Do you find positive affirmations don’t work for you? Have you been struggling with them? You’re not alone! Many people read about the benefits of affirmations, but find out later that positive affirmations don’t work for them no matter what they do!
Well, I’m here to change that for you! I’ll explain exactly why positive affirmations don’t work for you and what to do instead!
The right affirmation tips and understanding why positive affirmations don’t work for you can save you a lot of time and frustration. Believe me, I know! I struggled for awhile and thought positive affirmations don’t work! So, take a few minutes to learn from my mistakes and never say that positive affirmations don’t work for you again!
Table of Contents
What Are Affirmations? Why Positive Affirmations Don’t Work For you
Basically, to affirm means to state something positive as true. So affirmations are just starting something positive that you believe over and over again.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary states that to affirm means:
2: to assert (something, such as a judgment or decree) as valid or confirmed
3: to show or express a strong belief in or dedication to (something, such as an important idea)laws affirming the racial equality of all people
Why is Changing Your Thoughts So Important?
Simply put, it’s important to get to the point where you can believe positive affirmations because of the amazing volume of thoughts you have each day! You will want the majority to be positive if you don’t want to say that positive affirmations don’t work for you!
Research has shown that the average person has between 45,000 and 51,000 thoughts a day. That’s about 150 to 300 thoughts a moment! Similarly, people give up too fast with them and don’t read any affirmation tips first.
Now let this statistic really sink in-for most people 80% of their daily thoughts are damaging and negative! In addition, any of these thoughts are below your awareness and are subconscious.
No wonder people struggle and say that positive affirmations don’t work for you!
Here is Why Positive Affirmations Don’t Work For You
Positive affirmations don’t work for you if your underlying belief, your subconscious, does not agree with your affirmations. In addition, they can even cause harm if done incorrectly!
Affirmations just help reinforce what you already believe! However, if you try to force something you don’t believe in, you will argue with yourself on why it is not true.
In other words, this will reinforce your negative thoughts and do the opposite of what you are intending! You will start to think positive affirmations don’t work for you and guess what? You will be right! It’s a vicious cycle!
The most important of affirmation tips is if you find positive affirmations don’t work for you, you need to start working on your self love and belief system first above all other things. (Go back to my self-love advice if you are unsure where to start: Self-Love)
In fact, if you want to be abundant or manifest anything, you must believe you are worthy of it first! You must start with self-love first if you are lacking in this area. Otherwise, even if you manifest an abundance mindset you will not be able to maintain it.
However, it’s not a complete lost cause if you aren’t there yet! There are things you can do to make them more believable to you if you currently struggle with self-love and worth.
Affirmation Tips If Positive Affirmations Don’t Work For You
- Daily visualize what you want to achieve before you go to bed with the movie screen technique. This will start to make your affirmations more believable.
- State your affirmations in a question form. Instead of “I am” statements you can do a more neutral “Am I?” or “What if?” question. For instance, I was worried about a meeting with management that no amount of positive thinking would make me believe it would go well. Instead I thought, “What if it goes well?” “What if we have a great conversation?” This took me off the defensive and thinking about being open to the idea. In conclusion, the meeting went well because I was thinking about what could go right instead of wrong.
Another example:
If you want to lose weight, but think you can’t stick to it you need to affirm what you can do and have done. Focus on the fact that while you may make unhealthy food choices some of the time, it is not true that you always do! You may have even lost weight in the past, however, it never lasted long. Some possible questions you can first focus on to make the idea of eating healthier more believable to you:
“Am I always eating unhealthy foods?”
“Do I ever make good food choices?”
“Have I ever lost weight?” “Have I ever made good food choices?”
“Why can’t I make better food choices?”
“Why can’t I work out for only 10 minutes today?”
These are just examples of ways to get your mind thinking of things that seem more possible to you.
3. Listen to hypnosis and subliminal audios.
4. Make your affirmations simple and personal. The list of affirmations I have on abundance mindset are just ideas to get you started. They will be much more powerful if you make them personal.
5. Work on your self-love . Take time out of your day to do some self-care. For instance, you can ask someone you trust to tell you a list of good things about you. Consider a self-love workbook or do a daily scripting practice in your journal focusing only on why you deserve good things and abundance. If you do things that make you feel bad or guilty, first acknowledge those things and add how you are going to work to stop those.
6. Start with neutral statements first. Instead of, “I am at a healthy weight,” you would state, “I am working on making better food choices.” Instead of, “I am happy and love myself,” you would state, “Every day I am working on loving myself more and more.”
7. Be realistic. You must actually want what it is you are trying to affirm. If you hate exercising, no amount of saying you love it will likely change that! Simply state your true intention to first to trick your mind. For example, “I want to like exercising.” Once you actually start to like exercising, you can start to use affirmations to maintain this new love of exercising with, “I found an exercise I love to do! I exercise daily!”
Affirmation Tips For When You Believe You Deserve Them
If you have done the shadow work, or just already have a healthy self-esteem, than you are ready to use the most positive affirmations. This is where the fun really starts! Here are some affirmation tips on using many of the affirmations listed on abundance mindset mama:
- Let go of perfectionism! Many women feel guilty, like they are not doing enough! If you feel this way you will defeat the whole process. Yes, you will want to do these as often as possible, but it’s ok to have negative thoughts sometimes. Do not place a lot of pressure on yourself as these should be fun!
- Keep them in the present tense. In other words, do not say things like, “I want to be rich.” You already believe you can be, right? So simply state, “I am rich! I have everything i need!” If you believe you deserve to be rich, you do not need to want it or figure out how to make it happen. You simply know it already exists.
- Keep it simple and personal.
- Start off with gratitude and end with gratitude. “I am so thankful and happy i am rich right now! Thank you, thank you!” Gratitude raises your vibrations to the level that allows for manifesting and abundance.
- Add the “Why.” Much like the scripting techniques, you want to add why you manifested these statements. The reason behind this is it adds more positive emotions, just like gratitude. This raises your vibrations and makes you more positive. For example, look at the emotional difference between these two affirmations;
“I am rich!”
vs.
“Thank you that I am rich and abundant, because I have everything I need and enough left over to help people! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“I am in a loving, passionate relationship.”
vs.
“I am so thankful I am in a loving, passionate relationship because we make each better and encourage each other to grow. I love feeling supported and having someone to share my day with! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“I love being a healthy weight.”
vs.
“I’m am so thankful I am fit and healthy because I have energy to do things with my family, and feel beautiful for my spouse. I feel great and have the energy and confidence to accomplish any goals I set! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
In conclusion, it isn’t that affirmations don’t work. The biggest affirmation tips are just that you have to find what works for you, and be in the right mindset first!
Did you used to think that positive affirmations don’t work for you? What are you going to change so you don’t have to say that positive affirmations don’t work for you? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
