Affirmations

In a sales oriented coaching call which I participated in yesterday, I was taught the practice of affirmations. Affirmations in the sense it was being taught were positive statements of where you want your life to be. The idea is that if you choose one or two statements and put them before your mind in a variety of ways repeatedly, then you will find yourself tangibly moving towards achieving those goals. For example, if I choose “I am a beautiful model” as my affirmation then I will write that down and post it in places where I will see it, I will choose to write it down ten times a day, and I will verbally repeat it out loud ten times a day, and in so doing I will create a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. I know it sounds a bit iffy, but the logic behind it is that we are creating a file for our unconscious mind, and the unconscious mind does not know truth from untruth, it just stores the info as reality, and more importantly having the affirmation in the forefront on ones mind constantly increases ones awareness of where you want to go and how the little decisions we all make constantly are playing into achieving that affirmation. If I am filling my mind with the concept that I am a beautiful model then how likely am I to run out to the store in my sweats and a t-shirt with no make up on, or to eat three krispy crèmes for my midnight snack? I may still make those choices, but if have been faithfully putting into my mind that I am a beautiful model then my mind will evaluate my choices differently, and in this way my internal can drive my external.

I do not pretend to know enough to fight for the credibility of this practice, nor enough to automatically reject it. . Not coming from a sales back ground, it was a new idea to me and one I am still evaluating. However, for discussion sake, let’s assume the practice valid and think about how we would apply it in our lives.

1) If you could only choose two things to put into your life and help make them a reality what would they be? It is similar to asking what your top values are, but I think often we list our values as what we believe they should be rather than what they are at the gut level. Would you choose to repeat “I am financially free” ten times a day? Would you choose to record and play back to yourself “I am a perfect size two?” Would you choose to write down “I am a follower of Christ” or how about any number of options such as:
“I am happily married to the man/woman of my dreams (think about that, if we told ourselves that often enough can’t you imagine our marriages would improve?
“I am a great closer”
“I am a loving and involved father”
“I provide a product that can add health and happiness to people’s lives”
“I consistently choose to put others needs before my own”
“I am a student with a 3.5 or higher”
“I am a force to be reckoned with on the world poker circuit”

All of these things may be valid and laudable goals, but if it comes down to only having the bandwidth to be able to reinforce two of them what type of affirmations would you choose and is that consistent with what you would say your values are?