Written by Brenda Johnston, High-Performance Mindset Coach
After being chained to the same corporate job for close to 14 years and living with debt for most of her adult life, Brenda decided it was time to stop playing small. She found her true life's passion, changed her relationship with money and success (and more importantly herself.
I’m sure you have heard expressions like “change your mind, change your life” and “think your way to success”. The idea that positive thoughts can help you achieve anything you want in life by changing the way you think.
I’ll be honest the first time I heard of using positive affirmations to help transform my mindset, I thought it was a bunch of fluff. I had flashbacks of the 90’s Saturday Night Live Character Stuart Smally looking at himself in the mirror doing his daily affirmations “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and doggone it, people like me.”
Let’s look at what an affirmation is. It is a positive statement designed to be written as though it has already happened and to affirm information to your mind. When repeated, they are supposed to help you overcome self-sabotaging habits and negative thoughts. Over the years, I have seen that affirmations can actually be helpful as a tool in personal transformation. In fact, they have been a big part of my transformation, and they are something I teach to my clients.
Here is the main challenge with affirmations. They target your mind's conscious level, but not the subconscious, which is where transformation happens. Trying to create lasting change by using affirmations as one of the main drivers can be a long and painful process for people. If what you are trying to affirm goes against a belief that you have, what happens is subconscious conflicts arise and you will have internal struggles. Subconscious conflicts create more self-doubt and before you know it, you are filled with shame and beating yourself up because you think you didn't do the affirmations the right way or you don't deserve to succeed.
Think about it, how many times have you sat down to down to write, or say or sing or scream your "I AM statements" - and all you can think is…this is ridiculous I don't believe this!
So how do you make your affirmations work for you and not against you?
It starts by understanding that your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between what is real and what isn’t, but your emotions do!
So if you are affirming “I am a six-figure earner”, but your bank account is in overdraft. Or “I am 150 lbs when you’re well over 200 lbs” or “I have the man of my dreams.” When you keep attracting narcissistic people into your life, those statements will create those subconscious conflicts I was talking about.
Here is a technique that I personally use and one that I teach my clients to use when creating and using affirmations.
Since emotions are a key factor in creating your new beliefs, you want to create statements that don’t trigger negative emotions. In other words, create statements that are more believable for your subconscious mind and don’t make you feel like you are lying to yourself when you say them.
You can do this by adding in one of these three statements to your affirmations:
“I am the type of person that…”
“I am choosing to…”
“I am in the process of…”
Your subconscious friendly affirmations may look something like this:
“I am the type of person that is a six-figure earner”
“I am in the process of being 150lbs”
“I am choosing to receive love from the ideal partner”
This works because you’re telling your subconscious that you are the type of person that does something and guess what, it can’t argue or disagree with that. There is no subconscious conflict created by being the type of person that does something versus saying, “I am a six-figure earner” when your mind knows that is actually a false belief right now. Best of all, they are still written as though they are present tense.
Remember, transforming beliefs that are limiting you takes patience and consistency. Not all techniques work for everyone, so be kind to yourself as you go through this journey and find what feels right for you.
Let’s get social, connect with me on Instagram, visit my website or check out The Limitless Life Podcast.
Brenda Johnston, High-Performance Mindset Coach
After being chained to the same corporate job for close to 14 years and living with debt for most of her adult life, Brenda decided it was time to stop playing small. She changed her relationship with money and success (and more importantly herself) to turn her passion into profit. Within 7 months of leaving her corporate job, she had built a successful 6-figure business. As a High-Performance Mindset Coach, and the host of The Limitless Life podcast Brenda helps other driven Women tap into the power of their subconscious minds so they can access their full manifesting potential. She does this by helping transform limiting beliefs and fears that are creating patterns of self-sabotage so they can create an abundance mindset and go from worry to wealth.
