Create Effective Affirmations

Though my husband can't get away, I've decided to take a little vacation to visit my brothers for the next couple of weeks. My older brother's farm is near a bayou in Louisiana that's normally a trickle, but this year hasn't been normal.

The Mississippi is supposed to crest near his location this week. I think he and his family and the farm are safe unless there's a levee break. The Army Corps of Engineers is sandbagging the levee north and south of that part of the state so, hopefully, all will be well.

I'm leaving you with interesting posts that will publish during my absence so be sure and check SlingWords every day.

By the way, Just One Look should rack up 5,000 in sales tonight, and my other 2 ebooks, The Trouble With Love and Still The One, are gathering momentum too. Thank you to all who supported me by buying my books. I appreciate each and every one of you.

Now, here's today's post: Create Effective Affirmations.

If you read my previous post on 5 Ways To Change Habits, then you may recall I promised to give you some tips on how to create new self-instruction, you know, those thoughts that bombard you all day long, every day.

Use Affirmations

One of the ways you can change your negative self-instruction is to use affirmations.

A lot of people try to work with affirmations to address a situation that needs to be changed, but, often, they don't understand the science behind how the brain works so they don't create an effective affirmation.

If someone wants to lose weight, he may create an affirmation that states: "I won't eat dessert." That kind of statement will never change anything except maybe increase one's desire for dessert because it doesn't take into account the way the brain works.

Using Brain's Modus Operandi

The brain can not act on a negative. It acts only on a positive. If you tell your brain "don't eat dessert" then the brain "hears" eat dessert. The negative gets removed. You must create affirmations with specific characteristics.

Present Tense

An affirmation is a strong positive thought so construct it in the present tense using positives, not negatives. I make good food choices. I eat for good health. I always choose food wisely, etc.

Guilt-free

Your affirmation should be a strong positive statement that contains no guilt. Not: I make good food choices because I need to lose weight. But: I make good food choices for my good health.

Use Emotions

Add an element of the emotion you want to link to the changed behavior, i.e., "I make good food choices for my good health, and I am happy in the positive changes this brings about.

Review

• pick one thing at a time to change
• carefully craft your affirmation
• write your affirmation on a 3x5 card
• write in a journal about why you want to change the behavior
• think about it throughout the day
• review your affirmation at bedtime

All this is cognitive therapy - using your brain power to recognize habits and behavior that do not serve you well and then taking conscious steps to replace that which doesn't help with something that improves your situation and your life.

Takeaway Truth

Change isn't easy, but it can be achieved if one uses effective tools.