The science of affirmations

Have you ever wondered why even with an intense desire to make that big change in your life, you fail at it repeatedly?

That intense desire to lose weight, grow your business, get that promotion, win the heart of someone special, and feel happy leads to a motivational bump and a few days of effort only to fizzle out later. That motivational video you watched, that shiny new daily routine you made, and that conviction you had on day zero could help only for a few days before everything fizzled out, leaving you back to square one.

No matter how fancy plans we make, when the time comes to take action, we often fail to act in that moment of truth.
No matter how much you decide to wake up early, you ignore that alarm every single time.
No matter how much you decide to eat clean, you can't resist that pizza every single time.
No matter how much you decide to focus on work, you go back to scrolling your phone five times a day.
No matter how much you decide to think positively, you can't stop regretting past mistakes and failures and getting angry about how people have wronged you.
No matter how much you decide, you keep procrastinating.

Why can't we make transformational changes in our lives even with the best of our intentions? Why we fall for negative thoughts, hurt our mental health, and hold on to the negativity?

To know the answer, let's dig deep and see why we do what we do.

The force governing our lives

The fact that most of us often do not follow our plans and do not act in self-interest proves that something more profound guides our actions than mere desires, willpower, and plans. To solve the mystery of our self-sabotaging actions, let's understand the genesis of our actions:

How you think is how you feel.
How you feel is how you act.
How you act is how you become.
How you become is how you think.

The endless process of our self-sabotaging actions begins at the level of our thoughts. It seems correct, but it makes the mystery of our actions more puzzling. Because if you observe, you will notice that even when you sincerely think of a transformation—hold that thought in your mind for real, you still fail to act in that final moment.

How?

The answer lies in the deeper layers of your mind.

When you think about something, you use the top part of your mind, but your actions are governed by the thoughts originating in the deeper subconscious mind, to which you do not have direct access. For an analogy, think of your physical parts—you have complete control over your external organs like hands and legs, but can you control your internal organs like kidneys or heart and make them work at will?

Thus the genesis of your actions is at the thoughts level—thoughts originating in your deeper subconscious mind. Since you do not have direct access to your subconscious mind, you can not select the thoughts originating here. It creates new thoughts by itself based on its habit pattern.

Thus, the habit pattern of our subconscious mind is the force governing our lives.

No matter how many plans you make, if, in the deeper layers of your subconscious mind, you believe that you can't do something and don't deserve it, you will fail sooner or later. When you believe that you are over-weight as in that's who you are, or an average performer, or not rich, or not good enough to have a loving life partner, you are continuously you are continuously involved in negative self talk and sending signals to your mind that you don't deserve what it desires, and that it is not going to happen. The mind will respond accordingly and you will see the manifestation of each one of your negative belief.

Most of our mental conditioning occurs during the early years, and we carry it all our lives—unknowingly taking actions and living our lives according to it. If your mental conditioning during your formative years is of a winner, you will find it easy to feel comfortable with winning and excel in many areas of your life. On the other hand, if your mental conditioning during your formative years is of a loser, you will struggle with bad decisions all through your life.

The cycle of thoughts-feelings-actions repeats itself again and again in all aspects of our lives. This cycle makes you a winner, happy and successful or keeps you average, unhappy, and perpetually desiring but not achieving. This cycle can push you to great heights of success, happiness, and riches or pull you down to the dark alleys of failure, addiction, and desperation.

There are only a few ways to break this cycle and make it work for you reliably. The easiest one is the practice of positive affirmations.

What are affirmations

Affirmations are powerful sentences that help you believe and feel your dreams coming true.

When you practice affirmations every day with discipline and enthusiasm, you transform the way you think and feel about your dreams, bring them within your grasp, open up yourself for their grace, and let them manifest in front of you.

Actor Jim Carrey has this to say on the power of affirmations and manifesting your dreams:

The science of affirmations

Affirmations work by steadily aligning the cycle of thoughts-feelings-actions to your goals, dreams, and deepest desires.

Affirmations make it possible to train your subconscious mind by way of feelings to be your friend and work for you instead of working against you.

Changing our feelings is not easy, for we have conditioned ourselves to feel a certain way in response to certain thought patterns. But with daily practice of affirmations, you can do it.

When you repeat positive affirmations with positive feelings first thing in the morning and before going to bed at night, you send signals to your subconscious mind to believe in them. Slow and steady, a time comes when your subconscious mind starts believing in them, and then it starts manifesting them.

The key here is to craft correct affirmations, practice them often, and have positive feelings during the process, for you can communicate with your subconscious mind through feelings.

"Ideas are impressed on the subconscious through the medium of feeling. No idea can be impressed on the subconscious until it is felt, but once felt – be it good, bad or indifferent – it must be expressed. Feeling is the one and only medium through which ideas are conveyed to the subconscious. Therefore, the man who does not control his feeling may easily impress the subconscious with undesirable states. By control of feeling is not meant restraint or suppression of your feeling, but rather the disciplining of self to imagine and entertain only such feeling as contributes to your happiness. Control of your feeling is all important to a full and happy life."

When your subconscious mind believes you can achieve everything you desire, it converges your feelings towards all those things and finds the best ways to act to achieve those dreams.

There are two parts to the practice of affirmations:

1. Practice your affirmations at least twice daily - in the morning and night just before bed.
2. Every time you practice your affirmations, visualize them and feel that all your dreams are already within your grasp, as if you have already achieved them. Do not make it a mechanical exercise.

You might wonder, "I do not feel I can achieve what I desire; how can I start feeling it suddenly?"

I agree. I have been there.

The secret is to work on your thought process—break the cycle at the thought stage. With daily practice of affirmations, you start by disciplining your conscious thoughts for a few minutes each day. These empowered conscious thoughts slowly help align your feelings. And then those feelings help align your subconscious thoughts. When your thoughts and feelings change, your actions change. And at last, your reality changes.

Repeating affirmations every day with positive emotions change the negative thought patterns of your subconscious mind into a positive one.

The freedom to focus your conscious thoughts on your dreams and desires instead of your frustrations is yours to exercise.

Here are body-positive fashion model, Ashley Graham's thoughts on Affirmations:

Principles for crafting your affirmations

Here are the principles to create powerful affirmations:

1. List all your dreams, goals, challenges and desires.
2. Write a sentence stating that you are working every day to achieve that goal and welcoming those desires in your life.
3. Write positive and specific sentences: Positively phrase your affirmations, and they should focus on the desired outcome rather than what you don't want. For example, instead of saying, "I won't procrastinate anymore," say, "I will take action immediately when I have an important task to complete." Be careful about not writing negative affirmations. Positive affirmations are a must for success.
4. Make them believable: Your daily affirmations shouldn't feel like a stretch or too far-fetched for you to believe right now. Start with something that feels achievable and make it more challenging as you progress. Start with bite-size goals.
5. Use present tense language: When crafting your affirmations, use present tense language to resonate with your current reality—not some future one that doesn't exist yet! This helps reinforce the idea of already achieving your goal in your mind's eye. Make your affirmations work in the present moment.
6. Focus on only one thing at a time: Don't try to tackle too many goals at once; focus on just one affirmation or goal per day or week so that you can give yourself ample time to truly internalize each message before moving on to the next one!
7. Personalize each positive affirmation for maximum impact: Don't user generalize affirmations; craft them for your circumstances.
8. Write down your affirmations so you can easily track them each day and refer back to them when needed. This also helps make them more tangible instead of just saying them out loud without actually writing anything down. Writing affirmations down is the key to disciplined practice.

   Steve Harvey, famous TV host recommends writing down your affirmations:
9. Keep a consistent schedule for when you practice your daily affirmation practice (e.g., first thing in the morning or right before bed). This will help make it a habit so it becomes second nature over time!
10. Visualize: When saying the affirmation out loud, visualize and feel the positive outcome.

Strive to synchronize your mental, emotional, and physical energies toward your dreams over time.

The biggest hurdle

Now you know a lot about 'how to affirmations'. There is one big hurdle in the way of positive transformations using affirmations. I have experienced it myself and have seen hundreds of people struggle with it too. You will likely face it when working on your affirmations.

The biggest hurdle is discipline.

You see, affirmations work when you practice the same affirmations long enough for your feeling and subconscious thoughts to align with your desires. You must hold those same desires with positive feelings for a few days, weeks, or months and practice your affirmations enthusiastically. But most people either give up too early or simply forget to practice their affirmations for days. Like in most areas of life, the irregular practice of affirmations will not yield results.

Writing down your affirmations help with discipline, but I have seen people even forget to open the journal in which they have written down their affirmations. Some people paste their affirmations near their home office, kitchen, or other places. But when most of our days are spent at work or working on the computer, it's likely to forget those affirmations.

For those who spend considerable time on the computer, the best way I have found over the years is to have affirmations on the computer so that they nudge you without disturbing you a couple of times a day.

And for that reason, me and my team have built Affirmations Flow - a free Chrome extension to shuffle play your affirmations each time you open a new tab. It's free and has cool privacy features too! Click here to get it for free.

Affirmations can help you achieve your dreams in a matter of months. They are free, and you can practice them in your own time. You don't have to spend a penny on self-help books and those costly seminars.

The only question is: how badly do you want to change your life?