If you’ve been reading Smart Twenties for a while, you’ll know that I LOVE using affirmations to help me achieve my goals. So this week I’m sharing how I use affirmations and my affirmation routine as well as the dos and don’ts of using affirmations and a free step-by-step workbook to help you create your own affirmations (since there are a few things you need to make sure you get right).
But before you go and dive into all of that, I thought it might be helpful to cover off on some affirmation basics. I’m not an expert on affirmations or anything like that but I have spent a lot of time researching and experimenting with it and would love to share my take on everything I’ve learned so far.
WHAT IS AN AFFIRMATION
My definition of an affirmation is that it is a statement that affirms what you want and, with repetition, will create a new and desirable belief. Affirmations can be short or long (I personally prefer using the longer ones) and are stated as though they are certain and true.
HOW AFFIRMATIONS WORK
There as many theories on the science of affirmations as there are people using them, so I won’t pretend to be giving you an all-encompassing foolproof explanation of how affirmations work. But I can share the explanation that persuaded me to give affirmations a shot. And it’s all to do with the reticular activating system (RAS).
The way I understand it, the RAS is the part of the brain that filters the information in the world around you before it is perceived by the conscious mind. Basically, it’s the gatekeeper. It determines what’s important, and what can be ignored, so you don’t have to live in a state of overwhelm.
The RAS is wired to view certain things as important, like the sound of your name or anything that will threaten your safety. But the remainder of what the RAS allows you to perceive is based on what you focus your mind on and what you spend the most time thinking about. For example, if you’ve ever thought about buying a new car you likely began to see your ideal car everywhere overnight, even though it had always been there! That’s your RAS.
So how does this relate to goal-setting and affirmations? By repeating an affirmation you are training your brain to focus on your goal. Once you have repeated that affirmation enough times, your RAS will search for information that will help you achieve your goal. You will begin to see opportunities you could never see before, meet people you had never met before and have ideas you had never had before. And it will feel just like MAGIC!
There are so many other explanations for how affirmations work, but for me the above explanation has been the most compelling. I’ve experienced it at work and it did truly feel like magic (which is how my obsession with affirmations began)!
And just another thing related to goals in general. Creating an affirmation requires you to get really specific about what you want and that in itself helps you achieve your goal, since normally we stay vague to save ourselves the disappointment.
HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN AFFIRMATION
This is the process I use for creating affirmations that will help me achieve my goals (an example of an affirmation I’ve used with success in the past is ‘I will celebrate the last day at my full-time job on 30 June 2017 or sooner’):
- Get crystal clear on your goal
- Create a sentence that embodies that goal
- Check that the sentence contains powerful and certain language
- Check that the sentence cannot create any undesirable consequences or limitations
- Check that the sentence evokes positive emotions
- Every day, handwrite your affirmation 15 times or visualise yourself achieving your goal
- Let go of any attachment to your affirmation so you are working towards it from abundance
If you want some more detailed guidance with creating your affirmation and making sure that it’s going to help you achieve your goal (rather than make it harder) make sure you download a copy of my free workbook that will help you create your own personal affirmation.
This workbook will help you make sure you avoid all of the common (and easy to make) affirmation mistakes that might stop your affirmation from working. Click here to download your copy!
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO WORK?
The magic is in the repetition so the more you repeat your affirmation, the sooner it will become a subconscious thought. Which is why I definitely recommend you make time to focus on your affirmation everyday!
But how long it takes will always depends what beliefs your affirmation is coming up against. If you’re using an affirmation to help you achieve a BIG goal, it’ll take your brain a little while to acclimatise to those new thoughts. There are other factors that go into it too, depending on what type of goal you’re trying to achieve. But my advice would be to commit to your affirmation for at least 6 months. And I KNOW that’s a long time, but the time will pass anyway.
AFFIRMATION DOS AND DON’TS
I filmed a YouTube video that goes through the dos and don’ts of using affirmations so that you don’t make any of the big mistakes that will stop your affirmations from working! Make sure you watch the video below to find out the common traps that people fall into when they’re trying to use affirmations to achieve their goals (I’ve made just about every one of these mistakes at some point – they’re so easy to make)!
HOW I USE AFFIRMATIONS + MY AFFIRMATION ROUTINE
Figuring out how to use affirmations is a process of trial and error and I always find it interesting to hear other people’s successes, failures and what their affirmation routines are – so I thought I’d chat about it on The Smart Twenties Podcast.
If you want to know more about how I personally use affirmations and what has and hasn’t worked for me, you can listen to the episode below or anywhere you listen to podcasts – just find Episode 24. I also share an update on my impossible goal for 2018, so if you’re interested in hearing how that’s going then make sure you have a listen!
READY TO GET STARTED?
Download my free workbook below to start creating your own affirmations and achieving your goals more easily than ever before! This workbook will help you avoid the common and easy-to-make mistakes that most people make when creating affirmations so make sure you download your free copy below.
LEARN MORE ABOUT AFFIRMATIONS
As I said at the beginning of this blog post – I’m not an expert! Here are some of the Youtube channels and videos that I’m personally learning from. If you want to learn more about how affirmations work and how to use them, I think these resources are a great place to start:
- Every video on Jake Ducey’s channel
- Leeor Alexandra’s channel
- Lavendaire: Law of Attraction – How To Get Anything You Want
HAVE A QUESTION
Let me know in the comments below or over in the Smart Twenties Community on Facebook!
Sam xx
I love this topic, Sam! Affirmations are an intriguing concept that have kind of been lurking on the outskirts of my spiritual journey so far. The more I read about them, the more confidence I feel in the concept. Like always though, the real struggle will be in getting my procrastinating self to repeat my affirmations on a daily basis aha!
Also, I love that you’re spreading your fabulous content across several platforms (and not repeating the message)! Kudos to you, Sam. Keep em coming! 🙂
Ooh I’ve never tried this (honestly it’s one of those things that seemed a bit wishy-washy… which is hypocritical as someone who likes to read tarot, but brains are brains), but I have to admit that there’s a kind of logic to the idea of more opportunities becoming apparent the more you focus on a goal. I may have to add this to my night routine alongside journalling!
Hi! I read your other blog and because of that I landed here. I have to say that this post is veeery usefull and it really helps to understand the way the affirmations work. Thank you for that! ♥