Doug Woods is a qualified teacher, life coach, counsellor and trainer. You can find out more about his work at his website http://www.dougwoods.com
In a short answer, yes affirmations do work. Of course you have to use them properly to get best effect from them.
What are Affirmations?
An affirmation is a statement of something you believe to be true. In terms of personal development, it can be a statement of something you wish to be true. As such, an affirmation can be a trigger or a tool for change. An affirmation can help a person change themselves or move them forward in their personal improvement.
How can affirmations be used?
Affirmations can be used to create a positive attitude Affirmations can be used to create good habits or to replace bad habits with good ones Affirmations can help a person to achieve their goals Affirmations can help maintain a calm or balanced manner in the face of a threat or provocation Affirmations can help change your lifeTo be fully effective, affirmations need to be stated in positive terms. They also need to be stated in the present tense. Affirmations tend to be a statement of belief, they work on a subconscious level and work on the principle of a self-fulfilling belief. Therefore, the more you say or recite the affirmation, the stronger the message becomes and the more the message is accepted by the mind of the person reciting the affirmation.
Each of us has an ‘inner voice’, a form of ‘self talk’, that we use in thinking or talking to ourselves. Many of us may be unaware of this, it is most evident when we have time to ourselves to think or if we have the opportunity to rehearse a speech or presentation we have to give. Affirmations utilise this self talk to communicate their message to us. All too often, for many of us, our self talk is negative, we use it to tell us when we have made mistakes, or to put ourselves down, to criticise ourselves, or to say that we cannot/should not do something. Affirmations turn this around and get us to use positive language to develop or reinforce positive messages to ourselves.
Traditionally, affirmations have been written or spoken, sometimes both, yet affirmations are also linked to learning styles. Many of us tend to think more in images rather than words, other think or learn better through actions or sounds. The fact that affirmations have tended to be seen as a written or spoken method, may account for why many people have not yet fully seen the benefits of affirmations; written or spoken affirmations do not fit easily with the preferred learning style of those people.
Affirmations, of course, need not be words alone, they can be visual or involve movement or gestures. In this way, affirmations can be used successfully by a wide range of people. Indeed, many of the best uses of affirmations have tended to employ more than one method of communicating the message. So an affirmation may link a positive statement with an image. In this way the user, sees associates the positive message with the image and vice-versa. Similarly, an affirmation can be linked to a gesture, such as clicking a finger, so then the person can perform the gesture and recall the message.
So finally, here are five tips for using affirmations;
1) Phrase the affirmation in a positive way (e.g. say “I am…” rather than “I am not…” or “I am no longer”) 2) Phrase the affirmation in the present tense (e.g. “I am …” rather than “I shall be …” or “I want to be”) 3) Combine the affirmation with an image in your mind or a physical object 4) Add a simple action or gesture to help remind you of your affirmation 5) Finally, write down your affirmations (writing things down is a powerful aide to memorising)
August 4, 2012 By admin
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Positive daily affirmations can help you to reprogram your mind from the negative self talk that you have had for years. For this to work effectively, you need to repeat positive statements of a desirable outcome like a mantra on a daily basis a few times per day.
Positive daily affirmations help to redirect your values, formulate goals for success or simply help you to boost your self confidence. They can be used to improve areas such as wealth, success, health, relationships or self esteem.
Here are 10 tips to writing effective Positive Daily Affirmations
1. Develop Them Yourself. Self-developed affirmations are the most effective positive daily affirmations. If you couple them with clearly defined written goals and applied faith, their power is even stronger.
2. Feel Them. The emotional dimension of each affirmation should never be overlooked. When you can additionally “feel” your affirmation, its total impact increases tremendously. For instance, if your affirmation is “I am a successful public speaker”, then visualize how it will be like to be receiving a standing ovation from a hall full of people.
3. Make Them In the Present Tense. You should state your positive daily affirmations in the present tense, that is, use “I am…” rather than “I will be…” Saying things in the present tense will program your subconscious mind to believe that what you affirm is already a fact. In other words, you have no doubt in your mind that what you desire is a given and not just a wish that may or may not happen.
4. Make Affirmations Positive. Another important tip in formulating your affirmations is to write them in the positive state. A negative statement cannot work. For instance, you should say “I am rich” rather than “I am not poor”.
5. Make Positive Daily Affirmations Short And Clear. First, because your experience will create the conditions that allow affirmations to manifest, word the affirmations carefully to make them crystal-clear. State your real, innermost desires and articulate your most expansive sense of self. Affirmations based on a narrow self-concept deliver results that fall short, cause suffering, and further diminish the sense of self.
7. Increase Your Faith. Of course, the more faith you have in them, the more effective your affirmations will be. The desires and dreams that your mind can conceive bear seeds of possibility, and possibilities ultimately become realities.
8. Say Positive Daily Affirmations With Conviction. Some experts recommend saying positive daily affirmations silently. They say that silent affirmations are more effective than spoken statements, because they entail more intensity of concentration and resonate through your entire body instead of in your surroundings. Others recommend saying them out loud, because you can also use your facial expression or hand gestures for more conviction. For whatever it is, positive daily affirmations made in a half hearted manner are not going to be as effective as the ones that you make with deliberate intention.
9. Follow Up With Actions. Lastly, you will also need to put in some actions, so that you can lay the ground for their manifestation. For instance, affirming that you will win the lottery can only be possible when you buy a ticket.
10. Remind Yourself Daily. In a hurried lifestyle with 1001 things to do, you can find it hard to remember to repeating the positive daily affirmations. Hence, put them in a visible location, like on the wall or in front of the mirror or save them in a PowerPoint slide to be used as a screensaver.
Here are some examples to help illustrate the above 10 tips:
Positive Daily Affirmations For Self Confidence
1. I am sure of my ability to do what is necessary to improve my life.
May 19, 2012 By admin
2. I feel good about the way I do my job.
3. I love myself and accept myself for who I am.
Positive Daily Affirmations For Abundance
1. All the things I want and need come to me.
2. I am an abundant person.
3. I create abundance in all that I say and do.
Positive Daily Affirmations For Success
1. I am successful.
2. Everything I do turns into success.
3. I attract positive-minded people to me; I draw all things positive to myself.
Evelyn Lim is a life coach and an intuitive consultant, with a passion for helping her clients and readers raise their vibrational state of being for attracting abundance. She is an author of self help topics such as positive thinking, attracting abundance, spirituality and becoming more happy. Her newsletter is currently read by thousands of subscribers. For free bonuses on manifesting secrets, mp3 downloads and fresh weekly tips, please sign up to her Abundance Tapestry newsletter.
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