Positive Affirmations or No Such Luck?

As I do at the end of every quarter, I start using positive affirmations to help get through the enormous work load and survive the high level of stress. Some people don’t believe affirmations work. In fact no study has shown conclusively that they work. All I know is that they work for me. You can use affirmations to boast your self confidence or you can use them to help you reach your goals, or both.

Everyone is unique so what affirmation works best you is an individual thing. I believe it should be personal and not necessarily shared with the world. For me, sharing it dilutes the power and meaning by inviting criticism. What works for me will not resonate for someone else and therefore be ineffective. For this reason I won’t share with you my affirmations but just know they are positive and help me to visualize achieving my goals.

People use affirmations all the time, even if they don’t know it. How many times have you given yourself a pep talk before giving a big speech, or during the last mile of your run or even at home finishing up some chore or task you don’t like, but feel better once it is done? You are re-affirming your commitment to finish. Athletes use positive affirmations along with visualization as part of their training. It can be a powerful tool to achieving your goals.

My niece was performing in a play last weekend and experienced stage fright for the first time. Rather than focusing on what could go wrong, I explained that if she thought about how she was going to do well, she would most likely do just what she thought. She didn’t get it at first, but then the light bulb lit up and she happy to know she had more control over what she thinks and feels than she realized. It is an emotional intelligence skill that will help her throughout her life.

So in the last week of class, building up to final exams and final presentations I am staying focused on my successes and concentrating on taking the next step toward the end of the year and graduation. Here is a link to Success Consciousness. It is a web site that provides more detail about positive affirmations, visualization and stress relief: www.successconsciousness.com I wish you success.