Last Updated on October 13, 2022 by Hollie Giglietti
Creating new habits is hard. Taking care of yourself when you’re trying to do so many other things can be hard. Changing your thought patterns is even harder.
This is DAY 8 of our Reignite your Creative Life & Business Challenge! Today we’re talking about the best way to stay on track with your big creative dreams you are creating and working on in this challenge.
If you’re just now finding the challenge, we’d love for you to sign up! Click the image below to sign up and start at DAY 1.
Today we’re talking about affirmations and how they can help you stay in a positive mindset, which is KEY in working on all those big creative dreams.
Why Affirmations are So Helpful
If you’ve mainly been living in a negative mindset, this can be really difficult to change. It can be really challenging to change your thoughts; however, affirmations can help you stay on track and serve as a reminder of what you want to change and create.
(And if affirmations haven’t seemed to work for you in the past, keep reading to the end where I’ll share an alternative)
If you’re new to affirmations, I encourage you to give them a try.
They may seem a little silly at first but they’re a great way to get your mind ready to embrace new habits and thought processes. Positive affirmations are usually crafted in the present tense and work for any changes you want to make in your life from being more creative to organizing your house to becoming healthier or growing your creative business.
Why do Affirmations work?
Affirmations work because they alter your brain’s neural pathways. This means that over time, you will start to think, act, and feel like whatever you are saying to yourself in your affirmations.
When used correctly, affirmations can reprogram your brain to look at the world in a different way. You can literally change the way you think about things by repeating your affirmations over and over again.
It may take a few weeks for the full effect to kick in, but once it does, it can change your life.
Affirmations are a great way to keep yourself motivated to follow your dreams and continue down the path of creative living. Pick a few that resonate with you and use them every day to keep yourself focused on what you really want out of life.
Examples of Affirmations
Some Affirmations you can use as is or make your own;
- I am full of positive thoughts from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep.
- I am full of optimism about what the day brings.
- I find positivity even in the most difficult and stressful situations.
- I am full of optimistic thoughts.
- My positive thinking affects those around me in a beneficial way.
- I come up with creative solutions with ease.
- Brilliant ideas and clever solutions come to me all the time.
- Every day I come up with more creative thoughts.
- Fresh new ideas come to me daily.
- Creative energy flows through me.
While these examples are a great starting point, it’s important that you make the affirmations your own. Change them up or write something from scratch that resonates with you.
How to use affirmations
Then, get in the habit of saying these affirmations several times throughout the day. At the very least, get in the habit of reciting your affirmations every morning as soon as you get up.
I find it helpful to write these affirmations down in my journal each morning. The process of writing them by hand alone will help you remember them and start to internalize them. Then, hang the note with your affirmation or affirmations for the day in a prominent place.
You can stick them on your bathroom mirror or pin them up in a prominent place on your desk. Make sure you choose a spot where you will see the note several times per day. These visual reminders will help you read and recite your affirmations several times throughout the day.
Last but not least, I want you to realize that affirmations change and evolve over time. When it no longer serves its purpose or you feel that you’ve mastered that part, change it up. Craft a new affirmation and replace the old one. Rinse and repeat as often as you like.
A “secret” alternative to affirmations
If you’ve given affirmations a fair shot in the past and they’ve seemed to not work – it may be because you don’t believe the affirmations. When we say “I am rich”, for example, our minds immediately go to “No way! I could never be rich, that will never be my reality.”
If this is you, I want to introduce you to Afformations, coined by Noah St. John. I am fascinated by his discovery. I wrote an entire blog post on Afformations HERE, but basically instead of statements (we may not believe), we ask ourselves “Why” questions.
In asking questions, our brain will go to work in trying to seek out those answers. So instead of “I am so rich”, simply change it to “Why am I so rich?”
Our brains will immediately start thinking about the question and try to figure out the answer. It’s kind of like when you’re trying to think of someone’s name or the name of a song and you can’t think of it right away but three hours later you blurt it out.
In those three hours you weren’t actively thinking about the answer but your mind was actively searching for the answer in your subconscious mind.
So, if affirmations haven’t worked for you in the past, check out this book on Afformations. It’s a fast read and includes LOTS of examples of specific “why” questions you can ask for any situation. I read the entire book in one day!
Tell us in the comments if affirmations have worked for you? Have you ever heard of Afformations? I hope that whichever you choose to use, they help you build a positive environment where all of your biggest creative dreams can grow!
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