During your time researching and reading about meditation and mindfulness, you may have stumbled upon a term known as ‘affirmations’. You might have especially heard of these if you’ve been following guided meditations and will normally consist of someone saying a statement which you then think about in your head.
However, to my surprise, not many people know about affirmations and the power that they can have in your everyday life.
Setting the Scene
Consider how you are in your life. Do you think you’re a confident, healthy, happy, outgoing and charismatic person? Or is that the dream of someone that you want to be? Maybe you’ve thought about how you would like to change something in your life, something inside your mind, such as a personality trait.
Many of us have things that we’d like to change. We can eat healthier, exercise more, be more sociable or have less stress and anxieties. Thinking about these changes can also affect our mood and our confidence.
After all, if we’re constantly thinking about how we want to change for the better, but staying the same, we’re going to end up hating ourselves.
The thing is, these traits can be changed, it’s all about changing how we look at ourselves and train our minds to act and think. This is where affirmations come in.
What Are Affirmations?
In short, affirmations are short positive statements. During a mediation session or anytime through the day, you can repeat these affirmations to yourself, hardwiring them into your brain.
Usually, I’ll repeat them to myself during my morning meditation session. It’s like setting yourself goals for that day.
One study by the Northwestern State University even conducted a two-week study on affirmations and found that self-esteem was much much higher in the individuals since the beginning of the study.
You can also use this affirmation throughout the day. For example, you might be about to go and give a big presentation in front of your school or your co-workers. In movies, you might see people saying to themselves something like ‘I can do this’ or ‘this is going to be okay’.
In a very basic sense, this is an affirmation. You can use them for your confidence, your self-esteem, your productivity, basically any trait in your life that you want to improve.
Setting Yourself Affirmations
If you mediate already in the mornings, then great, try and put these affirmations into your session either throughout your session or at the end. However, as above, you can repeat them to yourself whenever you feel like it. When starting out, try and aim for at least five times a day. Or three and build it up if it feels more manageable.
Then, try and figure out what it is that you want to improve on.
I start my day with five to seven affirmations which you’re more than welcome to use.
- I will give my body love by exercising, drinking water and eating fruit and vegetables.
- I will love myself as I do not need the acceptance of others to feel complete
- I will only say positive things and statements.
- I will always give, even if it’s a compliment, a smile or my full attention
- I will be patient and therefore confident in myself
These affirmations stemmed from a guided meditation I was once following many months ago, but these have stuck with me, and I know practice them every single day.
See the Benefits
Personally, I started to see the benefits straight away, even the first time I started using affirmations. I had recently split up with my ex-partner and was falling into a bit of a trap of eating rubbish food since she always handled the cooking side of things.
However, by using affirmations, I was able to treat my body with love and respect it deserved, making sure that I was drinking water every day and eating the foods that fuel my body optimally.
Give it a go yourself and see how you feel! Try for ten days and then let me know what you think! I guarantee that you’ll feel amazing!