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★Creating Effective Affirmations

There are very few that doubt affirmations actually work but opinions vary widely when it comes to exactly why or how. Fundamentally affirmations work because you are repeatedly telling yourself that you would like to feel or act a particular way or take on a certain character trait. This repetition subtly reminds you of this and you take steps in that direction. At first these steps are conscious however with time they become unconscious, hence affirmations are a way of reprogramming the unconscious mind.

Everyone uses affirmations either by taking control and consciously writing them down and choosing how they want to act, think or feel or by allowing their environment to affirm actions and dialog with potentially damaging consequences. If you do not consciously program your subconscious you are left with no choice but to accept whatever life throws at you, positive or negative.

So, how do you create effective affirmations? The first and possibly the most important rule is to make affirmations personal. Use the word I often, in fact most affirmations should start with it. “I am successful in everything I do”, “I am in control of my life by the choices I make”. These affirmations are very personal and so speak to you and your subconscious mind directly.

For more rules, lets learn from some accentuated examples. Take the affirmation “I do not think about purple triangles.” Say that over to yourself five or ten times. What happens? You think about purple triangles. This example teaches us a very important lesson. In life, and when creating affirmations, instead of focusing on what you don’t want, spend the time thinking about things you do want. If you wanted an affirmation about being financially successful, instead of saying “I don’t want to be broke” use “I am financially successful” instead.

This leads me to another point. Always write affirmations in the present tense. Take the previous example “I am financially successful”. This is a far better affirmation than say “I will be financially successful”.

Try to keep affirmations short. If they must be longer than five or six words try to use rhyme and alliteration to help embed them deep into your subconscious mind. Specifics help as well. Once again the previous example “I will be financially successful” could be improved upon. It is in the present tense, it is personal and to the point. But it isn’t specific. Financially successful could mean anything.

Repetition is the way the school system works. Rote learning isn’t very effective when you are using it to memorise all of the required maths, english, science and music work. But when you are only memorising a few short sentences it is very effective. Read your affirmations as often as is possible. I have mine printed out (bmindful has a print function!) and read them first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I also carry them with me wherever I go and any time I have 3 minutes alone out they come.

After saying that do not get into the habit of just going through the motions though. You need to put emotion into your affirmations for them to be effective. When you are saying your affirmations, picture yourself as your affirmations describe you. Try to get vivid images in your mind about what it will be like to be financially successful, or stress free. The mind responds well to vivid imagery, so use it to your advantage.

If you have anything to add to this article, I would love to hear from you. Please use the feedback form to get in touch and I will get back to you as soon as I can!

Speaking of feedback, A bmindful user sends in the following fantastic suggestion:

It is very powerful to record your affirmations and play them back to yourself. This accomplishes two things. It makes you verbalize your affirmations which gives them more effect and allows for easy playback, ie on your ipod, waking up to your affirmations as your alarm clock, or when you are driving to work, while you are standing in line at the grocery store, etc.

This post was converted automatically from the old bmindful article archive. Some of the mentioned links or references may no longer exist.

“How easy it is in our life, to miss what’s being offered.” — Paul Haller

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