Crafting Believable Affirmations
outsmart your doubt with a step-by-step process
Over in the Journal Garden, we are wrapping our “Love Your NO” week focused on journaling about boundaries and turning toward our new weekly theme: “Love Your YES.” To celebrate and elevate what we like best, we are winning Self-Love February by crafting some positive affirmations.
If you’re rolling your eyes, I get it. Despite my lifelong journaling addiction and more than 20 years teaching yoga, I resisted affirmations until this year. Practicing positive affirmations — writing, stating, or listening to positive statements about one’s self and circumstances — seemed unbearably cheesy. I needed to ease myself in, and now that I’ve had a chance to see how effective the practice really is, I want to share my incremental strategy.
First, some science on why you should bother, courtesy of Catherine Moore at Positive Psychology (emphasis mine):
Self-affirmations have been shown to decrease health-deteriorating stress (Sherman et al., 2009; Critcher & Dunning, 2015);
Self-affirmations have been used effectively in interventions that led people to increase their physical activity (Cooke et al., 2014);
They may help us to perceive otherwise “threatening” messages with less resistance, including interventions (Logel & Cohen, 2012);
They can make us less likely to dismiss harmful health messages, responding instead with the intention to change for the better (Harris et al., 2007) and to eat more fruit and vegetables (Epton & Harris, 2008);
They have been linked positively to academic achievement by mitigating GPA decline in students who feel left out at college (Layous et al., 2017);
Self-affirmation has been demonstrated to lower stress and rumination (Koole et al., 1999; Wiesenfeld et al., 2001).
And then there’s the commonsense of it. We are constantly making affirmations with our self-talk, yet without intention they might be affirmations like “I’m so dumb,” “I hate this job,” or “I’m never going to ______ .” The more I tell myself something, the more I believe it, and and the more I act in accordance with that belief, thereby shaping my own experience to reflect the statement.
It’s clearly in my interest to tell myself positive things instead, like “I have a good ideas,” “I enjoy my colleagues,” and “I take action toward my goals.” However, the tricky thing about affirmations is they only work if you believe them. I can chant “I live in London!” as much as I like, but from my living room in south-central Indiana, I’m not buying it.
The first workaround for this problem is the “Ladder of Believability,” which I learned from Kathrin Zenkina. Rather than jumping straight for the desired-but-as-yet-improbable state, you identify the next step that seems within reach. Using my example, suppose I currently work remotely with British clients, though not in London. I might start with “I am working with my first London client” as a bridge toward my goal.
Ladder of Affirmations
The Ladder of Believability concept relates to what you affirm (the first step that seems plausible). A separate dimension of believability is how you phrase the affirmation. I find that even with a desired state that seems possible — “I am working with my first London client” — my mind says, “No, you’re not.” I need to start with something my mind can admit.
Affirmations can take all kinds of forms (see 50 examples here). I present here the sequence that is currently working for me, but it could easily be customized to substitute phrasing you prefer or add or subtract rungs. Using my example, I start with “Wouldn’t it be nice if I was working with my first London client?” My mind does not resist this statement. “Sure, that would be nice!”
The magic of it is, if I’m writing down or rhetorically asking out loud every morning, “Wouldn’t it be nice to be working with my first London client?” at some point I’m going to invest a few minutes in researching London projects. Looking at actual prospects gets me excited — now I can climb a rung to “Wouldn’t it be amazing?”
Working with “Wouldn’t it be amazing if I had my first London client?” reminds me each day that there is something really good to be discovered, which keeps me energized to learn more. I find some projects that really interest me. Now I can climb up to “I am a yes” because not only am I ready to accept an invitation if it comes my way, I’m also starting to have ideas about reaching out.
“I am a yes for” commits my actual availability, right now, for the desired state. I wouldn’t be able to get here with “I live in London,” because I’m not actually ready to move yet. Working with the affirmation “I am a yes for my first London client” increases my determination to at least try contacting a few people.
As soon as I take a step that involves other people, whether it’s sending an email, attending a webinar, or asking for referrals, it shifts me to “I am becoming.” I have witnessed myself taking action; now I can believe the process has begun. The affirmation “I am becoming someone who has business in London” motivates me to keep applying creativity and curiosity to the outreach effort.
Once I can believe in the probability of a positive response, I’m ready to use “I am” language as an affirmation practice. Even if it’s not quite true, it is so close to true that I can imagine how it would feel to believe.
By that point, a lot of things are in motion to make that belief a reality. And when it does, I can move on to the next item in my what progression and start with “Wouldn’t it be nice if I did an outstanding job for my first London client?”
As my example illustrates, one function of the Ladder of Affirmation — or any affirmation practice — is to consistently return your attention to the goal so you remember to take action on it.
If that’s all it does, it’s still pretty magical.
But experience indicates that affirmations do more than move you along a logical progression. Something gets unlocked in this process that bends external reality in a way that helps people and resources flow toward you.
Don’t believe me? That’s okay. All you have to believe is that it would be nice to have what you want. If you’re open to the concept, try it in your journal: identify the next plausible step toward something you would love to have, be, or do and write it down: “Wouldn’t it be nice?”
P.S. My example is not hypothetical — I really do want to live in London and currently work with some wonderful British clients. Now that I’ve described this potential trajectory, I’ll put it to the test and let you know what happens.
Ready to unlock your affirmation practice? Join us risk-free for Affirmations Week in the Journal Garden. We bring together journalers seeking support for a consistent practice to explore journaling prompts, tools, and live sessions so that we can have more “Aha!” moments that bring clarity, calm, focus, and joy.
