Affirmations: Change How You Think.

Hello lovely people. I hope you’re having a fabulous day full of confidence! But just in case you’re a little lacking in the believing in yourself part today, I wanted to bring you a post about affirmations.

Last week, I wrote a short bit about how affirmations can be a tool to use in combatting imposter syndrome. This week, I thought I’d get a little more into it. After all, affirmations can be a super handy tool in creating a happier and more confident you!

What are affirmations?

Basically, an affirmation is a statement you repeat to help change your mindset. This can help you with overcoming negative thoughts or challenges you might have, as well as your beliefs. Many times you’ll see them geared towards confidence, relationships, money or happiness in general.

How do I use them?

There are a few different ways to use affirmations that I’ve found to be very effective. It’s important to note that different ways will work better for different people. The key is to be consistent and to really work on believing what you’re saying. It can’t just be reciting words- you have to put power behind it. Below I’ll go over a few different ways to use them and hopefully you’ll give one or two a try!

Visual Affirmations

Visual affirmations are one of the most common that I’ve seen. You pretty much figure out what affirmation(s) you really want to focus on and put a visual reminder of it somewhere that you will see often. An example might be on your bathroom mirror or on the refrigerator door. Each time you see it, read it to yourself, whether out loud or in your head. This way you have a constant reminder of that thought or belief that you really want to drill into your head.

You can also purchase affirmation cards or calendars. I’ve seen these in a variety of shops, where you can pull a different affirmation each day to build your confidence or to focus on whichever area of your life that you want to work on. I also like to have a pretty visual of my favorite affirmations framed in common spaces of my home. For instance, I have framed affirmations in both my bedroom and my office as daily reminders of my potential and worth. I see them often and each time they catch my eye, I pause to read it and remind myself. (I have these printable frame-able affirmations available in my etsy shop as a digital download here.)

I also use empowerment and affirmation stickers as a visual. What’s really great about these is that you get to put them anywhere! I have one on my phone, a few on my water bottles, on my laptop, sewing machine, etc. This way I’m almost bombarded with pretty little reminders of how awesome I can be. If you’d like to go the sticker route, I have a bunch of those in my etsy shop too!

Audio Affirmations

Audio affirmations are some of my favorites, and for me, some of the most powerful. There are many videos online or recordings that you can get either through purchasing or for free with different themed affirmations. Some you just listen to while some you listen and then repeat. I’ve had them playing in the background while I work, I’ve tried listening to them while falling asleep or driving, and I’ve listened to them while meditating. I really try to listen while they’re playing and absorb them into my thoughts.

I’ve also used audio affirmations in therapy. While undergoing hypnotherapy, there were times where my therapist would help me get into a state of relaxation and slowly repeat affirmations to me, which I would repeat in my mind. Eventually, I started to really put my beliefs behind them and focus more and more, rewiring my brain in the process.

And one more really cool way to use audio affirmations is to actually record yourself saying them out loud and then listen to that recording. I’m not exactly sure of the science of it, but there’s something about your own voice that your mind picks up differently. And so listening to a recording of your own voice will be more effective than recordings of others. The other cool thing about this is how personalized your recording can be. You can really narrow down to the specific areas you want to work on.

Written Affirmations

There have been plenty of studies that show that writing something down on a physical piece of paper can help stimulate more brain activity and improve your memory of whatever your writing. (It’s why creating flash cards and study guides helped me so much in school!) Since your brain is forced to process the information more fully, it registers in your mind and therefore becomes easier to remember. For this reason, I like to write my affirmations down in my journal each day. This way I’m not only seeing it and thinking it, but writing it to really drill it into my mind. (If this is something that interests you, consider getting a separate journal just for this purpose. That way you can go back and use the journal as one of your visual reminders too. I can even create a custom journal for you!)

Affirmations are not a cure-all.

While affirmations can be a helpful tool in building your self-confidence and manifesting and changing the way you think, they do not replace doing the actual work of healing. If you’ve experienced something, for example trauma, simply focusing on the positive isn’t going to work. It would be more like a Band-Aid, maybe giving some temporary relief but not actually healing. It’s important to make sure that you’re processing the things that you go through and to actually work through them. And so I recommend using affirmations along with other healing tools and sometimes even the help of a professional.

Some of my favorite affirmations

As I mentioned above, affirmations can be used in a lot of different areas of your life such as confidence and happiness, money or relationships. My favorites tend to be simple and to focus around self-worth.