Affirmations, Part 2

DAM Monday January 22, 2001

Building on last weeks DAM Monday, today we’ll focus on an easy way to develop your own personal Affirmations.

For our purposes an Affirmation is any type of self-talk stated in a firm way.

Affirmations can be positive, negative or positively negative.

We all have voices in our head, rattling off repetitive sayings that either build us up or tear us down. Using positive affirmations and replacing the damaging self- talk we choose what messages we will listen and focus on.

Creating affirmations is easy. When we create an affirmation we are basically giving ourselves the gift of power. Power not over others, but power over our life, we move from being just pulled or pushed along to participating in the creation of our own existence. An affirmation is a powerful direct statement designed to move us towards a desired change or result.

The first step is to decide on something you wish to change. It can be anything, a behavior, a characteristic or skill.

Next use an I am sentence to state the goal as if you had already accomplished the desired result. If you are giving up smoking you would say, I am a non smoker.

Finally refine your statement by getting specific and add emotion to the final statement. Use words that bring out feeling and words that mean something to you. For example you may say: I am a great miler. Or a much more feeling affirmation would be; I am a great miler who loves to finish races strong.

Affirmations should be short, sweet and stated in the positive present tense.

Even though affirmations are used to help attain goals they work best when they represent a goal that is not too far off the reality scale.

The first year I swam at SMU there was a swimmer on the team who swam the 200 freestyle, and he was pretty good. He swam just under 1:43.0 out of high school, if I remember correctly. This swimmer had a goal to swim the 200 free under 1:30.00. Needless to say his goal wasn’t very realistic, during the early 80’s no one had been under 1:35.0. So this swimmer decided he was going to drop fourteen seconds off his best time, plus break the American Record by six or seven seconds. Everyone he shared his goal with knew he would never see the result he dreamed of. Deep down he knew it wouldn’t happen. But for an entire season he repeated over and over I am a 1:29.00 200 freestyler. He was the most frustrated swimmer I ever met.

I’m not saying to never press the envelope, the only way to move beyond your current place is to expand your comfort zone by pressing the envelope. If the goal and affirmation aren’t realistic you set yourself up for failure and unending heartache, mostly because you can never succeed. My friend had his lifetime best 200 that season. He cried because it wasn’t anywhere near the 1:29.00 fantasy he had created, to him he had failed as a swimmer.

Once you settle on an affirmation repeat it in the morning and in the evening. Then get in the habit of listening to your own self-talk when you hear the voice sound off in your head contradict the negative limiting chatter with a positive affirmation.

Affirmations aren’t magic, using positive affirmations will not and cannot guarantee success. However if your self-talk is positive, emotional, and in the present you will have a much greater possibility of living the outcome you desire why not give them a go.

See you at the pool.
Bobby