6 Steps to create affirmations that work

Anyone else living their best life at the moment? I tell you when I woke up on Wednesday to dark clouds, wind and temperature in the 20 somethings I thought ‘Life doesn’t get better than this.’ The beginning of the week I felt like I was living in a cave – windows/curtains shut, furniture piled everywhere as we’re getting carpet fitted – it’s been nice to emerge from it I tell you.

No amount of ‘I’m feeling cool’ helped to resolve the hot sticky mess I was. And well, there’s a reason for that - because I was doing it all wrong.

Affirmations get a rough ride
Affirmations have a terrible reputation. From American movies with pumped psychos repeating mantras to themselves to wishy washy hippy stuff. Basically they’ve need Rishi’s slick PR team for a while.

I’ve read a lot about them. From authors that share their life experiences, to books that focus on matter and energy (we’re all connected type stuff), to neuroscience to evidence-based hypnotherapy. All of them talk about affirmations (sometimes called suggestions or new belief systems) and they mostly say the same thing. They work. If you do them right. And I’ve really nailed them myself at some points but other times they’ve left my life untouched. And that’s because I was holding on to them too damn tightly – looking for them to be the golden ticket to sorting my life out.

What are affirmations anyway and why bother?
Quite a few of you on Insta told me that you didn’t really get them. That used to be me. So I’m going in to clear the confusion.

First of all, a concept to understand. Our brains change all of the time due to things that we learn from experiences. This is called neuroplasticity. We will have rules that we live by and beliefs about ourselves and the world works as a result of our life experiences and what we are told. One of mine is ‘I can’t be late’ (which makes me an anxious and snappy travel partner – talk to my husband). A common one is ‘I’m not good enough.’ When these rules/beliefs aren’t in alignment with our goals or the way we want to live our lives (I can’t be late isn’t consistent with me wanting to live a calm life with space. I’m not good enough isn’t consistent with getting a new job) we can use affirmations to believe something different about ourselves to bring us into alignment. You’re basically rewiring your brain.

Ultimately you have a choice – your goal or your old belief.

Affirmations are words that encapsulate a desired future state.