You may have heard of affirmations as a powerful tool for creating change in your life. Well, as it turns out, there are affirmations and then there are *affirmations*. :) The best affirmations create powerful feelings that are properly matched with what you expect to feel when the affirmation is true. This is really great news, because with just a little reflection (and maybe a thesaurus, lol), you can craft yourself some mighty little statements to take your life to the next level!
I'll use an example that we'll tweak as we go through the steps, that is based on wanting to get a good job as a dental hygienist.
- Write an affirmation that is present tense. If you're repeating an affirmation that is set in the future, it makes it harder to ever arrive at. It's sort of like saying, "I'll get around to it..." - we all know what that really means, lol! ;) In our example, we would use "I have a great job as a dental hygienist" as opposed to "I will have a great job as a dental hygienist."
- Be somewhat specific. You don't need to hammer out every detail, but do think of different aspects of what your affirmation is about. To use our example again: What makes the job great? Is it the co-workers, the compensation, the clientele, the actual work? We could adjust our statement to something like, "I am part of a great dental team as a well-paid dental hygienist serving clients who appreciate us."
- Use words that incite a lot of emotion. The whole point of the affirmation is to create an abundance of good feelings within you, and the words you choose can make a big difference here. Turning back to our example, we could consider: What does a "great dental team" feel like? How about "clients who appreciate us?" We might decide to make our affirmation, "I am in love with my job as a well-paid dental hygienist who's part of a caring, supportive, fun dental team serving kind and understanding clients who value our work, rave about us, and help us love our day!" (Starting to sound more exciting, eh?)
- Dig a little deeper into WHY you want that affirmation to be true. Sometimes you have an idea of some concrete thing that you want, but it might be that the thing is only a vehicle for something else. In our example, we would have to wonder: Why is this particular job something that is important? What about the "well-paid" aspect of it? It could be that this hypothetical job, when compared with others, provides a valuable sense of social connection, or accomplishment, or self-actualization. The pay might be important to ensure financial freedom, or it might be relevant to respect or status. We could re-work our affirmation yet again, to something like, "I am in love with my dream job as a successful dental hygienist who is part of a caring, supportive, fun dental team serving kind and understanding clients who value our work, rave about us, and help us love our day!" (In this example, I've used self-actualization - "dream job" - and status - "successful" - as our motivating factors.)
- Look for blocks or resistances to your affirmation. Sometimes, we have a little voice inside that tells us that we don't deserve what our affirmation would bring us, or that it's not possible, or... any number of stories. Some of these, we may get over naturally (in the example above, we may be a new graduate who needs experience before feeling like we could hope for our dream job), and some may be "tail-enders" that we can use EFT tapping to help let go of (an example relating to our proposed dental hygiene job might be that little voice telling us, "...but that kind of job doesn't exist."). You can check out a list of common resistances or psychoenergetic reversals here, and find information about tail-enders here.
Once you've honed your affirmation and addressed the roots of your desires as well as any resistances, you should be left with a statement that feels amazing to say! Write it down, say it out loud, tell your friends, and… enjoy!
What are some of your affirmations? Share them in the comments to harness our collective intention! :)
