How Important Are Affirmations
A lot of people get really stressed out about life because they feel like everything is going wrong, there are too many things to do, and they can’t seem to find time to relax.
In addition to mental stress, we also experience physical stress due to nervousness or anxiety. Stress can be good for you in small doses, but when it becomes excessive, it can have negative effects on you.
Stress can cause your body to produce hormones such as cortisol that help you cope with danger. However, when stress is constant, chronic, it can become excess stress which has similar negative effects to acute stress.
Acute stress can hurt you (think about what would happen if someone kept stressing you out every day), while chronic stress can actually weaken your immune system and make it harder to deal with other health issues.
This article will talk about how important it is to use affirmations in your daily life to reduce stress.
Confidence is a powerful tool
As we mentioned before, confidence is a key factor in achieving your goals.
It’s not something that comes easily to some people, though. When you think about it, most people are quite self-conscious. We have a tendency to worry more than anything else, constantly thinking about all of the mistakes they made or things they could say that might hurt their reputation.
We also have a natural fear of failing, which makes us hesitate doing things because we don’t want to look bad if they don’t work out.
Both these tendencies keep us from being confident. And when we’re not confident, we can’t achieve our dreams.
By working on your confidence, however, you can accomplish almost anything. You will find that as you live your life with more confidence, others will feel comfortable around you and will try new things.
There are several ways to develop your confidence. Here are seven easy tips for how to boost yours.
They are meant to inspire you
A lot of people add affirmations into their daily life, but few understand how important they are. Most use them as a skill in using positive thinking or self-talk, which is indeed valuable.
But there’s another, more powerful way to use affirmations that goes far deeper — by adding them onto a pre-existing framework of beliefs.
This is an easy concept to lose track of, though. We can easily start believing things without realizing it!
For example, if someone tells you that your job will make you happy, then why wouldn’t you believe them? After all, they’re smart, they’re telling you something you want to hear, and they have no reason to lie about anything.
So you go ahead and believe them, and now you’ve set yourself up for failure. You invested time in this belief, so now you must work to disprove it.
That isn’t natural, and thus we don’t always do it. We get stuck in our habits, sometimes for lots of years. It can really hurt you down the line.
By investing in the opposite of what you wanted before, you gave up on that goal. And that’s bad news!
A good affirmation technique uses a frame of mind where you already agree with some part of your own internal guidance. Then, your affirmation fits into that frame like a bolt on top.
They can help you succeed in life
A lot of people try to use affirmations as a way to change something about their lives – to improve their performance at work, to increase their income, or to reduce stress. But there is one important thing that most people forget when using affirmations for these purposes- how to make them seem like they belong in your lifestyle.
Affirmations should be motivational, not just vague statements that contain no specific messages. You need to know what kind of person says an affirmation before it can do anything for you.
People who say positive things are always happy so happiness is a good place to start looking if you want to see changes in your life. However, the argument against this is that some people are never really motivated by being told to feel happier.
If you find that affirmative statements don’t seem to put a smile on your face, then we suggest trying making your own set of affirmations. Take some time to think about all the areas of your life where you would like to see improvement, and create simple, motivating statements that focus only on yourself.
They help you believe
A few years ago, I read an interesting article about how to develop confidence as a person. The author mentioned that one of the most important things for personal growth is learning how to believe in yourself.
He said it’s easy to tell someone who has no faith in themselves that they are good enough, but it takes more effort to inspire people when you don’t trust them.
So he gave some examples. If you have ever seen or heard about a successful person, you will know that they talk about their beliefs and what made them succeed.
They praise themselves for being smart, talented, hard working, etc., but beyond their own self-talk, they also say things like “I wouldn’t be here if not for (insert reason here).”
Or maybe they refer back to a time when they didn’t have much money and how they still achieved their dreams. Or perhaps they mention a moment where they overcame a challenge and proved themselves.
All of these show passion and belief in themselves, which is why they succeeded.
But we can learn something from this too. Even if you never achieve your dream, you can at least try to put in into practice what makes you feel confident as a person.
By saying kind things about yourself, you will start to feel better about yourself. You will begin to believe that you are worthy and capable.
Positive thinking
A lot of people get really excited about telling themselves all sort of positive thoughts. You’ve probably heard stories or read articles about how important it is to think positively, to tell yourself all sorts of nice things.
It can be fun to do this, but I don’t think there too many experts who claim that it does anything other than make you feel good.
A few studies have investigated whether having more positive thoughts actually has any effect on your mental health. And they haven’t found much value in the process.
Given that we’re spending lots of time thinking about how great we are, maybe we should instead focus on what we aren’t doing well. Or better yet, why we’re not enjoying our current state of affairs.
Thinking about the positives doesn’t work because most of us already have way too much sugar-loaded brain material at any given moment. Add another batch and nothing changes. It just makes you feel even happier.
When we’re trying to achieve something, like quitting smoking for example, negative thoughts can be helpful. We’ve got to remember past failures, potential consequences of continuing, and so on. They help us stay focused and motivate us to keep going until we succeed.
But if you’re struggling with depression or anxiety, having a bunch of cheerful thoughts may backfire and make things worse.
Self-help books are great resources
A lot of self-help strategies focus on having you read a short, catchy sentence or statement about changing your life or quitting something. These are usually referred to as an affirmation. An affirmation is simply a phrase or set of words that make a claim about changing some part of your life for the better.
Affirmations can be used for anything — improving relationships, enhancing career opportunities, lifting moods and spirits, and creating lasting changes in habits and behaviors.
But they aren’t necessarily effective unless you work them into your daily routine and apply them consistently.
They can help you be a better friend to others
A few years back, I read an interesting article about how affirming things for yourself could have unexpected results. The author mentioned that when you affirm a statement like “I’m not good at writing letters” or “I will never write well,” then you stop trying your best to do so, which may in fact make you more likely to put effort into it.
You may even go out of your way to look up tips on how to write a letter because you feel bad for failing to do it before. This creates a vicious cycle that keeps you practicing, practice, practicing…until one day you realize you can actually write a pretty nice letter!
Something similar happened to me when I was around 20-years-old. I would get really stressed out and nervous before a big presentation or speech, and this would prevent me from going in and speaking without prepping for hours. It took a while, but once I realized what was happening, I made changing my behavior a top priority. And now I enjoy giving speeches much more than I used to!
Using mental exercises such as these can boost your self-confidence and motivate you to do something that you might need some extra motivation to do.
They can help you be a better partner
A few years back, I read an incredible book called The Power of Positive Thinking. In it, the author discussed how positive thinking is great for your health. He mentioned that if you want to improve your overall wellness and fitness, then starting with thoughts about yourself in a good way is important.
The same goes true for relationships. You can start by thinking about what a wonderful person you are, but more importantly, keep repeating this thought to yourself.
Affirmation is one of the most powerful tools we have as humans. By using affirmations, you are telling yourself something false, but over and over again, you’re creating a new mental pattern that will prove itself.
It works because our subconscious mind doesn’t distinguish between lies and truths. It simply registers what you tell it as fact.
Using affirmative statements to enhance relationship harmony isn’t anything brand-new, but some theories may have you believe that only rich people use them. Don’t let such nonsense get in the way of helping you be happier with yourself, your loved ones, and life in general.