stay focused. Trust the process."

It’s counterproductive to focus on eliminating nerves. Feelings of nervousness are there to tell us that the thing matters to us. And it’s important to do things that matter to us, but we want to make sure we are able to stay connected to the importance without being swept up by anxiety. Rather than elimination (incredibly difficult to do), aiming to create enough psychological distance to respond to those nerves effectively is a more effective use of our mental efforts (because it can be readily achieved with a bit of practice).

The same principle applies to executives preparing for presentations, students writing exams, talking to your crush, families navigating difficult conversations, or anyone facing a meaningful challenge.

The Takeaway

Many people assume that confidence comes from eliminating doubt.

In reality, confidence often comes from changing our relationship with doubt.

The next time you find yourself overwhelmed by anxiety, frustration, or self-criticism, try a simple experiment. Speak to yourself the way you would speak to someone you care about. Use your own name. Take the perspective of a coach rather than a critic. Even better, be a mentor.

It may feel unusual at first. But the research suggests that a small shift in language can create enough distance to help you think more clearly, regulate emotions more effectively, and perform at your best when it matters most.

Everyone who knows me has heard some version of “practice under low pressure so we can execute when pressure is high”.

Self talk is a tool. And we use tools we know more effectively than those we don’t. Practice using distanced self talk in situations where you find yourself a bit elevated so you can get a sense of what it’s like to do so. That way, when the stakes are high, you'll be ready to giver.

References

Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., et al. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–324.

Moser, J. S., Dougherty, A. E., Mattson, W. I., Katz, B., & Moran, T. P. (2017). Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI. Scientific Reports, 7, 4519.

Gainsburg, I., & Kross, E. (2022). Distanced self-talk increases rational self-interest. Scientific Reports, 12, 119.