The Power of Affirmations

What Are Affirmations?

So first, what are affirmations?

Affirmations are positive statements or phrases that are repeated regularly to reinforce positive thoughts and beliefs. They're often used as a technique to challenge and overcome self-sabotaging and negative thoughts.

Affirmations often focus on various aspects of life such as self-confidence, self-love, health, success, and overall well-being.

I was first introduced to the power of affirmations when I was pregnant with my first son, and that practice taught me how listening to something over and over can actually help rewire the way you think. And then, when I started my business, I was introduced to the power of affirmations in a different way…

Tell A Better Story

Listen, I understand—for Type A accountants, affirmations can seem intangible and useless. Many people don’t believe in the power of affirmations; they usually think they’re a waste of time, or they doubt they’ll actually have a positive effect.

But trust me—as a fellow Type A, this practice is absolutely crucial.

Something I learned by reading the book The Four Agreements is that we can go through life entirely unaware that our thoughts are actually a choice.

We’ve all had thoughts for so long that we can't imagine not having thoughts, even though they do sometimes feel separate from us. Occasionally they can feel like a tape playing on repeat in our head without consent, as if they’re creating themselves without our involvement.

This happens because thoughts have been developed over our entire life. So sometimes those repetitive thoughts didn’t actually start with us; instead, they came from things that we heard from others over and over and over again, or maybe even from past experiences teaching us something that becomes a mantra we use to try and keep us safe.

So we might feel like thoughts are something outside of us. We may not even be aware that we have the thoughts going on at all. But if you take the time to stop and pay attention, you’ll realize this isn’t true at all…which is part of the power of affirmations. They give us a reason to become aware of what we’re thinking.

For the most part, our thoughts are not actually real. If you take a day or so and challenge yourself to listen to the things that you think or say to yourself, you’ll notice that your thoughts are really just a story you’re telling yourself throughout the day.

A lot of times that story is either some future projection of what might happen—which is total fiction, right? It's a thought of what might happen. It's not real—or it could be a story you tell about something that already happened, which looks like hyper-analyzing the past. And when you're analyzing the past, while we do have our memory to go off of, it’s likely flawed. So many parts of that story can become skewed as well.

This is where the power of affirmations comes into play: when I realized that I was telling myself a story all day long, and that oftentimes that story was negative or not serving me, I decided that if I was going to tell myself a story, I wanted to tell myself a good one.

So, the power of affirmations helps you to take control of your thoughts by fueling your brain with positive things; they help you take on positive beliefs that make you take positive actions that yield positive results.

By changing that loop inside of your head, you're taking creative control back in your life…or maybe claiming it for the first time ever. You are now the author of the story that's playing in your head.

How Do I Start?

What’s great about the power of affirmations is that it’s accessible to everyone.

Affirmations are simple. They're free. They require no special equipment. You don't need any level of expertise. You can practice them anytime, anywhere, and they can easily become a convenient daily ritual. You can make up affirmations for yourself, or track down some that others use if needed.

For the next few weeks, I’m going to take it a step further: I’m going to be sharing some affirmations here that you can use to get yourself in the habit of doing daily affirmations, and then you can build from there.

Whether you need them to change the narrative in your head around business, life, motherhood, or anything else, I’ll be sharing things that can work for you.

Affirmations aren’t as woo-woo as people think—a lot of people lump them in with manifestations and spiritual practices, when they’re really just a psychological trick to remap your thoughts. And by utilizing the power of affirmations and integrating them into your daily routine, you're engaging in an act of self-love and self-care.

The Power of Affirmations Can Change Your Life!

So, that’s my spiel on what affirmations are and why they're so powerful. Over the next few posts, I’ll be dripping out some mini-affirmations that you can listen to daily, depending on what kind you need.

I’m going to go over affirmations for building a business, affirmations for honoring the now and bringing you into the present moment, and even some for mothers who are balancing business and motherhood. Stay tuned!

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