Hello! Here we are, back again, living the affirmations and talking about how to make them work for you going forward. Last week, we covered four steps to Building a Better Affirmation and this week, we’re taking the next 4 steps on our discussion of 8 Ways to Write Better Affirmations. Let’s keep this journey going!
5 – Power: Make them powerful by using emotional words
The subconscious mind works on those thoughts to which we apply the most emotion or feeling. The more energy and passion you put into your affirmations, the more effective they will be. Use words that inspire and empower you. Use your favorite adjectives to give your words more power. Use words like ‘exuberant’, ‘incredible’, ‘outstanding’, ‘brilliant’, and ‘fantastic’; interject adverbs like ‘lovingly’, ‘passionately’, ‘consistently’, ‘calmly, and ‘joyfully. The more emotion you give your affirmations, the faster they will work and the clearer they will be.
Your new thoughts need to offer a sense of hope and excitement for the future. They need to inspire you to action. They need to keep you motivated. Use your conscious mind to create the perfect affirmations. But ensure that the words you use appeal to your imagination and your heart. At the same time, don’t be scared to put in some humor. Any words that will generate a smile are worth including in your affirmations. Feel-good neurotransmitters are released within seconds of smiling and they improve our memory and our mood. So try to include some positive statements that make you smile, or even make you laugh. These will help to create the perfect environment for lasting change.
6 – Pointed: Make them short, concise statements
The subconscious mind loves brevity. It doesn’t think in words like the conscious mind does. It thinks in pictures. Short, precise statements make it much easier for your subconscious mind to create the mental images it needs to instill change.
Although you want to affirm your desires in as much detail as possible, it is also important to keep each positive statement as short and succinct as possible. You want to avoid lengthy sentences that will only end up complicating the process. To solve the problem of describing in detail but keeping things short, create an affirmations script. Make each detail a separate thought. Don’t discuss your new house, affirm through each room and the beauty of the yard!
Make your affirmations short, direct, and memorable. Advertisers have known this for a long time. Many successful slogans have been based on this simple fact. Whole advertising campaigns are often built around two or three words. Nike’s “Just do it!” Apple Computer’s “Think Different”, and Avis’s “We Try Harder” are all examples. In the world of affirmations, we call these short and memorable statements power phrases. Create your own personal slogans. They can be used on their own to trigger immediate changes in your thinking.
Repeating words give rhythm to your affirmations. Émile Coué’s famous affirmation, “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better” is an example of using repetition to create rhythm. The more lyrical you make your affirmation statements, the easier they will be to remember.
You can even put them to music. Take a tune from your childhood and change the words. Have fun with it, and don’t worry about what others will think. The ditties or jingles you create are for your benefit alone. No one else need ever know.
7 – Privacy: Keep them to yourself
Only share your goals with those people you know will be 100% supportive. And, if possible, keep your actual affirmations to yourself.
Be aware that most people don’t like change. As you become a more positive, empowered person, the people in your life may start to feel uncomfortable. You are becoming someone they no longer feel they know and may not know how to respond to you.
Sometimes it is just the change that frightens them. But often it is the realization that you now have what they lack. They may try to change you back to the way you were before. This is often the case when quitting smoking or losing weight. Your success makes them feel worse. Don’t be tempted to go back to past habits just to make someone else feel more at ease.
8 – Persistence: Be persistent
Chances are you have a lot of ‘undoing’ to do. You have to create new thought patterns, new memories, new attitudes, and new expectations. And the surest and fastest way to do this is through constant repetition. Positive thoughts create positive actions, and positive actions create positive new habits. But this process takes time. And it takes all the focused determination you can muster.
You need to affirm your desires as often as possible. You can’t reprogram a lifetime’s worth of negative self-talk by saying affirmations twice a day. You need to bombard your subconscious mind with a constant stream of positive thoughts, words, pictures, sounds, and emotions. Your goal has to be in front of you at all times.
If you seriously want to change things, you must be prepared to flood your subconscious mind with all the direction and passion you possibly can. Repeat your affirmations every chance you can, until you reach your goal. Persist until you succeed.
Are you ready? I know, it IS a lot to take in and make the choice to redirect your life, but that is what Essence of Being is all about. We are here to help guide people in their journey, and affirmation is just one step of many. You can join us in our next upcoming flagship workshop, Essence of Being, to really get into how this 3 day experiential weekend journey into self is going to raise your skills at attracting success on your own terms by adopting a more powerful, yet peaceful way of being, while releasing blocks that no longer serve you.
A great tool to assist you in the process of keeping and remembering your affirmations is to get two index cards. On one of the cards write your affirmation and then place that card on your bathroom mirror. Cut the other card into squares, tape the smaller squares in visible places in your personal environment. You can tape them around your house, computer, TV, rear view mirror, fridge etc. The idea is to place the blank squares in places you happen to visibly see a lot. Allow the image of the small cut out to trigger your subconscious mind to say the affirmation.
