How to Make Positive Affirmations Work for You

Positive affirmations are a proven method to rewire the brain to focus on new “positive thoughts” when used correctly and consistently. They help us feel empowered and confident in pursuing our goals and dreams and are often the catalyst for long-term success. However, they only work if you believe the affirmations! In this talk, Lisa details how to build an affirmation practice that will work for you and set the stage for confidence, happiness, and growth in your life!

Transcript

Welcome to Love This Bitch,

The podcast that teaches you how to love your life and accomplish your goals through self compassion and self coaching.

Now here's your host,

Lisa,

The life coach.

Hello my loves.

So excited to be with you here today.

I'm having a really fantastic day.

Of course,

It'll be a couple weeks out before you guys hear this,

But update on my partner having COVID.

He is doing much better after,

Gosh,

I don't even know,

It was almost two weeks of fever.

He finally broke the fever and just has been feeling much better and back to normal.

And of course,

Now we're just facing the challenge of the doctors,

The CDC,

Everyone saying that he's not contagious.

And of course,

Him living with a girlfriend who has contamination OCD.

And yes,

Coaching helps because I don't know how I could have done this before I learned to self coach.

But it's definitely like,

Nope,

It's not,

You're not out of the quarantine zone for me yet.

So that's a work in progress,

Finding balance on that.

So that's fantastic news.

And of course,

Also that I have not gotten it,

Even though I was living with someone that had it.

So that's amazing.

And I test again on Monday.

And if I'm still negative,

Then I'm allowed to go back to work and go back into the world.

So that's exciting.

And then also my niece,

She got a phone for Christmas.

And so she's 11.

And that's been fantastic,

Because we've been able to text every day.

And she lives a little over five hours away.

And so I don't get to see her very often.

And it's just been really great to be able to have more of a daily connection with her.

But she messaged me earlier,

And she said to send her some pictures of me because she is wanting to use them in Canva,

Which I had shown her Canva,

And she likes to make stuff in there.

So I grabbed a handful of pictures and sent them to her.

And then she started sending me her Canvas that she made.

And they were just so beautiful and sweet.

She did one that said that I'm the best coach at helping people and that I was beautiful inside and out.

And oh my goodness,

I can't even explain what I felt in my heart.

I've never felt that before in that moment.

I was just so touched and just so happy.

So that definitely is amazing.

I love my niece and nephew to pieces,

And they're just the best.

So I'm glad that the feeling is mutual and she's just too sweet.

But do feel free to take her recommendation and work with me,

Because I'm great at helping people and I'm the best coach.

She's too cute.

So I'm having a fabulous day.

And I wanted to do an episode for you guys about positive affirmations.

I love positive affirmations.

I have affirmations identified that I have used.

I want to start using them again,

Because I do think that that works.

It's just like doing thought work.

You have to practice these positive and new thoughts.

You have to train your brain just like you would train your body in the gym.

We've talked about that before.

Because your default,

Your instincts,

Your lizard brain,

Whatever you want to call it,

It's looking to just survival and keeping you safe.

And so it is focused on the bad things and glossing over the good things.

It just wants to identify threats and avoid them or just make sure no matter what that you don't go there,

You never do that again.

You don't do anything risky or dangerous.

Like that's what it's doing.

So you know,

That's your default.

It's a survival mechanism.

And if you don't train and practice in your new thoughts,

In your different thoughts,

Then that's what you're going to default to.

So we've talked before on some of the other episodes about thought work and the different tools and the processes to it.

And I think positive affirmations are a really good example of like a good way to show you how to do the thought stairs or thought ladder,

Thought pyramid,

However you want to visualize it.

But you know,

As we've talked about before,

If you're at a current thought that's negative,

That's not helping you or serving you and not true for you,

But you try to jump to something like a positive affirmation,

Your brain doesn't really believe that.

So even if you practice it and you know,

Stand in the mirror and do your Wonder Woman poses and say it,

It's not really going to help you.

And it's not really going to stick if you're not believing it.

So that is,

You know,

Part of the thing that I work with people on,

You know,

First we identify those thoughts that are self-limiting or causing us,

You know,

Pain and negative emotions.

And,

You know,

Then we start working on questioning them so that we don't believe they're true,

So that we're not as sold and committed to them.

And then we also work to identify thoughts that we can use to build up to that goal thought,

To build up to that positive affirmation so that we can actually use those affirmations and believe them and get the benefit.

Whereas if we don't believe them,

They're not going to work.

So that is,

You know,

One of the processes that I walk through with my clients,

You know,

I can give you this information and give you worksheets and things like that,

But it can be difficult to really identify those self-limiting beliefs because if you're looking at them with your own mind,

You don't always see them,

Right?

Because you believe them and you're like,

Oh,

I'm not self-limiting.

I'm being realistic.

This is true.

So that's one of the good points of having a coach that is actually working with you and not even through a program or through exercises per se,

But someone who's really interacting with you and your daily issues that you're facing,

The things that are coming up in your life and you take those things to them and they help you look at that and see the blocks,

The things that you don't see where your mind is believing things that are not true and are not serving you and how that's holding you back or causing you pain and anxiety and keeping you from enjoying your life or achieving the goals that you want.

So that's what I do is that very high level dynamic interactive process with my clients to help them dig deep and overcome these thought processes or self-limiting beliefs that are stealing their joy and keeping them from the things they want in life.

So if that's something that you're interested in,

Please drop down in the show notes or just Google me,

Lisa Oglesby,

And set up that free consultation so we can talk about getting started because if you're ready to break free from a mindset that you've been stuck with,

But you're like,

I don't know,

This is how I think,

I don't know what's wrong with it,

I don't see a way to change it,

I've tried everything,

Let's get started.

Let's not let you go another day wanting to change and thinking that you can't,

That there's something wrong with you and you're stuck or broken or that maybe you don't deserve to be happy or to have the things you want.

That's all nonsense.

Let's put a stop to that today.

Let's get started coaching.

But I'll still teach you today absolutely free this little way that I'm going to use with the positive affirmations to teach you how to do the thought stairs so you can practice this on your own.

And if you do run into some blocks,

Some issues with seeing where am I going wrong,

What am I doing here,

How do I get this to stick,

Anything like that,

Please feel free to email me with any questions.

So there's lots of positive affirmations out there.

I love I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.

So again,

If you know that sounds great and it's like,

Yeah,

I believe it,

Yeah,

I can do it.

But if you know situations at one point if they arose in my life,

That would not be my goal,

My go to thought.

I wouldn't be like,

Oh yeah,

I can do this,

I can do anything,

Right?

I would have thoughts like,

This is too hard for me.

I don't even know where to start.

I don't know how to do this.

Maybe I tried a few times,

But it's just not really clicking.

It's just not for me.

And I would quit or give up or not do it or even just think about it and think about it and just never even get started or try.

So if I were to stand in the mirror and say,

I can accomplish anything I set my mind to,

You know,

Even if I did that like with thought work,

If I did it for three or five minutes a day,

It still wouldn't stick because my mind doesn't believe that and it's still going to jump to that thought in the moment,

This is too hard for me.

So if your current thought is something like,

This is too hard for me,

There's something you want to do,

A goal,

You want to learn something new,

Start your own business,

Write your book,

Learn a musical instrument,

Learn a language,

Go back to school.

Date even,

You know,

This might even be your dating life or making new friends.

If you have the current thought,

This is too hard for me,

How do you get to,

I can accomplish anything I set my mind to,

Which is actually true.

You know,

Like we talked about in the massive action episode,

If you set a goal and you just keep going until you get to it,

You're going to get there.

There's no other result if you just keep going,

If you just keep trying things until you figure it out.

So if we want to go from this is too hard for me,

I can't do it,

To I can accomplish anything I set my mind to,

We might start with a more neutral or less negative thought.

So instead of this is too hard for me,

You could try thinking,

I've done hard things before.

And so what you would do is you would practice that thought.

Like I said,

A couple times a day,

I would say at least two,

But probably three to five times a day for two to five minutes,

You would work on that thought.

I've done hard things before and really connect with it.

It is true.

You have done hard things before,

Right?

You can think of some examples of hard things that you've gone through and you made it and you figured it out.

Things you've learned,

Things you've accomplished and really stick with that thought.

And then also the other part besides practicing it when you're not in the moment is remembering it when you're in the moment,

Right?

So when that situation comes up or you start thinking about it or you're faced with something where your brain immediately goes,

This is too hard for me,

That's where we want to have processed the emotion and the thoughts and feelings behind that.

But once you have processed it and you're ready to change the thought,

That's when this part comes in.

That's when you want to say,

Wait,

Is it too hard for me?

That's not true.

I've done hard things before and that's how you start switching to that thought.

And then it starts coming up.

This is too hard for me.

No,

No,

That's not true.

I've done hard things before.

And then that becomes your new default after you've practiced it for a while.

You start believing more that when something happens,

It's like,

Oh,

This is hard,

But I've done hard things before.

And then you can continue,

Right?

Once that is your more of your go-to thought,

Your go-to state of mind,

Then another slightly maybe more positive or less negative thought would be,

I have the brains and the resources to figure this out,

Right?

Practicing that like I'm smart enough and I have,

You know,

Their resources,

There's Google.

We have Google.

We can figure out anything and we can see many of the ways to not do something before we even get started,

Right?

So then that's your new default.

I have the brains and the resources to figure this out.

You do the same thing.

You practice it daily.

You practice it in the moment.

Then you can move on to something like,

I'm capable of handling challenges.

See,

That's definitely a very positive thought to have and to practice.

And then even moving into another thought that's actually going to help your entire mindset,

But in this it's more positive in this particular ladder or stairs.

Learning new things takes time and failure is normal and expected.

That's true,

Right?

So now you're not thinking back down at the bottom,

This is too hard.

It takes time.

There's a struggle when you learn new things and you're going to fail.

It's perfectly normal and that's part of the process.

Start moving towards that thought.

And then add in some self-belief with that,

Right?

The next thought could be,

I'll keep going until I figure this out.

And all those thoughts are building on each other,

Right?

I know I've done hard things before.

I know I'm smart and I know I have the ability to look through the resources that are available to me and figure this out.

I'm capable of handling these challenges.

These things take time.

Failure's normal.

It's expected.

I'm just going to keep going until I figure it out.

And then look where you are.

I can accomplish anything I set my mind to because I'm just going to keep going until I figure it out,

Right?

New things take time.

Failure's normal and expected.

So you're building all these neural pathways to this new thought that's giving it support and belief and true facts behind it to support it so that your brain can believe it.

And then you're at,

I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.

And that's your positive affirmation now because you actually believe it.

And then you still keep practicing it because the more you grow,

I say in a lot of episodes,

New level,

New devil,

There's always going to be a new level of something that's going to trigger that run and hide anxiety response.

But you know that that's perfectly normal.

You felt it before.

It's a human reaction.

It's an instinct.

And you know that you have the tools to look at the thoughts that are creating that and work your way through it.

And it'll just be that much faster because you've done it before.

So this was a short but sweet episode today,

But I just wanted to give you this more concrete example of how to do the thought stairs and move from that current thought that's causing your negative emotions,

Your anxiety,

Or holding you back and move towards a goal thought or a positive affirmation that will serve you,

Help you achieve the goals that you have and help you feel better.

Like if you believe that you can accomplish anything,

You're going to feel better than if you think things are too hard for you and you can't do them.

So that is one of the tools that I use with my clients.

And it's a very popular tool in coaching to help really work on rewiring our brains,

Which I talk about all the time,

Neuroplasticity,

We know that we can do that,

But it is a process and it does take work.

Your brain is not just going to change how it works without effort.

And so this is one of the tools that you can use to do that.

And again,

If that sounds great to you and you want to practice it and run with it,

That's great.

I'd love to hear from you how it's going.

But if you're like,

I don't know what thoughts are causing these problems.

I don't know how to identify new thoughts that I truly believe.

If it sounds like something that would work for you,

But you just don't know how to apply it,

That's what I'm here for.

I would love for you to reach out and us talk more about how,

As your coach,

I can help you apply these tools to your actual daily life and the things that are happening.

And so you can get the benefit so you can feel better,

Learn how to overcome and manage your anxiety and how to believe that you can achieve your goals and have the things that you want.

I hope you enjoyed this episode.

I know that this is a really valuable tool.

So get out there,

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

And we will talk again soon.

Reviews

Very interesting! Thank you!

Thank you! So very helpful - I will start applying these tools immediately