You’re brain believes what you tell it. And this seems to be especially true when it comes to self criticism.
If you tell yourself you’re a loser often enough, you’ll start to believe it. You might only believe it on a subconscious level, but the message is there, affecting everything you do. Keeping you from applying for your dream job, or entering that short story contest. (After all, if you’re a loser, why bother?)
The good news is that, just as your brain believes the negative stuff you say to yourself, it also believes the positive things you say to yourself.
Well, sometimes.
The opposite of self criticism is positive self affirmation. Instead of engaging in negative self talk, you keep the self talk positive.
In theory, if you say good, positive things about you to yourself, you’ll start to believe them.
- If you tell yourself you’re confident, you’ll feel more confident.
- If you tell yourself everyone likes you, you won’t feel so shy and awkward when you meet new people.
- If you tell yourself you’re a great writer, you’ll finally sit down and start writing that novel.
Improving your life just by thinking and saying nice things about yourself? It sounds great right?
There’s just one problem.
A lot of the time, positive affirmations don’t work. You can spend weeks or months saying positive, self-affirming things to yourself and never see any improvement in your mindset, self confidence, or self image.
Now notice I didn’t say positive affirmations never work, because they definitely can.
As long as you choose the right affirmations.
One Thing That Can Make Positive Affirmations Ineffective
A lot positive affirmations don’t work because they’re based on lies.
Let’s say you’re going into a situation where you need to talk to someone new. It’s a job interview. Or a first date. Or your first meeting with a future in-law.
You want to make a good first impression, but fear your nerves and self doubt will get in the way. So you choose a positive affirmation to help boost your confidence.
I’m a great person, and everybody likes me!
Immediately some logical, subconscious voice steps up and says, “What? Did you seriously just say everybody likes us? That no one ever has or ever will dislike us? Well that’s just not possible. Everybody has people who don’t like them, even if it’s for no good reason. Even the nicest person in the world has people who don’t like them. Probably because they’re too nice!”
And just like that, the positive affirmation is pretty much nullified. You can keep saying it to yourself, but it won’t do much good because your subconscious has already dismissed this impossible statement as nonsense.
But positive affirmations aren’t completely useless. The trick is to use the right kind of positive affirmation.
If you want to make a positive affirmation effective, you need to do two things.
1. Make it believable.
2. Prove it.
How Can You Make Positive Affirmations More Effective?
That logical part of your subconscious will have an easier time believing what you can prove.Let’s take, “I’m a great person, and everybody likes me!" and replace it with, “I know I’m a likeable person.” Or maybe “People like me.”
Can you prove that?
Well, are there people in your life right now who like you? What about friends? Family members?
Did you have a good relationship with one of your teachers, or the manager at your last job?
Is there a cashier who always smiles when you approach the checkout counter?
Then you are likeable. People (you’re mom and best friend count as "people" after all) like you. This is something your brain can believe because it’s true, and you’ve got proof to back it up.
A realistic affirmation like, “I know I’m a likeable person,” might not be as flashy as “I’m a great person and everybody likes me!” But the more understated affirmation is the one most likely to work.
And isn’t that the whole point?
Action Steps
Here are some steps you can take to turn the positive affirmations you’re already using into more effective self-talk.
- Think about one of your positive affirmations, something you’ve tried to use to get over some fear or self-doubt. Is there any aspect of this affirmation that you think your subconscious might not believe? If so, move on to step 2.
- Rephrase the affirmation into something true and believable but still affirming.
- Try to find at least one piece of “evidence” that supports your new affirmation. If you can’t, try rephrasing the affirmation.
- Write the new affirmation on an index card, and tape it where you’ll see it often. For example, if you’re new affirmation is, “People like me,” you can tape the index card to your bathroom mirror, where you’ll see it every morning and night.
Now you have an affirmation your subconscious will actually buy, so that affirmation is more likely to do what you need it to do.
Positive affirmations can be great tools that can help you overcome self-doubt, low self esteem, procrastination, and anything else that could negatively impact your productivity. The key is creating a positive affirmation that will actually work for you.
Have you tried using positive self-talk? If so, which affirmations really worked for you?
