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Affirmations are an important technique that help you change the way you perceive yourself. If you have a poor self image or you suffer with too much stress because of the way you think about yourself then affirmations can help you. Affirmations are probably the most widely used and accepted form of self improvement. Here I show you what to do in a simple but effective way.

An affirmation is a powerful positive statement that describes the way that you want to be. You must make sure that the statement has four important elements: personal, present, positive and potent.

Personal: This statement is about you and so it must be specific to you. Don’t make it general and don’t make it impersonal. The best way to do this is to talk about I e.g.
“I am always enthusiastic when it comes to work!”

Present: Always use the present tense in your statement. If you talk about a future event you let yourself and your brain off the hook. By talking in the present tense it makes it more real to your brain and so will start to take effect. It is not in the future, it is right now.e.g.
“I am always enthusiastic when it comes to work!”

Positive: You should use words that describe a positive attribute, not the absence of a negative attribute. You are trying to become something which may be avoiding something else but you want to state what you are trying to become and not what you are trying to avoid. e.g.
“I am always enthusiastic when it comes to work!”

Potent: The more passion and emotion you can get in to your statement the better. This will help you to feel the statement which will make it more effective in creating the needed change in thinking. Use words that mean something to you.
“I am always enthusiastic when it comes to work!”

Now you need to use them.

One of the biggest problems with people who read self help literature is that they only ever read it. I want to encourage you to use the techniques you read about here.

Try writing you own affirmations. Put them on a card and read them out 10 times a day. As you do so, remember to imagine what you would feel, what you would see, what you would hear if it were true.

Share your affirmations with others

Leave a comment telling us what affirmations you use for yourself. Others might like to use them as well.