Positive affirmations are simple and great to use for self improvement. That is if you know how to use them properly. A lot of people complain they don’t work… And that is because they use them wrongly!
I have studied affirmations quite a bit and I’ve used them efficiently for years. I like to show you what they are, how they work and how to use them for yourself in a way that gets amazing results.
What positive affirmations do is they change the tapes that are playing in your mind. They change the negative thinking and eventually the negative beliefs you have.
First Off, What Exactly Are Affirmations?
An affirmation is a statement that you create that you continuously affirm to yourself until you believe it to be true. Once this is the case your new belief changes how you perceive reality.
This is dictionary.com’s explanation:
“Something that is affirmed; a statement or proposition that is declared to be true”
How Do Affirmations Work?
Well, studies have shown that people have around 50 000 thoughts per day.
These are positive thoughts (boy, do I enjoy doing this!), neutral thoughts (Is that the doorbell ringing?) and negative thoughts (boy, does this suck…). The negative thoughts come from your negative / irrational beliefs.
These negative/irrational beliefs are formed somewhere in your past because of some event that happened to you or something that has been said to you by someone who you saw as an authority (a parent, a teacher etc).
You then affirmed that it was true and you started to believe it. Since you affirmed it to be true, your mind has formed a belief out of it so you wouldn’t have to think about it anymore (your mind was trying to make life easier for you).
You found more and more evidence of the new belief in the world and therefore the belief has strengthened.
An example (exaggerated and oversimplified to make the point):
You’re in primary school and you’re smitten with Bobby/Betty. You decide to write a cute little note that says “Do you like me yes/no – tick the box“.
You pass it on to one of your friends and instruct to give it to Bobby/Betty. When Bobby/Betty gets the note he/she laughs viciously, ticks the box on “no” and gives the note back to you.
You are upset and think to yourself boys/girls don’t like me, I‘m not good enough. On top of that the bully of the class has seen the whole scenario play out and instructs the whole class to tease you that boys/girls don’t like you.
Nehnehnehnehneh!
You then affirm this to be true and form the irrational belief (Irrational because it was only one boy/girl that didn‘t like you and for all you know his/her girl/boy-friend book was full!) boys/girls don’t like me.
Now you carry this belief with you in your life and every time you try to get somewhere with the opposite sex you are afraid of getting shut down again.
Because you’re nervous this happens and you strengthen that belief. Or you don’t even try because your negative thinking caused by your irrational belief prevents you from taking action.
This belief forms negative thoughts. Long story short, this is where positive affirmations come into play.
What you do is you form a positive affirmation that is the exact opposite and you start repeating this to yourself. You affirm that the exact opposite is true as long is necessary until you believe it.
Your mind doesn’t care if what you are saying is true. In the beginning , when you start with your positive affirmations your mind is like “No this is not true!”, “nonsense” etc.
But if you keep at it your mind will start believing the positive affirmations and will form a new, positive belief.
Once this happens it causes you to have positive thoughts when you are about to talk to the opposite sex. Because hey, you believe that they will like you and that you are good enough!
How To Create Your Positive Affirmations:
First of all, for your affirmations to work they have to be:
About yourself!
You cannot influence what other people will do. So instead of saying “Everyone I meet is nice and friendly to me” say “I experience everyone I meet being nice and friendly to me”Personal!
Create your own affirmations as they have more value to you. Use your own words, words that motivate you and pull you towards believing them. You can use other peoples positive affirmations, but if possible adjust them with your own words that have more meaning to you.Positive!
Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want. Your mind doesn‘t process negatives. When I say don’t think of a pink elephant, you still thought of it, right? So in the same way when you say “I don’t want X to happen”, your mind doesn’t process the “don’t”, and so only hears “I want X to happen“.Present tense!
As if it is already true. So don’t state, “I will feel confident by the end of the month” because that will become true… And you will every new day be yet another month away from feeling confident. Instead state “I am confident every moment of every day”Specific!
Be precise about what you want. An example is “I feel confident and at ease when I introduce myself”
If you follow these 5 rules your affirmations are ready to be used!
This Is How I Use Positive Affirmations
I make a list of 10 things in my life that is currently true that I don’t like.
Examples could be:
I am unattractive and (wo)men are not interested in me.
Or…
I am boring and have nothing interesting to talk about.
Once I have my list of 10 I write the exact opposite of what is currently true. These will become my positive affirmations.
So the opposite then becomes:
I am attractive and (wo)men are interested in me.
And…
I am interesting and always have lots of things to talk about
When my list is finished I go over the list of positive affirmations every morning when I wake up, and every evening just before I go to bed (so that my unconscious mind can work on them when I sleep).
And I then pick one affirmation to focus on as much as possible throughout the day. I just keep repeating it inside my head throughout the day. Until I start noticing it everywhere…
I pick the one that I want to become true the most first. After a while when I feel this positive affirmation being more and more true I switch to another one.
How To Have The Best Results With Your Positive Affirmations
Believe that affirmations work
You don’t have to believe your new created affirmations before you start using them (You actually don‘t.. That‘s why we use affirmations, to make you believe it..), but you do have to believe in affirmations as a tool to change your brain.So create an affirmation that states that affirmations work. “I believe in affirmations, affirmations absolutely work” will do the trick.
Say your affirmations with passion, emotion and conviction
The more emotion you can put in it, the more passionate you are and the more you can convince yourself of it already being true the more effective they are.By using emotion the positive affirmations show up on the radar of your subconscious mind. By using emotion, passion and conviction the subconscious mind accepts the statement more rapidly.
Say them looking in a mirror
By doing this you make it more important to yourself. Look yourself in the eye.Say them in 1st, 2nd and 3d person
So that will be 1st: “I feel confident introducing myself” 2nd “YOU feel confident introducing YOURself” and 3d: ”Sebastiaan -insert your own name here- feels confident introducing himself”.Write your affirmations down on paper
If you have a place where you can place notes with your positive affirmation of the day then go for it. It will remind you throughout the day.Visualize them already being true
Let’s take the example “I feel confident introducing myself” again. When you state this affirmation see yourself introducing yourself confidently. Feel how you would feel, see what you would see and hear what you would hear.Take action
Find truth of your new affirmation in the world. Even the smallest of smallest things you notice are great and mean the positive affirmations are working. The more truth you gather, the faster you believe it.Make sure you feel deserving of what you affirm to be true
If you don’t feel you deserve it your positive affirmations won’t come true. When you have this problem, create positive affirmations around deserving what you want. (I deserve love, success, happiness etc. I deserve X)Don’t make them too outrageous
Make them a little out of what you believe is possible for you. If you are currently broke and you state “I am a multimillionaire” your mind doesn’t believe it and you will not find much evidence of that being true in the world around you.
As a last thing about positive affirmations I’d like to say this…
Keep repeating them. In the beginning it’s fun and exciting, but after a while it gets boring and annoying. This is how it’s supposed to be. This is the turn-over point. This is where your brain is like “OK, OK I give up! I will start believing this!”
Only change your affirmations when they have become true already. If you don’t see any improvement after say 4-6 weeks there’s probably something wrong with your affirmation (or how you use them). Go over the above tips again and adjust where necessary.
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