Effective Goal Setting
by Damien Clarke
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7 Steps to Writing Effective
Affirmations
"I can’t lie to myself with
affirmations." Is a comment I hear quite often when
I present my session on Writing Effective
Affirmations.
Just deciding to change is not
enough. You need a clear picture in your mind of what you
want or what you want to change about yourself and affirmations
are a great tool for making this happen.
We choose to create our own beliefs -
no one ‘zapped’ them in to you - you gave sanction or
authorised their acceptance as the new belief. Some
people say it’s silly and you’re just lying to yourself - this
is not true. What you are doing is creating the new
you. Your subconscious doesn’t know the difference
between what the truth is and what a lie is. It will
believe what you tell it to believe through your
self-talk. Whether or not you allow it to become a true
belief is within your control.
Always write your affirmations down,
for two reasons:
1. Writing gives precision to
your self-talk. If you try to run through your
affirmations from memory, the words will
vary.
2. Writing your affirmations
keeps you focussed.
Seven Essential Guidelines for
Writing Affirmations.
1. PERSONAL
Your
affirmations need to be written about you, not someone
else. You are wanting and can only change yourself.
You need to see yourself achieving or having what you
affirm. You must visualise yourself as you want to
be.
2. PRESENT
TENSE
Write them as if what you want or want to be has already
happened. It’s important that you don’t affirm intention
or potential. Saying something like, “I can” or “I want,”
is not affirming that you already are or have something.
This just confirms your intention to which in turn does not
create any cognitive dissonance - so nothing will change.
An example of a present tense affirmation is, ‘I enjoy my life
and relationships with other people.’
3. BRIEF
Make your
affirmations one or two sentence statements, not
paragraphs. You don’t want them to be a chore to
read. Make them simple.
4. SPECIFIC
Don’t be
vague in your affirmation. Pinpoint exactly what you
want. Just writing losing weight is vague. Say, ‘I
look and feel fantastic at 80kg.’ If that is your goal
weight.
5. BALANCE
At first you
may want to concentrate on one or two areas for your
affirmations. However, if you want to spend more time
with your family but at the same time want to improve your
chances of a promotion, these two can have a negative effect on
one another. You will eventually use affirmations over
all areas of your life - career, personal and
social.
6. REALISTIC
You need
to write your affirmations so that you can imagine them and
they create excitement and drive. Don’t write them so far
out that you can’t see yourself achieving them. You may
need to write sub-goal affirmations.
For example, say you want to be
earning $150,000 a year in two years’ time. If you know
that this can’t be achieved in your present job, you will need
to set goals towards jobs or other business ideas that will
generate that type of income.
7. CONFIDENTIAL
Don’t
show anyone else. By that I mean, if you start showing
friends and family your affirmations it could lead to criticism
at the slightest slip-up and could be used against you if they
didn’t see any change towards your affirmation. I once
had an affirmation that stated, ‘I am calm and relaxed when I
drive to work.’ One day I abused a fellow driver for a
dangerous manoeuvre and subsequently my wife said, “Well, that
affirmation doesn’t work.” I’m not saying don’t share
your goals with family, friends and so on. However, they
don’t need to see the actual affirmations you have written for
yourself.
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