Emile Coue was a French Psychologist in the early 20th century. He noticed that telling patients how effective their treatment was, helped them recover quicker.
Coue is generally considered the father of the positive affirmation movement for this insight.
In today’s post, we’ll discuss positive affirmations – what they are and why everyone should use them. We’ll also run through some useful tips in creating and reinforcing affirmations.
What are Positive Affirmations?
In their simplest form, affirmations are positive phrases we repeat everyday that help prioritise positive and useful thoughts.
They aim to encourage positive thinking and self-empowerment. The idea is that positivity, supported by affirmations, will boost our efforts toward our most important goals.
In this sense, affirmations are a tool for self-reflection that give us direction in our daily lives. They help us prioritise our most important thoughts and actions, everyday.
Benefits of Positive Affirmations
Like self-reflection generally, affirmations help clear the mind and put things in perspective.
Affirmations contribute to increased mindfulness, as we become more aware of our thoughts from the practice. By focusing on positivity, we learn to recognise the subconscious negative thought patterns holding us back.
Affirmations also help us achieve our most important goals. For example, having an affirmation that reinforces why we started a project, will help us continue putting effort into the project.
In this sense, affirmations reinforce our priorities. When we focus on the things we want, we also strengthen our resolve to make it happen.
Ultimately, affirmation encourages positive thinking, allowing us to live our best lives.
How to Create Positive Affirmations
Positive affirmations should reflect who you are and what matters to you. There’s definitely no one-size-fits-all. They just need to align with our core values.
From creating the affirmations to the process of reinforcing them, below are some useful tips to get started.
8 Tips to Create Your Positive Affirmations
As long as your affirmations reflect what matters to you, you can’t really go wrong. Having said that, the following 8 tips are best practices to follow when creating affirmations.
- Start with the words “I am.”
- Use the present tense.
- State it in the positive. Affirm what you want, not what you don’t want.
- Keep it brief.
- Make it specific.
- Include an action word ending with –ing.
- Include at least one dynamic emotion or feeling word.
- Make affirmations for yourself, not others.
The above tips are adapted from Jack Canfield’s article on Daily Affirmations.
3 Steps to Ingrain Daily Affirmations
Once you’ve created your affirmations, you’ll need to start reviewing them regularly to reinforce the message. We can follow the three steps below to reinforce our affirmations daily.
- Review your list of affirmations each morning to experience more positivity in your life while taking steps toward your goals.
- Focus on the things that occur throughout the day that will lead to your future success. Try to let go of any negative thoughts in the process.
- Modify your list of affirmations each evening to make sure they align with the life you want to live.
The idea behind this process is that we wake up each morning and remind ourselves of our biggest priorities. Then, we spend the day reflecting on our affirmations.
At the end of the day, we may have a better sense of anything that might be missing from the list. It’s important to keep up the habit and update our list whenever we feel something is missing.
Affirmations make a great addition to the Stoic morning and evening routine.
How I Structured My Positive Affirmations
I first created my own affirmations when I read Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning. The Miracle Morning systems recommends affirmation as a core part of the SAVERS system.
While I didn’t necessarily follow all the advice listed above, my affirmations have still helped me stay positive and motivated to reach my goals. I review these affirmations in my Bullet Journal regularly and have now even memorised them.
Below are some affirmations I set for myself in the January 2021.
1. I wake up early to develop and do what I think is important
Remember, I was reading Miracle Morning because I wanted to become more of a morning person. What I loved about the system was its focus on personal development.
The idea is that by waking up just one hour earlier, we can start our days with personal development. Meditation, exercise, reading, writing, visualisation and affirmations are all part of this development practice.
This line of thinking has helped me see the benefit of waking up early. For example, I tend to wake up earlier on the weekends now. This affirmation has helped me make better use of my morning and really feel like I get the most out of them.
2. I reflect in a journal, so life doesn’t just pass me by
Sometimes I feel like life is just a gear turning non-stop. Especially when I look at my life so far in 2021, most of the days have just melded into one at this point.
Sure, I’ve had more time for hobbies and catching up with old friends. I even took a week off work to stay at a Swedish lake house. But still, I can’t believe we’re halfway through the year already!
Where did all my time go?
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. – Ferris Bueller
That’s where journaling comes in. Journaling is a great self-reflective practice that gets us out of our own heads and makes us more aware of the present moment.
It’s also a great way to remember how we’ve spent our time and the thoughts we’ve had throughout.
3. I make time to learn & read daily
Learning has always been important. In fact, when I defined my personal values, learning was the first one I listed.
I’ve always found it romantic in a way that a single idea can change the world. And the more great ideas you encounter, the more likely you are to have your own great ideas. I also just find it interesting to learn about the world and find new ways to grow and develop.
The most powerful experiences I ever had with books were in late 2019, starting with Getting Things Done and then No More Mr Nice Guy. These two books both changed my life in their own way.
Getting Things Done allowed me to appreciate productivity in a whole new way, almost like an academic field of study. I’ve since started my own research around the art of productivity.
No More Mr Nice Guy, on the other hand, helped me realise and change some Nice Guy tendencies that I’ve had since childhood. I now feel more complete, like I’m really doing what I want in life.
Reading is a great way to learn something new. And unlike YouTube and podcasts, books offer real depth.
4. I owe it to myself (and the world) to make Mind & Practice a valuable resource
I spent the months since the first lockdown (and years since graduation) trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I’m not the type of person who’s satisfied with a 9-to-5 job, because I feel like I need purpose even after I leave the office.
For the longest time, I wasn’t sure what worthy pursuit I wanted to dedicate my free time to. But then during a period of stress and anxiety, I turned to mindfulness for relief.
I started Mind & Practice in August 2020 with the goal of sharing my favourite mindfulness and productivity concepts.
Because mindfulness had a profound impact on my life during lockdown, I felt it was something I’d love to share with other people. This affirmation reminds me of that fact.
I don’t just owe it to myself to work on this website. I owe it to the world.
Positive Affirmations in a Nutshell
Since its inception nearly a century ago, affirmations have helped people all over the world clear their minds and put things in perspective.
The practice has been shown to help people increase their mindfulness. As a result, these people focus more on positivity and recognise subconscious negative thoughts holding them back.
Affirmations also help us achieve our most important goals and reinforce our focus. Ultimately, positive affirmations encourage positive thinking, which allows us to live our best lives.
We can easily start this practice with the 8 tips for creating affirmations and 3 steps to reinforcing our affirmations.
Start living your best life with positive affirmations and Mind & Practice today.