You are what you say you are
We all do it even if we are embarrassed to admit it; we all talk to ourselves. But what you might not know is that what you say is literally sealing your fate. I always cringe when I hear someone say, "Nothing good ever happens to me" or "I don't have the right connections to get ahead." While these may sound like normal expressions of frustration, they are far more powerful than you can ever imagine!
It has long been recognized that the human mind does not differentiate between fact and fiction, but merely receives whatever it hears as truth. If negative things were said about you during your childhood, and you have continued to say the same things about yourself as an adult, your mind now firmly believes them to be true and you are probably acting accordingly.
Am I stuck with my beliefs or can they be changed?
The 20th century novelist William James says, "Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." Attitudes are simply habits of thought. You can definitely change your thoughts; and once you change your thoughts, everything else in your life will have to respond.
The most powerful tool ever discovered for changing your thoughts, beliefs, and ultimately your actions, is a tool called affirmations. An affirmation is a fancy word for self-talk or self-suggestion. It's basically talking to yourself. And since we've already agreed each of us does that, why not make the type of self-talk you use work in your favor.
How do affirmations work?
Affirmations are positive statements used repetitively to alter your attitudes, self-confidence, and behavior patterns. In time as you constantly repeat positive statements about yourself, your subconscious mind accepts them as truth, which changes your beliefs, which changes your habits and actions. In other words, new fresh input will eventually override previous negative conditioning.
Steps for developing successful affirmations are:
- Decide what you want to become, what you want to do, and what you want to have. Be very specific!
- Use the first person pronoun "I" in your statement, never "we."
- State your affirmation in a positive way.
- Use the present tense.
- Make your affirmations fun. Enjoy your affirmations; be creative!
- Write down your affirmations. Writing crystallizes thought and thought motivates action.
You can create an affirmation for every area of your life: personal development, job promotion, family relationships, and spiritual growth. Affirmations are aided by pictures of your goals, such as posting a floor plan of your dream house on a bulletin board; by number combinations, such as I make 10 calls a day, 6 become appointments, and 3 become sales; and by actions such as listening to motivational tapes, practicing a piece of music over and over, or using a daily "to-do" list.
Affirmations are used by all self-motivated, successful people. They possess an inner drive for achievement that keeps them striving toward their goals and are not dependent on outside circumstances or others to make their life work.
Self-motivation is a learned skill; if you don't presently have it, you can acquire it by using positive affirmations. They are incredibly powerful. If you are patient and consistent, you can literally change your destiny. You are what you say!
