I am a big believer in affirmations. For me, affirmations are a way of speaking truth over myself everyday that help to ingrain positive truths about myself that often get overlooked by the negative thoughts swirling in my mind on a daily basis.
It’s important to speak these, out loud, to yourself daily because if you aren’t saying them, then the words aren’t getting into your mind. When all you hear is the negativity inside of your head, how are you ever supposed to have that self-confidence and self worth that you want?
To take control of that negative self talk, one of the best practices that I’ve found that works for me is doing DAILY affirmations. Doing these daily will implant those thoughts in your head right from the beginning. Affirmations open the gates to freedom from your minds negative self talk. What holds us back most in life isn’t failure, it’s the fear of failure that is in our minds. When we can change our negative self talk into positive self talk, we are going to open up our lives to so much unimaginable freedom from the things that are holding us back from pursuing what we actually want to do in this life.
WARNING: You will feel foolish saying these out loud at first. You may even want to give up and call it stupid and move on before really giving it a chance. Have you ever heard the phrase “you reap what you sow’? Consider these affirmations like sowing good seeds of thought into your brain. At first, it’s not going to look like much and you are going to question if it is even working. But eventually, you will see the product of it. Eventually, your affirmations start to come up in your daily self talk. Eventually, you start to be less critical of yourself and more accepting of the person that you are.
Also check out “How to Create Positive Goals” before you start making those New Year’s Resolutions!
Writing Affirmations that Stick
Writing affirmations isn’t as hard as you might think it is! Actually, once you get going, you might have more than you thought you ever would!
To start out, shoot for 5-10 total affirmations.
Affirmations are what you WANT to believe about yourself, not what you actually do believe about yourself in this moment. They aren’t dreams, they aren’t wishes. They are statements that you want to have about your own worth, your own body, your own mind and your own spirit.
Affirmations that stick also don’t degrade who you are. For example, writing an affirmation about dieting is wrong… and it’s not true to what you WANT to think about yourself. Whereas writing an affirmation about loving the body that God gave you- thats an affirmation that will stick and make a positive impact on your mental health.
Let’s Brainstorm!
To start writing your affirmations, make a list of 5 of the negative self talk statements that come up in your mind often. A big one for me is “I can’t handle this.” I didn’t believe that I could do anything by myself or that I was strong enough to go through life without someone literally holding my hand. I didn’t see myself as resilient or strong.
Because of that negative self talk, my affirmation became “I am resilient and strong,”
Make your list. It’s not going to be a fun list to make, but its necessary to making the real changes in your self talk that is holding you back from so much in this life. Your list might be long, or it might be really short. No matter what though, pick 5 of those negative thoughts and write what you actually WANT to believe about yourself instead.
Daily Decisions
Once you’ve got your list, it is now a daily decision to say your 5 affirmations OUT LOUD every morning. I have mine posted to my mirror so that I can look myself in my own eyes when I say my affirmations.
It’s so important to say them out loud and not just read them. Reading it, hearing it and saying it are going to ingrain the positive thoughts more into your brain than just reading it to yourself.
Another way to hold yourself accountable is to set a timer on your phone. Even writing your affirmations in the notes section of your phone in case you don’t have your affirmations with you in the minutes that you need them is a great back up plan to have.
Affirmations in Other Scenarios
When I was in treatment, I had the same negative self talk meet me at the table, with my lunch, daily. My therapist and I wrote affirmations for me to read before lunch every day. I got out my little notecards and read my affirmations as I was eating lunch. As ED screamed at me, I screamed back with my prepared affirmations.
You could also have notecards of affirmations for when you are feeling sad, or having a panic attack, for when your depression is deep and you don’t want to get out of bed.
Talking back to the negative self talk is the root of what affirmations are. We all want to be happy, content and at peace in the new year. To do that, look inside your mind. Is your mind and your thoughts at the center of it all? Give affirmations a real try.
Affirmations CAN change your thought process about yourself over time. But the kicker is that you have to give it time and do it consistently. Try it for 3 months. If you do, I would love it if you emailed me to let me know if it worked for you!
If you want help writing affirmations, I’ve got that too! I’m linking my ultimate list of 100 affirmations here so that you can get some ideas of what affirmations you need to add into your life!
My email is: [email protected] I’d love you to stop in to say hello! I always enjoy hearing from y’all. If you ever have any prayer requests, or just need to chat, please reach out!
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