This week over on Facebook I asked the question about whether people love or hate affirmations.  In Coaching it’s quite often suggested as a really powerful tool to help clients.

Affirmations are positive self-statements that are said to have originated from a Psychologist and Pharmacist, Émile Coué (1857-1926).  He used the following quote as a method for healing his patients.  As a result their recovery was shown to be five times faster than that of patients being treated in other institutes.

 

It is thought that when a positive statement enters your subconscious mind it is thought to be true.  Other examples might be;

• I am confident in my abilities to do my work effectively
• I am calm and relaxed in every situation

I’ve read a lot of debate around affirmations and I am still trying to figure them out because there is so much difference of opinion.  What I do believe though is that by turning around our self-talk we can achieve a lot more.

For them to be effective try these four P’s..

• In the positive
• In the present
• Personal to you
• Powerful

We all know the power of negative language.  Just one simple comment/conversation can have a really profound effect on us.  For example, you bump into someone you haven’t seen for a while and they say how great you look, they think you’re looking really well, vibrant and healthy, you’ve lost weight. What reaction do you have to their comments?  It can start a positive spiral of self-talk, such as ‘I’m feeling great, I’ve been eating better, doing more exercise.  My hard work must be paying off’.  Take the opposite where someone says you look like you’ve put on weight, or you’re looking tired.  You can start to feel quite dispirited and down-hearted. This can then start a negative spiral of self-talk, ‘I look awful, I knew I’d put on weight, I’m rubbish at x, y, z’.

I think the idea of affirmations are great, they can help you change your thought patterns. I just personally find maintaining them quite tricky.  The idea is that you repeat the affirmation many times throughout the day to yourself.  Some of my clients love them and dedicate time to repeating them over and over again (which does make them more effective).  Other clients just use them as a reminder to prompt more positive language.  As you’ve probably gathered though I’m all about keeping it real so there’s no point in telling yourself you’re going to be a fantastic ballerina if you’ve never put on a pair of ballet shoes in your life!

That time when you’re telling yourself you’re overwhelmed and don’t have enough hours in the day switch to saying, ‘There is more than enough time to do all I need to do’.  If you genuinely have an enormous to do list that appears unmanageable and realistically you cannot possibly get all that work done in a day then that affirmation isn’t going to be right here.  A more realistic thing would be to decide what your most important tasks are that need to be done and aim to achieve them.  Telling yourself you have more than enough time when you actually don’t isn’t going to get you anywhere and may only reinforce those overwhelmed feelings.

So whether you think they work or not, if you’re having a bad day with self-talk try one out, you never know it might actually make you feel a bit more positive.  Don’t forget if you are going to say them to yourself in the mirror remember to give it a clean afterwards, mirrors covered in toothpaste don’t look so great!

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I’d love to know your thoughts on affirmations and if you’ve used them how well they work for you.

If you missed the Be My Guest interview with Career Coach, Kathryn Entwistle, click here.