Be Your Own Life Coach - #13 Formulating Positive Affirmations

It's hard to believe how the time flies, but about four months ago now I wrote a piece here about "Positive Affirmations", how to write your own and how you can use them to balance your thinking or even shift it from a negative bias, where you're focused on the negative, to a more positive frame of mind. And how we feel is determined by how we are thinking.

In that article I advised on making up your own positive affirmations. But, if you are not used to thinking positively, you may find it difficult to come up with positive statements yourself. You might feel some resistance to this change. Sometimes it is like pushing a car... hard to get it moving, but once you do, it is easy enough to keep rolling. Sometimes if you are stuck in a negative state and have become used to that, it might feel very uncomfortable to be suddenly making positive statements about life, especially if your life isn't already changing for the better just yet.

If you have experienced this discomfort, don't worry. It is a natural phenomenon that psychologists call "Cognitive Dissonance". Dissonance means disharmony or, in this case, internal discomfort due to conflict. We feel this psychological discomfort when we try to hold two opposing beliefs or views at the same time. So, if a big part of your mind is holding on to negativity and you are trying to force in positivity, at least for a while, there is going to be a feeling of almost confusion and more comfort with the familiar than the new.

So, in this article I am going to give you some good and popular positive affirmations to repeat to yourself regularly. With these, you can begin to rebalance your thinking and move yourself into a more positive outlook. And if you are finding that they feel uncomfortable to you, I am going to show you a technique of rephrasing them to bypass that resistance and also activate your own brain into being more positive.

So, here are five good positive affirmations:

Every morning I wake up with thoughts and feelings that are exciting and positive.

Everyone can see the joy and love I have for life.

My life is full of magic and serendipity.

I am enthusiastic about every second of my day.

I can see the beauty in everything.

If you think that you can only remember one, the most famous positive affirmation is this: "Every day in every way, I am getting better and better"

If those affirmations seem to grate on you or feel uncomfortable, you can rephrase them as questions. Our mind reacts differently to questions and statements. Questions trigger off activity in our mind. So in these cases you may say something like:

When will I start to wake up every morning with thoughts and feeling that are exciting and positive?

How can I show everyone the joy and love I have for life?

In what ways will I start to notice the magic and serendipity in my life?

Can I be enthusiastic about every second of my day?

What will I do to I see the beauty in everything?

Or, "Can I get better and better in every way, every day?"