Another gem from Brian Tracy’s Success Mastery Academy is the use of affirmations. That is, using your self-talk to make behaviour changes. It works like this, a little guide that is a combination of the wisdom from Brian Tracy and Jamie Smart:
1) Identify a limiting belief you’d like to change.
We all have them, a belief, or a rule about the universe we live in that stops us doing something we really want to do, such as:
- I can’t start my own business
- I’ll always be overweight
- I don’t ever have enough money
- I can’t be happy because I’m manic depressive
The problem with these beliefs is that everytime we say them to ourselves, our unconscious mind hears them and does everything to help it be true. Your unconscious is incredibly helpful and trusts that what you say is what you want.. it can’t filter good from bad affirmations.
2) Construct a positive affirmation using the following form: I am xxxxx.
The keys to creating powerful affirmations are:
- Make them positive (What you want, not what you don’t want)
- Make them identity-based (“I”)
- Make them present-tense (“I am…”)
- Make them emotionally powerful
You see the unconscious mind doesn’t process future tense, it needs to know what you are right now, and will work to make it happen.
Power affirmations based on the list from above would be as follows:
- I am a fantastically successful entrepreneur
- I am slim, fit and healthy
- I am wealthy and always have a surplus of money
- I am blissfully happy and full of joy
It’s not reality, yet if you read this blog you already know that reality is just perception, and anyway the same was probably true of the limiting belief when you first started affirming it. It takes time for a belief to put down roots, so something you can do to plant it in your unconscious mind and help it to grow is…
3) Say your new affirmation, notice what thoughts and feelings are triggered and accept them.
It is likely that you’ll have certain sensations and thoughts, so allow yourself to be aware of any pictures that pop into your mind, voices in your head, and feelings in your body. Of all of these, it is usually the feelings that keep an old belief in place and that push against the new one coming in. But you can relax – you don’t have to fight those feelings; just accept them, maybe even say to yourself “OK, this is what I’m feeling.” Then wait a minute or so and say your affirmation again. You will probably find that the feelings and thoughts have changed in some way. Great! This is a sign that things are moving. Repeat this process several times, each time accepting the thoughts and feelings that come up.
4) Reinforce your new belief by repeating your affirmation daily, allowing yourself to feel how you’ll feel when it’s true, and by noticing proof that supports it.
Brian Tracy also suggests
- Writing it out every day
- Saying it aloud while looking in a mirror
There’s a great book by Shad Helmstatter called “What you say when you talk to your self” that explores this in far more detail.
And finally I thought I would share with you a video from Jamie Smart (my NLP Practitioner trainer) on the power of affirmations… enjoy!
July 30th, 2007 at 11:06 am
I am slowly beginning to realise that words, and the words we say to ourselves can be quite powerful, I just need to start A: doing it and B: believing it
July 30th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Indeed, would it surprise you to know that actually everything we do is powerful, and at the same time totally deliberate? Research shows that our non-verbal messages are scarily consistent with what is really going on inside of us, it’s part of the 2 way conversation between the conscious and unconscious minds. The words we say unconsciously reflect what is currently going on, by changing what we say consciously the unconscious mind takes note of new commands and will gradually over time reprogram its behaviour.
As for belief… which came first? Negative beliefs are created by generalising what is happening to us. So we may have a bad time at some point, start blaming our bad luck and then suddenly one day the bad time has passed and yet now we believe that we are unlucky…? Beliefs are based on what happened in the past, they are no indication of the future so you can delete the ones you don’t want.
Brian Tracy says “you become what you think about most of the time”. So I ask you… who do you want to be? What is that person like? What are the qualities of that person that you aspire to be? Once you have that person in your mind, look upon them as your mentor, look up to them and behave as if you want to be them.
Little, by little, over time, you’ll become them.
Matt