Introduction:
Individuals may experience various types of challenges in their day-to-day life, especially under heavy workload and pressure. This can cause mental strain, and the development of negative thoughts, which are not ideal for one’s emotional and physical well-being. However, there are some unique ways to tackle this situation, like the use of affirmations in order to harness positive thinking and boost the quality of life. In this article, we will talk more about affirmations and how they can be a positive influence in your life.
What are affirmations?
Affirmations can be defined as a form of short and positive statements that individuals say to themselves within their minds or out loud. The main idea behind affirmations is to tackle negative thoughts which can otherwise create challenges and disrupt your progress. Many believe that if you keep repeating these positive statements and place your belief into them, then you might see effective results very soon. These positive thoughts channelled into words can impact one’s actions and may yield better results. Usually, people use positive affirmations in their day-to-day life to harness positive thinking, however, the nature of these affirmations doesn’t always have to be positive.
Here are some common examples of affirmations that you can use in your daily life:
- “I am proud of my capabilities.”
- “I am strong.”
- “My subordinates value my opinions.”
- “I can tackle this situation.”
- “I can lead my team.”
- “My input is of high quality.”
Even though most of these examples are specific to certain situations, you can understand the actual point behind using affirmations from these sentences.
Does it work?
According to certain studies, uttering positive affirmations can gradually and covertly help your brain to reorganise your thoughts and outlook on various situations in life. It helps by replacing your negative approach with a cheerful and supportive mentality. With this, your ability to believe in yourself and your decisions can improve to new bounds, which can then relay on your work and life. However, such a change doesn’t suddenly appear and its impact becomes evident over time. According to this study, the researchers have found that the participants, who suffer from chronic stress, showed improved results in their problem-solving skills by practising short affirmation exercises. Some experts also recommend using affirmations for treating individuals who have low confidence in themselves, suffer from depression, or any other types of mental health issues. Affirmations can influence everyone differently and you can find out their effectiveness in your case by using them firsthand.
When to use affirmations?
The simple phenomenon behind affirmations is to indulge in positive thinking in order to initiate positive outcomes. Even though there’s no specific way of using affirmations as it depends on the user, learning the right time to use it is the key. Here are some examples of conditions or scenarios in which you can use affirmations to your advantage:
- When you are not confident in your abilities and want to boost your self-esteem
- When you have some challenging tasks laying ahead that you have to complete, for example giving a presentation, taking a driving test, etc.
- When you want to improve your productivity while doing something specific, like working out, finishing homework, and so on
- When you wish to control negative thoughts or elevated emotions like anger, frustration, impatience, etc.
Conclusion:
If you wish to harness positive thinking and cultivate a self-supportive mindset, then using affirmations may be the right answer for you. It can take some time to show results, however, the key here is to trust the process and work towards removing negative energy from the mind.