Using Self-Affirmations in Daily Life
“I suck at everything.”
“I will never be good enough.”
“I wish my life wasn’t so hard.”
“I forgot to pay my phone bill, I am such an idiot.”
“I haven’t achieved anything in my life. I am so worthless.”
Many of us have negative thoughts and beliefs about ourselves like these. We often can be oblivious to how much the way we talk to ourselves affects our mood and outlook on life. However, the things we say to ourselves throughout the day have a rippling effect in that the beliefs we have about ourselves often lead to emotions and those emotions often lead to shaped behavior. For example, if we are always thinking “I am not good enough” or “I am such a failure” we are most likely going to feel worthless, sad, shameful and negative. When we feel negative and bad about ourselves, we may be less likely to take proactive actions to take care of our health, we may exercise less, we may be more agitated - all of which can have a negative rippling effect on our relationships. Another example of how this rippling effect extends is let’s say we feel like we are a failure or not good enough (or whatever the unhelpful negative belief is), and then we start to feel more depressed, and then so we isolate from friends, and then being in isolation we develop another belief “oh wow I have no friends checking up on me” and then we feel again like “I am a failure and no one likes me” and then we will sit in self-pity, internalize the belief more, feel more negative feelings, and then act in ways that affirm that belief. This is why negative self-talk is incredibly unhelpful and even harmful. It can create a vicious cycle that is almost impossible to break free from.
This is where positive self-affirmations come in to play. How else can we reverse the negative rippling effects of a negative outlook, negative self-talk, and a lack of self-compassion towards ourselves?
Affirmations are phrases, statements, quotes, or mantras that act as a declaration to help shift negative self-talk and negative beliefs into more productive, helpful, positive beliefs. In this way, affirmations sort of act as a compassionate inner voice that responds in moments of stress, feelings of inadequacy, or otherwise being in a situation where our default function is to usually beat ourselves up. Affirmations can be said mentally to ourselves, written down, or said out loud. I sometimes like to sing my affirmation into a cool rhythm and make a funny song out of it. It gets my mind out of that place of beating myself up and into a playful, happy place.
Affirmations can be used before a presentation, to improve self-esteem, to control frustration, anxiety and impatience, to improve productivity (I always tell myself "I love blogging” when I write blog posts to help me get in the rhythm), to push through a strenuous workout, to complete an assignment, to get over a break up… I mean really affirmations can be used everywhere.
A mantra is a form of affirmation that uses the present tense most commonly. An example of a mantra could be “I have everything I need” or “I am okay” or “I effortlessly attract everything I need in life”.
A affirmation that I like to use that was helpful to me when I had low motivation and lower self-esteem was “I am doing the best I can, and I know things will get better. I am patient”. The reason I didn’t frame this affirmation with saying “I know things are getting better” is because sometimes when we feel hopeless and like there is no way out of how we are feeling, I have found it (and studies have shown it too) to be make me feel worse because it sets up a disagreement between the positive state I desire and the negative feelings that I am currently experiencing. I find it more helpful to say “I am patient” because it recognizes the feelings that I am currently in and sets up the stage for me to welcome in positivity.
I don’t know if this made sense? But hopefully…
Anyways talk soon.
Love, Paige
