Do you ever talk to yourself? No need to answer because I already know you do. I’m not calling you crazy. Just hear me out. I don’t mean the kind of talking that some people do with trees and chairs (although, that could be quite fun too, don’t you think?). The kind of talking I’m referring to isn’t even necessarily done out loud.

When you forget to do your homework and you call yourself stupid, you’re talking to yourself. If you make everyone laugh in class and you pat yourself on the back for being so clever and funny, you’re talking to yourself. So it turns out that not only do you talk to yourself, but you do it constantly. Those two cases by the way are examples of what is known as affirmations. These are statements made with confidence about how you think the world works. They are sort of the building blocks of our perspectives. And we’ve seen how much of an impact our attitudes have on what we attract into our lives so they are worth paying attention to.

We are constantly making affirmations about how other people see us, about how easily the things we want come to us, about our personalities, about our bodies, about what we enjoy, about everything! And most of the time we are so unaware of this statement-making process that we don’t stop to think whether our affirmations are actually true or just a matter of perspective. But this is an important point because with it can come the freedom to decide what kind of angle we want to take on the world.

You could say that you are kind or you could say that you are a meanie and you would find proof to support the statement in either case. So if you’ve got the option (and you do), take advantage of it. Affirm the version that matches what you want and makes you feel good. When used in this way, affirmations work like medicine. They fix thinking that has been hurting you and bring your thoughts back round to your corner. If your shyness is getting in the way of making new friends, you can counteract that by affirming how confident and outgoing you are. Like a magic spell.

There are a couple of things that give affirmations their magic however. Unless you’re Harry Potter, you’re going to have to say the words more than once, a lot more than once. Repetition is powerful. That’s why you believe what you do. You hear the same things over and over again and eventually your brain accepts them as truth. It also really helps to give the words some feeling. Doing so has the effect of adding nutella to dry bread. It makes everything go down a lot easier and faster. There are a lot more tips for creating affirmations that work and we will be covering them soon. In the meantime, start paying attention to the voice in your head. What conversations are you having with yourself? What new statements might you want to start affirming?