In a nutshell, affirmations are your thoughts. These thoughts are also referred to as your self-talk and your self-talk can be either negative or positive.
Your self talk ultimately has more power over you than anything that anyone else can say or do to you. You and you alone control your thoughts and what you put into your mind is what you get back in return. Essentially, it's the proverbial self-fulfilled prophecy.
Your thoughts are important in motivation because you cannot motivate yourself if you're not willing to be motivated. If you struggle with an unwillingness to be motivated you may need to change your thoughts.
Every thought you think and every word you speak is either positive or negative. Stop and ponder this question for a bit: What are you always telling yourself? Is it something like...
You become what you think
about most of the time.
Brian Tracy
- I'm so stupid.
- I'm no good.
- No one likes me.
- I can't do that.
Everyone has thought or spoken at least one of these phrases (or something similar) at some point in time. Yes, even you. Although you may not have said it to intentionally bash yourself that's what you are ultimately doing. You are putting yourself down and you need to stop!
Your mind is no different than your stomach because, no matter where you put it, garbage in equals garbage out. What this means is, if you're primary focus is on thinking negative you're only going to see (and get) negative results in return.
If you want to make lasting changes and gain the motivation you need to accomplish your goals you need to start re-framing your negative thinking into positive thinking.
Changing The Negative into The Positive
You can begin by working at becoming more aware of your thoughts and words and taking note of whether they are positive or negative. You don't have to literally write them down - you just need to make a mental note concerning the type of self-talk that spews forth from your brain or your lips. This exercise also acts as basic training for your thoughts because the more you work on it the more automatic it will become.
Once your "thought awareness" is on autopilot it will be easier to replace those negative thoughts with positive thoughts.
Once you've passed basic training you can move on and start working on replacing negative thinking with positive thinking. This, too, will eventually become automatic and you will begin seeing changes all around you.
You've got to win
in your mind
before you win
in your life
John Addison
Examples of positive affirmations are:
- I'm a smart person
- I have many friends
- I can do that!
- I am worthy
- I believe in myself
- I choose happiness
Putting them into your own (positive) words will work best for you but the examples shown above should help get you started.