“Life supports me in every possible way.” – Louise Hay

Positive affirmations are used as a tool to help with and, or, create transformation in life. They’re taught and discussed a great deal in the personal development realm. I learned about them in Hal Elrod’s The Miracle Morning and then, again, in Jen Sincero’s You are a Badass, and again in You Can Create an Exceptional Life by Louise Hay and Cheryl Richardson.

Using affirmations at first felt like wearing someone else’s clothes. Some of the things I was affirming didn’t feel authentic and my brain wanted to reject the notion. After tweaking some of them, while keeping others, I learned how to make them work for me for effective transformation. There are a few different ways that affirmations can help us.

Positive Support

When transitioning into a new role or whenever you’re experiencing the imposter syndrome, affirmations can remind you of the skills and value you bring. Imposter syndrome is when you doubt your own skills and are afraid you’ll be exposed as a fraud.

An affirmation for positive support while in this scenario is “I am a valuable part of the team and am skilled at what I do.” To accentuate this example, add more specifics about your unique skillset.

Priorities

Affirmations can help align you to your priorities. If your calendar has filled up with work meetings late into the evening and you have a priority to spend time with your family, you can create an affirmation to realign yourself to your priorities. For example, “My husband and children are my top priority. I spend quality time with them in the evenings talking about our day and playing games together.”

Recognize Accomplishments

We frequently focus on what can be improved, rather than what we’ve accomplished. Affirmations can help us recognize our accomplishments. For example, “I am a strong leader. I have led three teams to top-performing results.”

Dissolve Limiting Beliefs

Sometimes we create thoughts and stories about ourselves that have no factual evidence. We may believe we’re not good at something without ever attempting to do the thing. Affirmations can help dissolve our limiting beliefs.

For example, when you tell yourself that you are bad at numbers and you take on a project that consists of working with numbers try, “I am patient with myself as I learn to work well with numbers. My knowledge increases every day.”

Affirm Visualizations For What You Want To Create

I read online about a woman who repeated the affirmation, “my income is constantly increasing” and she received a check in the mail that she wasn’t expecting shortly thereafter. I tested it and it worked. It wasn’t a big check but money is money and now I’m a believer.

Our subconscious mind doesn’t understand language but does understand images. It also doesn’t know the difference between imagined images and real images. Therefore, when you’re using an affirmation with a visualization for what you want to create in your life, your subconscious mind believes the affirmation to be true and will help your brain find ways to draw it to you.

Do Affirmations Always Work?

Affirmations don’t always work. We are all unique and depending on your mindset and what you’re experiencing in your life, affirmations may not be the answer for you. If that’s the case, there are a couple of other things that may be helpful.

If you feel uncomfortable saying the affirmation as an “I” statement, try saying it with “You” instead. For example, “You are successful.”

If affirmations don’t feel right at all, focus on acceptance of what is. Acceptance is a powerful practice to have because once we can accept our circumstances, we can move forward with our life. We’re not going to like every scenario we come up against but the sooner we can accept what has transpired and move on, the better. Like the serenity prayer says, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”