Getting a handle on your self-talk is a big step toward making positive changes in your life. The next step is affirmations. Don’t roll your eyes. I know you have probably come across the same dross I’ve seen regarding affirmations and you have probably given the practice a shot before now. If your experience with it was anything like mine, it left you a bit flat. It wasn’t worthless but it wasn’t worth the hype.
Affirmations are not supposed to be just feel-good platitudes. They are deliberate self-talk with a specific purpose and focus. With affirmations you are making promises to yourself, stated in the present tense, to bring those promises into reality. As a tool for goal achievement or self-improvement, affirmations are very useful as part of a bigger plan.
To be most effective affirmations need to be specific, positive, and they need to be stated in the present tense. The first time you do it will feel like you are lying to yourself. I am not currently lean, strong, and healthy. Why am I saying that I am? What you are doing is setting an intention for a reality you want to inhabit. One day you will say “I am lean, strong, and healthy” and it will be true. Saying it today, tomorrow, the next day, and so on, puts you in line with that future reality and bringing it into your present moment.
If instead you said “I’m going to be lean, strong, and healthy.” you would never get there because that statement is always in the future from the time you are saying it. You can never get to the future. You can only go from the present to another present.
It also needs to be positive, as in the affirmative. You say “I am lean, strong, and healthy” not “I am not fat, not weak, and not unhealthy.” The positive statements are more specific and focused on what you want. The “I am not” statements only specify what is not going to happen. They are not focused on what you want to bring into your life. They are not enough information so they are not helpful. If I ask you what you want for dinner and you say “not fish” you gave me information but didn’t really tell me what you want. It works like that.
Think of something you really wanted in the past that you eventually achieved or acquired. When you thought about it and took it seriously as a goal, you would picture yourself owning and using the thing, or enjoying the accomplishment. You really wanted that car and would picture yourself driving down the highway in that car. That was a present tense visualization you used. The same thing happened when you imagined earning your diploma, mastering a yoga pose, or getting married. You could picture yourself doing or having these things and that picture in your head was a present tense picture. Affirmations are the verbal equivalent of that visualization. “I am driving a blue, BMW Z4 Convertible” is the affirmation that describes the present tense image in your mind of driving that convertible.
To be effective, affirmations need to be repeated every day. When you say them every day, when you write them in your journal every day, you set your intention every day. You sharpen your focus every day. You effectively say “This is the destination I’m headed for and this is what it will exactly be.”
When you say them you need to feel them too. Feeling it while you say it makes work better. You embody the energy of the affirmed circumstance you want and that brings it to life. Do that every day.
Affirmations work best if they build on each other. “I am lean, strong, and healthy.” is awesome by itself, but there is a lot that goes along with that reality. What do you need to do to be lean, strong, and healthy? State that completely and in the present tense. Start with the main thing you want and as you come to understand what it really means to be that, you will see what else you need to be doing to support that reality.
Start with “I am lean, strong, and healthy.” After a few days you will realize that to be lean, strong, and healthy requires certain habits you don’t currently possess. Make those into affirmations, make them specific, and stack them with the first one.
“I am lean, strong, and healthy.”
“I get eight hours of restful sleep each night.”
“I do yoga for an hour, three days a week.”
Get the idea?
Begin with one goal. Start with one statement. What do you want your life to be six months from now? a year from now? State it positively, specifically, and in the present tense. Feel it. If you have never had this experience or thing then feel what you think it will feel like to be or have this thing. Really experience the being of it for a moment while you recite your affirmations. Do this every morning. Do this every evening. After a few days you may find yourself adding detail to your statements or adding new statements to your list. That’s fine. Keep going. You will build it up over time and spend about ten minutes or so each time you do this practice. It doesn’t need to be longer than that.
Affirmations move your energy and focus. They remind you of the life you want to have and person you want to be. They train your thinking, and shift your mindset from where you began to where you want to be. You begin to think and behave like a person who is lean, strong, and healthy. You get a better idea of what that means and what does and does not support that life. You see more choices and make decisions that support you in ways you didn’t before.
As you recite and embody these statements over the days and weeks, you will find yourself seeing opportunities to take action that line up with direction you want to go. Do it. Affirmations alone don’t change your behaviors and habits. You have to do that yourself. This takes time. One day, you will recite your affirmations and they will be true statements of your life in that moment.