The Power Of Affirmations

The Power Of Affirmations

A good way to use your journal for working on personal issues like low self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence is to use it for writing affirmations. These are short statements of a sentence, two sentences at most, that are used to help reprogram your thought processes. And they are incredibly powerful.

 

Every one of us has a constant stream of thoughts running through our heads. These are thoughts about ourselves and are, in effect, our subconscious talking to us. This is called our self-talk, and it reflects how we feel about ourselves.

 

If you have low self-esteem or lack self-confidence, this will be reflected in your self-talk. You unwittingly reinforce this opinion of yourself multiple times a day. This opinion has been programmed into your subconscious just as a computer can be programmed to do a certain task.

 

To change your opinion of yourself, you are going to have to change your self-talk. That means reprogramming your software, so to speak, and it is not easy to do. That is why rebuilding one’s self-esteem can take years.

 

Affirmations are a shortcut. It still takes time, but these short phrases, when used properly can help reprogram your mind. Nothing else works as fast as affirmations when it comes to changing your self-concept.

 

There are three ways to use them: speaking them aloud, speaking them under your breath, and writing them down. Ideally, you would use a combination of the three. When you write them down, you need to copy them several times each. It is a good idea to do this daily, preferably two or three times a day.

 

Many people use a special journal just for affirmations and carry it around with them to write in and look at during the day.

 

If you want to try this, pick an issue you are working on. Look up some affirmations for this issue. “I am worthy” is an example of one for one’s self-worth. Select a couple of affirmations that appeal to you and begin writing them in your journal. Copy each one down at least five times in a session. Do this at least once a day for a month or two.

 

You should also try speaking the affirmations and couple the repetition with interrupting yourself whenever you catch the negative self-talk happening. Stop it and deliberately replace the negative thought with the positive one. After a few weeks, you should start seeing the negative thoughts diminishing in frequency and strength.