Ah, it’s a wonderful day,
today. Yes, it is, most certainly.
It’s a great day to
be alive. It’s another day to learn.
Today is a day to
give of yourself in labor.
Today is a day to
play, to grow and to achieve your dreams… after all, you have dreams and you
have but one life to achieve them.
Did you notice that?
Those statements...
All of them are
statements of belief - of conviction… of affirmation.
I also call affirmations
self-instructions because that describes what they do. They instruct us how to
feel and how to act. They affirm who we are at the deepest levels. They are the
most powerful and the easiest tools to use for changing your emotions and the
results you get in your life... IF you use the right self-instructions.
And if you use them A
LOT.
You see, every moment
of every day you are thinking. You can't stop it. Even if you are an
experienced meditator, you would find it hard to turn off the pictures, sounds
and feelings your mind serves up. Every minute of every day you are affirming
what you already believe.
You are doing it this
very second.
And in order to
change your life, you must change your affirmations, your self-instructions…
what you believe and accept as true.
If you doubt it, then
you thought, “That’s not true.”
But guess what… That
was an affirmation, too - a statement of belief and conviction.
In fact, every
statement you've ever made or ever will make and every thought you've had or
ever will have is either a question, an affirmation or an affirmative command.
“Is
that true?” (that's a question)
“Yes
that's true,” (That's an affirmation)
“Sweet!”
(affirmation)
“Please
leave,” (affirmative command)
“I
am not going anywhere!” (affirmation)
“Sit
down,” (affirmative command)
“This
is interesting,” “I don’t know,” “This is boring,” “I'm hungry,” “I'm tired,”
“This is never going to work,” “I feel incredible,” “I can't concentrate,”
“This is easy,” “Lifting weights is invigorating,” “I hate sweating.”
All
just affirmations… Self-instructions.
So anyone that says
affirmations don't work has absolutely no idea what they are talking about.
Zero. Because they are ‘working’ on you right now and they will ‘work’ on you
until you shuffle off these mortal coils.
What's my point?
(question)
Since your minute by
minute affirmations (thoughts) represent your past, present and – most
likely – your future beliefs and attitudes, if you elevate your affirmations
toward what is most useful and empowering, you would enjoy greater success,
better health and true peace of mind with very little effort.
Even if you’re
already extremely skilled in some area of life, if you wanted to, you could
enjoy even greater accomplishments by transforming your thoughts.
A large part of our
research at Think Right Now International is to catalog and compare the
beliefs, attitudes and actions of the world’s most successful, happiest people
to the most unsuccessful, unhappy people.
They are always polar
opposites.
For example, when the
healthiest, oldest living people on the planet feel comfortably full, they
typically say to themselves, “I feel just right.” And they stop eating even if
a pile of their favorite food is still on their plates...
But what do people who
suffer the most illnesses, pain and diseases do at the full mark? Yup. They
often say things like, “One more bite won't hurt,” “It’ so good, I can't
stop,” “Oh, it's small,” “I'll just eat light tomorrow,” “I'm still hungry,” “I
can't throw this good food away,” “There's just a few bites left – might as
well finish it.” And they continue eating.
In every discipline
or area of life, we always find hundreds and often over one thousand differences
in core belief and attitude patterns between successful people and those who
routinely fail.
And the sobering
truth is that the longer a person owns a belief (affirms it), the harder it is
to change. The old saying that you can't teach an old dog new tricks is an old
saying for a good reason. Because our minds don’t like change… it is
uncomfortable to change.
You see, the pain you
feel now might be bad, but at least it’s familiar. You are handling it. But
when big habit changes happen quickly, it's doubly agonizing because they are
unfamiliar…unknown. And the unknown can be frightening.
That's
why when you read a self-help book, go to therapy or to a seminar, chances are
excellent that you will do nothing different. Or if you do experience an
improvement in your moods or habits, it's usually very short lived. Why?
Because your long-held assumptions, beliefs and attitudes (lifelong
affirmations) were never changed. You simply had a few more facts… So you
unconsciously resist the change...
You found reasons why
you couldn't continue, why you didn't like it, why it was wrong for you, why
you couldn't succeed after all.
Because facts and
logic alone is never enough with the biggest challenges of life.
If just knowing what
to do guaranteed success, then everyone would get straight A's in school and
would go on to have successful careers in their chosen field of study.
But they don't.
Out of every 100
students using the same text book, hearing the same lectures from the same
teacher, only a few will score 90+ and even fewer will use their schooling to
ensure success in career and life.
Because facts and
logic alone are never enough.
Why? Because we are
talking to ourselves all day long. In fact, our research found that most
people's current thoughts (affirmations) are the same ones they had many years
before. Most people have the same failure oriented beliefs in 2007 that they
had in 1997, 1987 and 1977. If something frightened you 10 years ago, it's
likely to still make your knees knock today. If you hate exercising now, you
probably won't like it 10 years from now. And no matter how much gear you buy,
you’ll probably still affirm (believe) the same things about it that you do
now. If you are a disorganized mess maker now, you’ll probably be the same ten
and twenty years from now.
Why is this so? I
call it mental patterns. They are hard-wired into you from years of
conditioning.
I have many clients
whose core mental patterns are so disempowering, they suffer from panic
attacks. They lose all control of their minds and bodies. But in most cases,
when we aggressively work to alter their moment by moment thoughts which alters
their core assumptions about themselves and about life, the 'disorder' called
panic attack ends. This is true even if therapy has done nothing and the toxic
psychoactive drugs they've been taking for decades have damaged their brains.
Yup. Self-instructions are powerful.
Our research shows
that without mental conditioning through massive repetition of positive
opposing thought, the things you are bad at today you will still be bad at in
ten years. In most cases.
“Same sh*t, different
day” is a cliché because, unfortunately, it's true for most people.
Think
of your usual thoughts (affirmations) as a paint brush that continues to paint
the same colors on the same places on the same canvas… for the rest of your
life. The longer you paint, the thicker the paint gets. It gets so deep that
there comes a point where it feels impossible to change the picture.
“Quitting
smoking is so hard,” “I’ll never figure this out,” “You make me so mad,”
“Everyone my age is overweight,” “I'm just not good at this,” “I'm not meant to
have a lot of money,” “I’m too busy to eat healthier,” “I'll never get caught
up,” “I'm so depressed,” “I feel like I'm going to die,” “I knew it wasn't
going to work,” “I need some chocolate,” “I'm so disorganized,” “There are no
decent men out there.”
These kind of beliefs
(affirmations) fill you with anxiety. They make simple decisions difficult,
suck the joy out of your accomplishments, create illness and disease, take away
your energy and zest for adventure. In any area of life where you cannot seem
to succeed no matter what, I guarantee you that beliefs like those above are
controlling you every minute of every day.
But they don't have
to any more.
Ponder this fact...
Every sentence you’ve read here is either a question, an affirmation or an
affirmative command. Check it. Believe in affirmations now? Good. Step 1 is
complete.
Now for Step 2. Pick
any area of your life that doesn’t work, where you fail, feel fearful, hopeless
or where your luck is never any good. It could be your poor diet, lack of
fitness, anxiety/depression, career trouble, problems in the friendships/social
arena, bad romances/sex, financial woes, poor organization, sports, study
habits/test taking, memory, time management… any area of life where you are
having big troubles or where you want to be a top performer.
Next, go somewhere by
yourself and think about that topic. Notice your thoughts.
Whenever you notice a
disempowered thought…one that makes you feel like crap, when you see a
picture/movie of yourself failing or if you hear yourself say anything that
makes you feel less capable, write down the thought or description of the
pictures and feelings.
For example, if you
want to improve your financial situation, you must get by yourself and listen
to your inner dialog and notice your mental pictures about these issues. When
you hear or see a rotten one, write it down. Then when you’ve done this for a
while, take this list of problem beliefs/attitudes and write opposing
statements in affirmation form.
So if you routinely
get up late, don’t start your daily phone calls until 11:00, take long lunches,
spend money you shouldn’t and never read investment related books or invest in
appreciating assets, turn these beliefs, attitudes and actions around by
writing down
opposing
first-person, present-tense statements of affirmation. These statements will
command your mind to believe differently, to feel differently and to act
differently.
Take this new set of
desired beliefs, attitudes and actions and copy each one down on a sheet of
paper and live with those cards. Take it everywhere with you and read them with
strong emotion upon waking, at lunchtime and before you go to bed. Say them aloud
whenever possible. Commit to doing this and soon you’ll be taking positive
daily action related to financial matters that are exactly like the best
money-makers and money-managers alive.
If you think this
won’t have an incredibly positive effect on your emotions and your actions,
remember that that belief/attitude is an affirmation.
Suspend the doubt and
follow through on this and you will have taken the most important step in your
personal and professional development. Do this and nothing will be beyond your
grasp. Your confidence will soar. Your motivation will last. Your follow
through will be perfect. Any goal will be possible for you. Happiness will be
your normal mental state.
These last statements? Just
affirmations, right?
