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How to Approach Affirmations

How to Approach Affirmations

Positive Affirmations: Just Believe in Yourself

An effective part of working with your own mind is also sincerity. It is important not to fill your head with unnecessary clutter—even the positive kind.

Repeating to yourself a hundred times a day that you are absolutely terrible, incapable, and powerless won’t do anyone any good—that much we can all agree on. But does the reverse work? Is it helpful to fill your mind with desirable visions? Is persistent repetition of positive statements a path to meaningful change?

Positive affirmations are one of the most frequently used techniques for effectively programming the subconscious and fostering positive thoughts. These are positive statements meant to evoke pleasant emotions. These phrases should align with what you genuinely want to experience and create in your life. For example:

Smart books recommend repeating affirmations as often as possible so that our subconscious adopts them as its own. The key is to feel the right emotions associated with the given affirmation.

Artificial Calm and Peace

A few years ago, I was tasked with training a team of several people. It was to be my first major seminar, spanning an entire day. The topic was very familiar to me, and I knew practically everything about it. Yet, I was nervous and, a month before the event, I was imagining all sorts of disastrous scenarios about how it might turn out. Thoughts raced through my mind:

Since I knew several techniques for overcoming anxiety, I tried to apply them as much as possible. Positive affirmations were one of them. Instead of the negative affirmations that uncontrollably ran through my mind, I began to consciously feed my brain positive ones.

After several days of intensive repetition and focus, I managed to suppress the bad thoughts and started to feel a state of calm and peace. I repeated the affirmations every morning, during the day, and before going to bed. If you are truly persistent, you can influence your brain and make it believe.

This state of calm lasted until the day before the seminar. Even though I tried repeating the affirmations again, my stomach started churning with stress, and my brain began to ignore them altogether. The familiar feeling returned: What if I fail? I didn’t want to disappoint my colleague, the participants who had paid a substantial fee for the course, or, of course, myself.

I think you’ll agree with me (especially those who have tried practicing affirmations) that when you are in a crisis, it is very difficult to believe a statement that seems nice but absolutely mismatched with your current state.

What was left for me to do—the day of the seminar arrived. At that moment, the only thing that mentally helped me was knowing that if I survived, I would definitely feel good about it afterward. And that’s what happened, even though the feeling of a knot in my stomach persisted until the very last minute of the seminar.

Truth Open to Change

After it was all over, I began asking myself how affirmations could work in the long term. Even when facing a complex and emotionally challenging situation where all methods begin to fail, how can you maintain that sense of calm to perform even better and feel good about it?

After studying several more articles on affirmations, the brain, and the subconscious by other experts, these thoughts came to mind: If I want my brain to adopt these statements, I must be 100% honest with myself. If you repeat daily “I am slim,” even when you have significant overweight, it probably won’t work. But if we look at the situation with honesty towards ourselves, we can change the game entirely. Let’s consider a few examples:

You can conclude each sentence with: “I am learning to do it better.”

This way, you don’t lie to yourself but are willing to honestly admit your feelings. Consequently, nothing stops you from also acknowledging the good feelings that may follow. When you state an affirmation, it is essential to feel that you are honest with yourself, not deluding yourself, and truly perceive that this is how it is.

What Do You Need to Create the Right Affirmation?

  1. Identify an area where you feel you need to progress: relationships, work, communication, money…
  2. Determine and write down the current feelings you have in that area: fear, nervousness, sadness, uncertainty.
  3. Discover what you can or are already doing to foster the feeling you want to create: learning to be open, kind, honest, positive, or relaxed.
  4. Repeat them anytime during the day when you have a moment of calm—the more often, the better, of course.

Example: “I am frustrated (current negative feeling) with my eating habits (area), but I am learning to care for myself (what I am doing about it) with respect and dignity (feelings I want to create permanently).”

These are sincere and truthful statements about where you are, what you are learning, and what you are willing to stand behind. Honesty and truthfulness to yourself free you and allow you to move forward precisely where you need to go. You don’t need a hundred affirmations, just perhaps the ten most important ones that you will focus on the most often.

I’m not claiming that affirmations are a panacea or that everything will change because of them, but I think they can work as a suitable supplement to your personal development or in cases where your mind is stuck, and you need to nudge it in the right direction. I’ve met many people who swear by affirmations, but I also know some who prefer other methods because this one doesn’t suit them.

Best of luck in all your endeavors.