Life Changing Ways to Create and Use Affirmations

Affirmations are little sentences a person uses to retrain their brain so they can live a better life. They are positive little catchphrases designed to help the user to focus on being positive about themselves and not focus on the negativity they were raised to believe.

Ok, let’s start over. Since birth, our brains latch on to all the things said around and about us and sadly, it will often decide to believe the negative comments. For example, if we hear that we are ugly by fashion standards, over time we will believe that we are ugly and live our lives as we believe ugly people deserve to live. You could be the most beautiful person in the world, but if your mind believes you are ugly, you are going to lack self-confidence in your looks.

Along comes the concept of Affirmations. Magical little phrases that have been in use for hundreds, if not thousands, of years that retrain the brain to forget those negative self-beliefs and start believing positive beliefs that align better with our current goals and aspirations. As functioning adults, we get to determine our role in reality. Remember, you are the main character of your story and like that main character, you decide how you are described, within limits.

Now that we have the concept that affirmations are these little positive-worded sentences that teach our brains and ourselves to think in a more positive, self-affirming way, we need to know how to write them effectively. With a little knowledge and self-reflection, writing powerful affirmations is easy.

The Rules that are Not Rules

Step 1- Figure out what energies you want to attract into your life or what parts of your life you want to improve. For example, you want to feel more self-confident about your looks. Sit down and journal about what you like about yourself and what you would like to like about yourself. Some things can be changed and some things you need to learn to accept, meaning, I can easily change my eye color with contacts, but I must accept that my left eye is slightly rounder than my right eye. That’s ok, it makes me unique. Sometimes it’s not as much about the physical stuff as it is about your attitude towards the physical stuff. My affirmation may be something like “I have beautiful, bright eyes.”

Step 2-Affirmations should begin with the word “I” or the phrase “I am.” Your affirmations are all about you. So, “I have beautiful, bright eyes” fits that bill.

Step 3-The rest of the “I” sentence should be in the present tense and be as if what you want is happening in the present. This is where we trick our sub-conscious mind into believing that what we want is happening now, even if we consciously don’t believe it. The subconscious mind is very much like a little child, it has three timeframes: happened in the past, will happen in the future, and NOW! The past is unchangeable, the future is unreachable, and NOW is the most important time in the whole of time. By putting your affirmation in the present, you are telling your sub-conscious mind that this is important in is happening. If you use future tense, the mind will never make it happen because future is time that hasn’t happened. If it helps, think of it like explaining doing things with a two-year-old child.

Step 4- Keep your affirmations positive. This one is a lot harder than it looks for many people. We are used to knowing what we don’t want, but it’s much harder to define what we do want. However, that toddler part of our sub-conscious mind will love to skip over the negative words and do what the rest of the sentence says. Seriously, put a cookie in front of a two-year-old and tell them not to eat it. Within five minutes of you leaving the room, you will have cookie crumbs. By making your affirmations worded positively, you are telling your sub-conscious mind exactly what you want to happen or believe.

Step 5-Say what you mean when you do affirmations If you want financial stability and that is what your affirmations are about, you will want to say something like “I financially stable and always have enough money to pay my bills and some of my wants” rather than “I’m kind of good with money, most of the time I can pay my bills on time.” Affirmations are a fake-it-until-you-make-it thing. Know what you want from your life, speak as if you are living your best life, and learn to believe that you deserve it.

Step 6- Repeat your affirmations frequently. Start every morning by repeating your affirmations 10 times as you brush your teeth or wait for your coffee to brew, repeat them a few times before you get out of your car at work, repeat them a few times during your afternoon bathroom break, and repeat them a few times before you go to bed at night.

Ways to Add Affirmations to Your Life That Aren’t Boring

· Make It a Game: Can I repeat my affirmations 10 times before my coffee finishes brewing?

· Journal Page: Fill a journal page with your affirmations every day. Play with fancy scripts or different writing styles or even ways to hold the book.

· Every Time You Do an Action, Repeat Your Affirmations: Example, every time you pass a mirror, repeat “I am confident, I am strong, I am myself all day long.”

· Make It Rhyme: Fun little rhymes are always a great way to remember to do your affirmations. “I am wealthy, I am healthy, I am rich, I am that bitch!”

· Write Your Affirmations on Your Mirror: Wet-Erase markers wash off of mirrors and leave no marks. It’s a great way to remind yourself of what you wish to affirm.

· Write your Affirmations on Your Body: You can write affirmations on your skin where no one can see them, but you know they are there and every time you look at that body part, silently repeat your affirmation. This is especially useful when you are doing affirmations for confidence, getting a job, or doing well on a test.

· Create a Sigil or Design to Represent Your Affirmation: Affirmations do not always need to be written out in words. If you are the creative type or if you want to be subtle, use a sigil or just a symbol to remind you of your affirmations. If your affirmation is “I am happy” you might use a smiley face.

· Go High-Tech: Create

· A graphic of your affirmations and use it for the lock-screen on your phone or the background of your laptop. Associate all your passwords with your affirmations. Every time you log into your game server with B3aut!Yful1, you will remember “I am beautiful!”

· Go Low-Tech and Get Crafty: Create art around your affirmations or when you do a repetitive craft, repeat your affirmations. Nothing is stopping you from repeating “I am talented” as you crochet a row of 200 single crochets.