Affirmations are one of the most commonly cited tools in the self-help industry. Almost everyone in the 21st century has heard of them. Yet, many authors and bloggers in the industry miss the most important tip when explaining how affirmations work.

As a result, many people attempt to use affirmations and feel worse off afterwards. So if you’ve ever tried using affirmations and they didn’t work for you, I want you to know that it’s not your fault. And if you keep reading, this article will help you avoid the most common mistake people make when designing their affirmations.

What Are Affirmations?

For anyone who doesn’t already know, affirmations are thoughts that we repeat to ourselves to facilitate a desired emotion (or at least reduce an undesirable emotion). Many people write down their affirmations on index cards, a notebook, or keep them in their phones.

Some people use affirmations to help motivate themselves, while others use it to fight their self-doubt, increase their self-worth, or convince themselves not to give up on something.

Regardless of what kinds of affirmations you use, all that really matters is that when you read your affirmations, you feel slightly better than you had without them.

To develop affirmations that work for us, we need to be willing to do two things:

1. Pause to notice how they make us feel
2. Be willing to revise their phrasing if they aren’t quite working out. 

But above all else, there’s one requirement every affirmation needs to meet to be effective…

Affirmations Need to be Believable.

This is something a lot of self-help books completely skip over, and it’s a real disservice to their readers

Contrary to popular belief, affirmations are not about trying to force yourself to believe positive thoughts that you feel are not true. Instead, affirmations are meant to fill our minds with thoughts we can truly believe in order to leave less empty room for apathy and self-doubt to move in.

How to test an affirmation

Here is a simple way to test whether an affirmation is believable or not.

1. Write out the affirmation
2.  Say/read the affirmation to yourself
3. Listen to your emotions and the sensations in your body, notice how saying that affirmation makes you feel.
4. If you notice other thoughts popping up, what are they?
5. If you notice negative thoughts arguing with your affirmation, then the thought is not quite believable to you. But if the thought is comforting, calming, etc. then your heart believes there is validity in the statement, and that thought passes the test. 

For example, if I try to tell myself “I’m a really good athlete,” my first impulse is to scoff, and the thought that comes up for me is “No, you’re really not,” or “You didn’t even learn all the rules of the game.” Both my physical reaction and my thoughts, in that case, are clear evidence showing the affirmation will not work for me.

If you try an affirmation and it leads to new negative thoughts, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

Neutral is Often Better than Overly Positive

Sometimes a neutral thought can help us more than a positive one simply because we find it easier to believe. One of my favorite coaches suggests trying neutral thoughts when we’re in a negative space with ourselves because trying to force positive thoughts can lead to more negative ones.

For example, let’s say you’re feeling negatively about your body. You find yourself thinking thoughts like “I’m gross” and “I hate my body.”

If you try to force yourself to think a super positive thought like “I love my body!,” your brain might respond with something like “No you don’t, look at all the things that are wrong with you.” And that just feels awful.

Neutral affirmations are typically more objective than positive ones. This means your brain (especially if you have negative tendencies) will have a much harder time arguing with them. For example, a neutral affirmations to replace “I hate my body,” could be “I have a body.” And when you tell yourself “I have a body,” You are replacing a negative thought with a neutral thought that you can truly believe. 

At the same time, the neutral thought will feel WAY BETTER than the negative one, because it “neutralizes” the negative. It’s kind of like simple math, if you multiply a negative number by zero, you get zero. Similarly, if you challenge a negative thought with a neutral thought, you can neutralize the negative thought and start getting to a better emotional place.

This way, you can start working your way up from zero instead of being stuck in the negatives.

Neutral Affirmations Can Lead to Positive

The really cool thing about neutral affirmations is that they can directly lead to believable thoughts that are positive too. For example, thinking “I have a body” might lead me to, “I can do things with this body,” “I can use this body to see my friends, collect experiences, and express myself,” and “I appreciate that my body allows me to do all of that.” 

Here’s another example…

1. Initial thought:“I feel so weak compared to my friends.”
2. Neutral affirmation that I do believe: “I have some strength.”
3. Thoughts that might result from my neutral affirmation: “I guess I am stronger than I was when I was younger,” “My strength is not meaningless simply because someone else has more of it,” etc.

The main point here is, if the affirmations you are able to believe aren’t super positive, don’t worry. They don’t need to be. You don’t need to lie to yourself, and you don’t need to grit your teeth to think thoughts that will help you get to a better place.

Trial and Error

As you set out to create your own affirmations, try to keep in mind that the process of finding the affirmations that work for you involves sifting through a handful of thoughts that don’t work for you. So you’ll need to be patient with yourself.

If you give it time, you can develop a pocket (or notebook) full of sayings that help you re-set to zero. Then, you have a real shot at moving forward.

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Did this post resonate with you? If so, I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send me a message to share your thoughts. For more uplifting content, check out some other posts on my blog, follow me on instagram @morgan_barbret, or sign up for the Self Love Atlas Newsletter!

Cheers, 

Morgan Rita Barbret