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I’ve been using affirmations for years and majority of the time without any positive result.  The affirmations that are playing in the background in my mind, without any conscious help from me seemed to be the only ones consistently working and producing results (negative that is)

But consciously repeating affirmations have been very disappointing to me.

One famous affirmation is “I love myself!” I’ve repeated this affirmation hundreds of times daily without any result showing for it.

What is your mother tongue?

You maybe fluent in English but what is your mother tongue? Try repeating the affirmations in your mother tongue and see if that makes more impact.

What language do you think in?

Even if you speak English, you have to find out what language you think in. What language do you dream in? I think and dream in English so it’s much better but there have been instances where these English affirmations had no effect on me.

What language was used when you were a child?

A lot of our negative self talk is basically just a repetition of what adults around us used to say when we were kids. If adults told you that you were no good, that you were lazy, that’s what you’ll notice yourself affirming to yourself subconsciously.

In order to effectively overcome those negative affirmations, you have to find out when it all started. By that you should be able to find out in what language were they spoken to you. That’s the language you want to use to combat those negative affirmations.

Even if you speak English fluently and even think and dream in English now, language that was used when you were a child has a very strong affect on you.

Do these words even mean anything to you?

Affirmations such as “I love myself”, “I love everything about myself”, “I forgive myself”, “I approve of myself” did not produce any kind of emotion in me. I kept repeating them over and over but nothing happened.

I even tried repeating these affirmations in my mother tongue but still nothing.

Louise Hay gives examples of people starting to use affirmation (while looking at themselves in the mirror) “I approve of myself” and how they got so upset that they started crying, some of them threw the mirrors away, some of them yelled and screamed and ran out! I would be ecstatic if I had emotions like those. It would mean that I’m getting somewhere.

Why was that?

I finally realized it was because the words such as “love”, “forgive”, “approve” do not hold any meaning to me. I was brought up in a culture where these words are taboo, they’re just not used, or they’re just used so commonly that they lose their meaning.

I might as well be affirming in Chinese because that’s what these words were to me.

So, I tried using words such as “I like everything I do”, “I like everything about myself” and now I was able to feel a little bit which was still infinitesimally more than before!

Before repeating any affirmations just ask yourself if what you are affirming even has any meaning to you. If it doesn’t, like in my case, then find out what would work, what evokes any kind of emotion in you that is similar in nature. Emotions could be negative or positive, doesn’t matter, as long as there is some feeling evoked by using those words

I’ve had to do a lot of experimentation on every single affirmation. I repeat it with feelings and strong emotions and in different languages to find out what works better for me.

So, don’t give up on just yet. There are challenges with affirmations but if done properly they can be very rewarding indeed!

I’ve been meaning to cancel my cable for a while now. Problem is that I really enjoy watching tv. As an experiment I once gave up tv watching for about two months using strictly my will power and self discipline.

After that I started watching tv again. There is nothing better than watching some show, that you enjoy, after coming home from work. I enjoy mystery shows the most. These days there are a ton of mystery shows. Anytime you turn the tv on, you’re bound to find something to watch.

Killing brain cells

I am not joking but it really feels like I’m getting dumb if I keep watching tv. I have realized that I can’t think, can’t concentrate, can’t even do simple things effectively while watching tv. Every time I have needed to concentrate I have had to turn the tv off.

As I really love to think, tv is actually coming in my way. My mind seems cloudy and foggy even after the tv is off.

But I just did not want to resort to using discipline again as that just doesn’t seem to last.

Even now I’m sitting watching “Without a trace”. I don’t really watch this show but it’s on right now so why not!?

Cable tv discount ended

Recently all my discounts ended for my cable tv. I could have called and negotiated better discounts once again as I always have been doing but I decided against it.

I called and cancelled the cable!!! Wuhooo!!!

Well, I have until 24th of July before it’s cancelled.

Instead of using strictly discipline, I am changing my environment to change myself. If you want to stop smoking, you stop hanging out with people who smoke. If you want to stop watching tv, you cancel your cable!

If you’re an employee of a company, have you ever thought about how much time your job actually takes from your day?

I was thinking about this recently. It’s so easy to say that I work 9-5, thus 8 hours a day but why was I feeling so burnt out all the time!?

That’s when I started adding up all the hours relating to my job.

Commuting for work: 1 hour 45 minutes one way, thus 3 hours and 30 minutes daily

Time at work: 7 hours and 30 minutes (if I eat at desk so no lunch) to 8 hours

Time to unwind from work: at least 1 hour

Time to prepare for work (getting ready, preparing lunch and so on): 45 minutes to 1 hour

Total time spent around my job: 12 hours and 45 minutes to 13 hours and 30 minutes

No wonder I feel so tired all the time! I spent majority of my day going to work, preparing for work and at work!

That brings another interesting question. How much am I really making an hour then? My hourly rate is going to go down quite a bit if I divide by 13+ hours instead of regular 8 hours!

This is last year’s story. I had not done any sort of weight training for a number of years. I tried doing pull ups and I could barely do only two! I was not over weight and seemed like I was in decent shape but still two is two! No getting around it!

That’s when I decided to see if I could increase the number of pull ups I could do. Pull ups or chin ups to me are the same thing. Ones I am referring to are where hands are about should width apart and palms facing you.

Grease the Groove

I decided to try Pavel Tsatsouline’s grease the groove method. It’s quite interesting.

Basically, you do a number of reps through out the day. Trick is to never exert yourself and you should feel fresh after every set.

For example, if you can do 10 pull ups, then max you should be doing at any given time is maybe 4-5. As you can do those without really forcing yourself. Do 4-5 (40-50% of your max) through out the day. Slowly increase your intensity by either doing more reps per set or doing them more times (more sets) during the day.

I started doing 1 pull up 3-4 times a day. Slowly I increased to 2 reps, then 3, then 4 and so on.

I would do these for maybe two weeks straight then check my max number of pull ups over the weekend and then take a day or two off after that to recuperate.

I had a pull up bar at home that would go around the door frame. It was awesome until it broke my door frame.

Anyhow, I did one set in the morning, one set at night after work and 1-2 sets during work. Doing it at work was where it got interesting. I found a bar at one of the stalls in the washroom so I started doing the pull ups there.

The washroom door had a combination lock so I would always know when someone was punching in the code in order to enter and that was perfectly safe for me. It gave me enough time to stop doing the pull ups and be washing my hands before anyone entered. Perfectly natural!

One day that combination lock broke so instead of fixing it, they just totally took the whole knob and lock out. Now people could just come in without any warning.

One day a senior manager walked in and I quickly stopped but he noticed what I was doing. I don’t think he ever told anyone but he would look at me differently now.

That kind of put a stop to my pull ups at the washroom stalls at work. And now the door frame being broken by my home pull up bar so I couldn’t do them at home either.

That’s when I stopped doing them but not before doing 14 pull ups all the way up to all the way down, with perfect form!

Needless to say I was quite impressed with myself and with this system by Pavel Tsatsouline.

Try staring at someone for a few seconds and more than likely they’ll turn around and look at you.  Why is that? And how is that?

I’ve noticed this many times. If someone’s looking at me I invariably feel that and I can even feel which direction the “stare” is coming from.

I’ve also tried this with many different people. I pick someone and try staring at them for about 5 seconds or more. Most of these are people that are not looking straight at me or coming toward me. They’re either standing/walking perpendicular to me so I can see their side profile, or they have their backs towards me, so walking/standing with their backs to me.

I’d say that more than 90% of the people can feel that I’m staring and they turn and look at me.

It’s just one of those things that I’ve noticed but haven’t really thought about as to the why! I’m sure there is some explanation to it but I don’t know yet. Hmm…