Creating & Using Affirmations

by Brittney Schrick, PhD - November 17, 2023

Positive affirmations can feel silly sometimes. They can feel like magical thinking, especially in times of intense stress or other negative emotions. They are not magic. They aren’t a cure for stress or mental health concerns or poor behavior choices or emotional turmoil. What they CAN do is help us change our thought processes and lead us to having more positive conversations with ourselves about our emotions, behaviors, and thoughts. Over time, this positivity can lead us to more positive emotions, behaviors, and thoughts.

Introduction:

Positive affirmations can feel silly sometimes. They can feel like magical thinking, especially in times of intense stress or other negative emotions. They are not magic. They aren’t a cure for stress or mental health concerns or poor behavior choices or emotional turmoil. What they CAN do is help us change our thought processes and lead us to having more positive conversations with ourselves about our emotions, behaviors, and thoughts. Over time, this positivity can lead us to more positive emotions, behaviors, and thoughts.

The Importance of Positive Self-Talk:

Self-talk is talking or thinking TO yourself ABOUT yourself. It is how our brains tell us things about ourselves or ways we might work through difficult moments or situations. Most research about self-talk comes from sport psychology where they have studied self-talk as it relates to performance in competition. Different types of self-talk can be used in different ways. For example, instructional self-talk (using cue words to remind oneself how to do something) is especially helpful for fine motor skills like playing instruments. Motivational self-talk (using mantras or ego-boosting talk) is most useful for gross motor skills like running or pushing through something that needs endurance.

That may be why motivational or positive self-talk helps with stress relief and boosting mood. It often pulls our attention toward a neutral or positive focus point and away from something negative like discomfort or sadness.

Research shows that affirmations are more effective if they are specific, consistent, and realistic.

1. Specific: A specific affirmation allows you to focus your thoughts and energy on one thing.
   Example: If your goal is to speak up with your ideas in a group, instead of “I am confident” think “I can speak more confidently.”
2. Consistent: The more consistently you use your affirmation, the more automatic it will become. When your affirmation is automatic, you have succeeded in changing your thoughts! This can also allow you to revise your affirmation to something that moves you closer to where you want to be.
   Example: Every time you meet in a group where you want your voice to be heard, repeat, “I can speak more confidently.”
3. Realistic: Although you may want to build an affirmation that skips directly to the end goal, resist the urge. Building something that is more realistic or is a small, positive step toward a larger goal, we can keep ourselves from activating resistant thoughts.
   Example: If your ultimate goal of speaking more confidently in meetings is to build your overall confidence across situations, you may be tempted to use, “I am confident” as an affirmation. There is nothing wrong with that affirmation, but you may find yourself pushing back saying “No I’m not!” in moments of doubt. Using the more realistic, incremental, “I can speak more confidently,” allows you room to grow and helps you push back against resistant thoughts while focusing on a behavior you can control.

Creating a Helpful Affirmation:

A simple way to improve self-talk is to build an affirmation around a specific emotion, behavior, or thought you want to improve.

Let’s build an affirmation that is specific, consistent, and realistic step-by-step:

1. What do I want to improve?

Do you want to improve mood? Remind yourself of a behavior you’d like to change? Build self-esteem? Be kinder to yourself?

Consider a specific thing you want to be better, and then decide which category it fits into: thought, behavior, or feeling. Break it down to a doable, realistic level.

2. Start with “I am…,” “I can…,” “I choose…,” or something similar.

Depending on what you are trying to change or remind yourself of, choose the appropriate beginning verb. Try to use present tense when possible, but the important point is to use a statement that will empower you toward your goal. Word your statement positively by avoiding words like “don’t,” “can’t,” “won’t,” “not,” etc.

3. Complete your statement with a specific thought, feeling, or behavior that will move you toward your goal.

Remember, using a realistic and specific statement is more beneficial than something you can talk yourself out of. For example, you may be struggling with body image. Something like, “I love my body,” might not be true right now; however, you can say, “I am working to love my body as it is,” to move you toward your bigger goal of truly loving your body. You might also try, “I love my smile,” as a way to focus on something specific that you like about your body.

4. Choose a time or situation in which you will use your affirmation.

Using your affirmation at a specific time or in a specific situation will increase the effectiveness of your affirmation. Consider that specific emotion, thought, or behavior you want to change. When does it usually occur? Using your affirmation at that time will help you move toward changing the thought, emotion, or behavior. For our body image example, if you struggle with changing rooms or trying on clothes, decide to use your affirmation at those times. Over time, you should notice that you are kinder to yourself in the mirror. Write the affirmation on a post-it note or on your mirror to remind you to say it. If you need a reminder at other times, set an alarm in your phone, make the affirmation your phone background, put a written reminder in your vehicle or on your kitchen cabinet, or create a crafty reminder to hang in your home.

5. Decide how you will know if your affirmation is working.

Consider how you will know if your affirmation is working. Is the thought becoming automatic? Do you notice a change in the thought, emotion, or behavior you’ve targeted? If so, congratulations! Your affirmation is working! If not, maybe the affirmation needs to be tweaked a bit.

Think about ways you can update your affirmation to meet your needs.
Was the original one too broad? Make it more specific.
Did you choose a time to say it when it wasn’t helpful? When might it be more useful?
Did you forget to use it? Create reminders.

Did it work really well? It might be time to take another step toward your goal or add a new affirmation for a new goal. Start back at step one!

References:

Hatzigeorgiadis, A., & Galanis, E. (2017). Self-talk effectiveness and attention. Current Opinions in Psychology, 16, 138-142. DOI:10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.05.014

Hill, Z., Spiegel, M., & Gennetian, L.A. (2020). Pride-based self-affirmations and parenting programs. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 910. DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00910

Kim, J., Kwon, J.H., Kim, J., Kim, E.J., Kim, H.E., Kyeong, S., & Kim, J-J. (2021). The effects of positive or negative self-talk on the alteration of brain functional connectivity by performing cognitive tasks. Nature: Scientific Reports, 11, 14873. DOI:10.1038/s41598-021-94328-9

Sherman, D. (2013). Self-affirmation: Understanding the effects. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(11), 834-845.

Smith, S.R., & Harte, V. (2015). Self-Esteem for Dummies. For Dummies Publishing/Wiley.

Vilhauer, J. (2020). How to create positive affirmations that really work. Psychology Today blog.