Affirmations are a goal written down and repeated over and over again. By focusing your conscience mind on a written and verbalized goal, it signals to your subconscious mind to start solving the problem.
It can feel as if the universe itself bends toward your will.
Just like magic.
Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, explains affirmations this way: “affirmations are simply the practice of repeating to yourself what you want to achieve while imagining the outcome you want. You can write it, speak it, or just think it in sentence form. The details of affirmations probably don’t matter much because the process is about improving your focus, not summoning magic.”
I don’t believe in magic but I have used affirmations with extremely good results.
I’m sure you have had the experience of trying to decide what kind of car you would like to buy. Once you make a decision you start seeing that car everywhere!
All you have done is calibrate the filter that you view life from to recognize that kind of car.
Our brains can’t take in all the information around us at the same time. There is simply too much going on. To cope, our brains filter out most of the world and focus on what is important.
You can choose the filter.
Obviously, those cars were always there. All you did was tell your brain to pick them out of a crowd of other cars.
When you tell your brain what to focus on and filter out, you begin to see things that were there all along but that you had missed.
Here’s an example:
I went back to university a little later in life. I was 28 years old. Because I was a little bit older, I had no interest in partying or joining a fraternity. I was married!
I had one singular, unflinching goal: to get a great paying job in a big, safe corporation. Although I didn’t write it down 20 times a day, it was constantly on my mind. Everything I did was a step towards that goal.
I even visualized the kind of clothes I would wear and the type of building I’d be working it.
I naturally began saw opportunities where I wouldn’t have before.
Long story short, in the final year of school, I interned at a major corporation which is where I am today.
Goal achieved.
Today, I have two new goals but this time, I’m writing each goal down 20 times each day. I’m thinking big. I’m dreaming BIG!
I have no doubt I’ll get there.
Here’s how to do it:
- Open your favorite writing tool (may I suggest writeeveryday.app?)
- Write it in the following format: I, first and last name, will {insert goal here}.
- Repeat the affirmation 20 times (or more – whatever you want!)
- Do it again tomorrow.
I see affirmations as a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.
By concentrating on what you want, your mind begins to work on the problem and come up with solutions.
You will start to see opportunities you didn’t see before.
As you take advantage of those opportunities it pushes you towards the goal.
Magic.