Using affirmations
I am sure everyone has heard about affirmations at one point or another in their life. Just like I am sure everyone has tried to use affirmations as well. How many were actually successful with them is quite another thing though! 
Affirmations
According to webster.com, an affirmation is:
- an act of affirming
- a positive assertion
Basically to affirm means to say something with positive conviction.
I think a lot of misunderstanding would be laid to rest if people actually find the real meaning of an affirmation. By that I mean that I would have saved a lot of time if I had actually done that!
We are using affirmations all day long anyways. The negative statements that we keep repeating in our minds about ourselves and others are nothing but affirmations, just negative affirmations.
Auto suggestion
From the beginning of time people have been telling us the benefits of auto suggestion. If we tell ourselves something over and over again, we’re going to end up believing it. No matter what it is.
That little statement is sooooo powerful that it’s unbelievable! We can actually change our beliefs about anything and anyone using auto suggestion. We can literally change our life around using auto suggestion!
It depends a lot also on how we use affirmations. Do we just say the words? That will have minimal if any effect on us. More emotions we can engage while repeating affirmations, faster we’ll actually notice them making a difference.
I have soooo much to write about it that I don’t know where to begin and what to write or in what order to write. It’s quite possible that somethings might be repeated more than once as well.
How to use affirmations?
Most important thing to remember in using affirmations is that you must believe them when you’re repeating them. Initially, the first time you say something to yourself you may not believe it. For example, if you say “I am good at cooking!”. Initially, you may laugh at this, that is if you’re a bad cook right now!
What you do is keep repeating this statement to yourself! Out loud! Sing it, write it down, repeat it but keep at it until you get a little feeling of belief inside of you. I don’t mean do this during the day or over a few days. I mean at one time keep repeating it until you feel like you can be a good cook or that you are a good cook. Sometimes you’ll get that feeling after repeating an affirmation one time and sometimes it could be after several hundred times.
After you get that feeling, that positive feeling towards the affirmation, now you can let it go. Now repeat this again the next day, or twice a day or however many times. Most important thing is not to ever just say the words out loud without reaching the point of believing in that affirmation.
Now if you just do that for a few days, again depends on how faithfully you do this it could be a few days to a few weeks but you’ll actually start to really believe that you are a good cook.
Now what?
If you have done it properly not only are you going to believe that you’re a great cook but you will actually be one. What happens if you’re affirming a statement is that you get excited about it, inspired ideas keep coming in your mind and if you were to take action on those inspired ideas you’ll notice yourself improving.
Now it becomes a positive cycle. More you affirm with conviction, more inspired ideas you get and more you act on those ideas, better you get and thus taking you to what you have been affirming and that “I am good at cooking!”
Related posts:
- Challenges with affirmations
- Subliminal tapes and audio affirmations
- How to instill new beliefs?
- It’s tough to write while depressed
- What is the cause of depression?
- Self conversation: Talk to your best friend
- Real estate investors’ meeting
- Debt: How do you feel about debt?
- Are you feeding your mind?
- Big gap between my blog posts
June 13th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Yes, I am sold on the idea of affirmations. Using affirmations regularly helps you to focus on moving forward and gives you a positive lift.
Recently I have started using affirmations. I have one I repeat to myself as often as I can – particularly at work as I walk to my office. It is a long walk across the site and as I walk I repeat my affirmation. Has it come true yet? No, but I can’t expect it to come true immediately! There is no doubt it affects my attitude however.
Thanks for the post.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:02 am
I’m glad to hear your experience with affirmations. I’m still playing with how to use affirmations more effectively. Trying various different ways.
One affirmation that’s helped me quite a bit at times is just repeating “I can do it!”, “Yes Ricky, you can do it!”. Keep repeating this until I get the sense that I might not know how to do it but if I kept at it I definitely could do it.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Yes, I am with you there. I have not yet quite got it right. I think the key, as you mentioned in the blog is to do it regularly and with feeling. I once heard such positive input described as a can of white paint that someone throws some black paint (negativity) into. How much white paint would you need to put in to cancel the effect of the black paint?
I do have an affirmation I use as a ‘fire-fighting’ tool, as you have, only mine is ‘I can handle it’. As you say, with feeling it gets through in the end. There is always Emile Coue’s ‘Every day in every way, I get better and better’ as well.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Also the issue is having faith that they’re going to work. That’s one of the reasons people usually quit after a short while because they do not believe it’s going to work.
Paint analogy is very powerful! And I like your “I can handle it” affirmation. I’m going to use that as well.
I am trying another way right now. I’ve recorded a whole bunch of affirmations onto my computer and I play them all night long at low volume. I’ve also put them onto my ipod and listen to them whenever I can. Let’s see how it goes.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Ah, interesting.
Oddly enough I did record a Cd of affirmations and started to play it all night in the background, together with a particular piece of music. I eventually stopped doing it – maybe, as you say, I did not have faith it would work. However, looking back, it must have started to work in one way. Just the first few bars of the music would send me to sleep then one day I was washing up and the music came on the radio. Guess what? I fell asleep over the sink!
So the music worked; but what about the affirmations? I will be interested in how you get on and, in the meantime, I will work on resurrecting the idea here. I know which music to use, of course…
June 16th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
hehe that’s too good! Hopefully, you don’t listen to that music while driving or even riding your bike, especially when it’s winter!
That’s NLP at work right there! Not sure if you’re familiar with it. But I believe it’s called anchoring in NLP. A signal (anchor) causes your mood to change. That’s another technique we can use to connect good feelings with our goals.
Can’t hurt.
You listen to some songs that put you in great emotional state. Then you bring a picture of your goal, either mentally or even actual. You do this enough times then every time you think about your goal you’ll feel great. Thus, you’ll start to attract it in your life.
I’ve found that another reason we stop listening to our affirmations’ tapes is because of some resistance inside of us. Instead of giving up we should realize that the affirmations must be working. If they were not then we wouldn’t feel any emotion towards them, positive or negative.
I’ve been thinking about quitting listening to affirmations on my computer and ipod but I’ve kept on going. Reminding myself that what do I have to lose anyways?! Listening to something positive about ourselves over and over can not be a bad thing. So, I’m sticking with it.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Hi Ricky,
That is surely a great look into how one can anchor down a thought and create a affirmative circuitry habit in the brain. The key word here I guess is habit. Once we get into the habit of doing something and relive that through experience it get hot wired into our mind.
I have a coaching client once who believe that he was not a good dad because he work late and never get to see his kids. I get him to affirm himself. Simple mantra for him. I am a great dad and all I do is for the love I have for my family. Followed later by drawing up a plan on how he could make his kid knows that he love him. We got some strategies down, set the dates and get him into the habit of reaffirming his worth.
recently I met up with him over coffee. It was suppose to be an executive coaching programme but he shared with me what he got out from the programme is the close relationship he share with his son now.
Sometimes, it takes someone to remind another of their worth and make the affirmation into a mantra that create a habit and in the end become reality.
Thank you for the sharing.
Think Alternative,
Wayne
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
That’s a great example Wayne. It must be wonderful since you actually helped this client and witnessed positive results.
That’s another thing that I’ve been experimenting with these past few days. Affirmations or affirmations + action. Affirmation + forced action is no good I’ve found after years of experimenting with it.
Affirmations + inspired action seems to be the way to go.
Thanks