A quick introduction to positive affirmations – and how to best use them

Why is it that some people make dream after dream come true, while others just continue dreaming and spend their lives building dreams for someone else? The answer may lie in the power of focus, after all,

What you believe you conceive 

On that note, today’s Guest Post is written by  Igor Tomic who has gotten a lot closer to living the perfect life he envisioned by using positive affirmations successfully.

In this post, you will learn about positive affirmations, what they are, how and why they work, I will show you a few examples of positive affirmations, tell you a small personal victory I had with them and finally talk about some of the best practices of using them.

Definition

First, let me define positive affirmations. They are simply sentences that are positive and affirming, and that have a goal to become true for you, although they usually aren’t before you start using them.

They are able to eliminate negative beliefs you have about any problem you may have, such as issues with your confidence level, self-belief, problems with addictions or traumas, or pretty much anything relating to the mind or the mindset.

Theory

In theory, by repeating positive affirmations enough times, you should be able to rewire your mind so that you start thinking positively about an issue.

You should be able to do that because of the numerous times you repeat positive things to yourself. This acts as a counterweight to all the negativity we pick up during our day. By repeating positive affirmations over time your issue will be solved.

Let’s say the issue is confidence and shyness, as that is the one I am most familiar with and had problems with when I was younger.

I was afraid to go after the things I want simply because I thought that I was not worthy of them. Now, it would be awesome to tell you that the problem was fixed within a few weeks, but it just doesn’t happen that easy (for some people it does!).

Although I do have to admit that, thanks to positive affirmations, lack of confidence is no longer a problem for me.

How do they work?

Using positive affirmations is simple and straightforward. First, you need to make a list of affirmations that you want to repeat to yourself. Of course, make sure you want them to become true for you.

Making your list

I’ll share a part of my list, the one I used to help me with confidence issues:

• I am a confident man
• I believe in myself
• Challenges make me stronger
• I love and respect myself
• I can achieve anything I put my mind to

I am sure you get the idea. Positive affirmations are simply positive, concise, short sentences that are straight to the point.

Pro tip: when you make your list of positive affirmations, never use the negative. For example, do not say “I am not afraid of any obstacle”, but rather say “I can overcome any obstacle”.

The thing is that our minds have a hard time processing the negative in any sentence. Just think of all the people that have so much trouble with double negatives, and the fun bullies can have with them.

If you need help with making your list, there are hundreds if not thousands positive affirmations sorted in lists, written for all sorts of problems on http://www.freeaffirmations.org/

 

Further preparation

After you have your list of affirmations, decide to dedicate a specific time of the day to recite them, possibly even a few times in a row.

Please keep in mind that this does not take longer than 5 or 10 minutes.

Best practices show that repeating affirmations when you just woke up AND before you go to sleep yields the best results. So this is certainly what I would suggest.

 

Best practices

Other best practices suggest that positive affirmations work best when the person saying the affirmations does so:

• Saying the affirmations out loud
• Saying the affirmations one by one, slowly and deliberately
• Saying the affirmations in a confident tone, like you truly believe in what you are saying (and you should be!)
• Standing in a relaxed, upright position in which your body is in a good posture
• Saying the affirmations with a positive mindset and believing that they will work
• Saying them by looking at yourself in the mirror, as seeing yourself so relaxed, positive and hopeful creates a positive loop in which you believe in what you are saying more, and then you enjoy it more, ad infinitum.

What to expect from positive affirmations

I have to say here that we are all different people with different depths of our problems and different ways we used to solve them (or not solve them) with.

So it is safe to assume that positive affirmations work on a different timescale for each one of us, depending on past experience, our issues, our effort in using positive affirmations, outside influences, etc.

Having said that, you should generally feel your first results within three weeks from the time you have started using positive affirmations.

Parting words

Positive affirmations truly are an amazing way to change your life and set yourself free from your current limits.

So, go ahead, make your list today and start using them.

 

So what do you think?

We would love to hear your results, once you have something to report. And how about taking a few minutes to share any great tips or stories you have to share with others. After all, what works for you might help someone else.

As always, your interaction with our posts creates a reservoir of wisdom for all our readers to benefit from so please share your thoughts, stories and questions in the comments box below and remember to tweet, like and +1 ~ Thanks, we appreciate it.

 

Additional resources
The Slight Edge 
Why Don’t My Positive Affirmations Work?