6. How to make affirmations work for you

Have you tried out affirmations and been disappointed by the results you got?

I definitely have. That was 15 years ago when I started my self-development journey. In the meantime, I've learned a thing or two about affirmations. And I'm sharing my knowledge in today's episode.

I teach you how to phrase your affirmations for maximum benefit and give you some tips about how to put them into action. Stay until the end of today's episode because I share the most powerful tip at the end. This change turned my affirmations game from meh to yeah. You don't want to miss that one.

Transcript

Nadja Hagen [00:00:14]:
Are you ready to go from am I good enough to is this good for me? Welcome to the Self Love Sessions podcast. I'm your hostess, Nat Yahen, and I'm the self love coach for ambitious women recovering from people pleasing and starting to love the heck out of themselves. The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. It sets the tone for all other relationships in your life and your overall quality of life. It's worth cultivating. In the Self Love Sessions podcast, I share nuggets of wisdom on setting healthy boundaries, prioritizing your needs without shame and guilt, and building relationships that enrich your holding life, starting with the one you have with yourself. Let's dive into today's episode. Welcome to the 6th episode of the Self Love Sessions podcast.

Nadja Hagen [00:01:16]:
In today's episode, I want to talk about affirmations. I'm pretty sure you have tried them out as well as so many other people did, with mixed results. When I started my self development journey about 15 years ago, Affirmations were one of the first tools that crossed my path and I instantly tried them out. I was so excited because affirmations seemed to be so easy to use and so practical and so individual. It felt as if I could squeeze in personal oneonone coaching in just one sentence, and that felt amazing. But to be honest, the results were not that amazing. Actually not amazing at all. They were very mixed.

Nadja Hagen [00:02:03]:
I had success with some affirmations, but with the majority of affirmations, I hadn't seen any success at all. And I know I am not the only one. I'm not alone with this, and I've learned throughout the years and with working with hundreds of clients that affirmations can be one of the most powerful tools if used correctly. But they can also be one of the main sources of discouragement and lead to the question of asking yourself if it's you. I can answer this straight away. It's not you. It's the way you use affirmations. And in today's episode, I share with you all my knowledge, tips, and tricks on how to create affirmations and how to put them to use in a practical way.

Nadja Hagen [00:02:53]:
So the first part of this episode is dedicated to learning how to create your own affirmations correctly. I'd love to call this a mini workshop, a mini mini mini workshop, but still a workshop. So you will walk away with a ton of practical knowledge that you can apply directly to your own life and your own work with affirmations. And the second part of this episode will be about how to use the affirmations in a practical sense, so that they have a huge effort for you and the goal you want to achieve. So let's start by having a look why affirmations are such a great tool. The first thing is you can create them and customize them totally on your own. This is absolutely amazing because you don't need guidance on a regular basis. When you work with other tools, like hypnosis as an example, you normally need somebody who helps you with that.

Nadja Hagen [00:03:50]:
That's not the case with affirmations. You can do this totally on your own. The next good thing about affirmations is that they are super simple and you can use them anytime, anywhere, without anybody noticing anything at all. And that is magical. You can use them while you're working. You can use them even while you're sitting on the toilet. It's a very broad variety of possibilities where you can apply affirmations. The next thing is that they help.

Nadja Hagen [00:04:22]:
When done correctly, they help you reprogram your mind and work with your subconscious. So that means that they have a very broad field where they can support you and help you. They are amazing for mindset work, but they are also truly amazing for healing work. Especially when you do healing work in the area of self worth, self belief and self love. Then they can be so mighty, mighty powerful. So I sang a huge praise about affirmations. I guess it's time to dive into how to use them correctly. Sounds interesting.

Nadja Hagen [00:05:05]:
Awesome. Let's start. So the first important thing when you create an affirmation is make it personal. What do I mean by this? I will give you a lot of practical examples and guiding you through the steps of creating your tailored and perfect fit affirmation. So instead of creating an affirmation of abundance is everywhere, make it personal by writing, I am abundant. The reason we do this is the way our brain works. Our brain differentiates between something that is general, like abundance is everywhere. There is an abundance of leaves on the tree.

Nadja Hagen [00:05:51]:
There is an abundance of sand grains on the beach. There is an abundance of big and little birds living on this earth. There is so much proof of general abundance. And if I'm looking at the affirmation, abundance is everywhere, I will see this. But that doesn't change my personal reality. And this is exactly what I want to do when I use an affirmation. I want to change my reality. If I look at the affirmation, I am abundant, then my brain instantly looks for proof that it's me.

Nadja Hagen [00:06:31]:
I am the one who is abundant. Makes sense. Fabulous. Then let's move on to the next point. Make your affirmations positive. Let me give you another example. Instead of I am a nonsmoker, use I quit smoking or I am smoke free. Why? Again, the reason lies in the way our brain works.

Nadja Hagen [00:07:02]:
Our brain does not understand negatives. Instead of hearing I am a nonsmoker, our brain understands I am a smoker. And that's exactly what we do not want. You see, what we want is to be free of smoking. So the best way, if possible, is to not mention smoking at all. I can give you another example of this, and it's an example that you maybe have already heard. If I ask you to not think about a pink elephant, what image do you have in your mind? Exactly. You're thinking about a pink elephant.

Nadja Hagen [00:07:44]:
You can try to turn it blue in your mind, but it's still an elephant existing there. And I'm sure in 99.9% it's pink, at least at the starting point. That's the way our brain works. Our brain instantly translates words into imagery. So if I read the affirmation, I'm a nonsmoker, I instantly have the image of smoking in my mind. That's the reason why we need to rephrase this. It's a little bit tricky with smoking, but when we switch this to depth, a lot of people use the affirmation, I want to be debt free. Again, we have the word debt in this affirmation, and we will instantly be drawn towards debt in our mind.

Nadja Hagen [00:08:36]:
Instead of saying, I am debt free, I can use an affirmation like this one. I am having a savings account. I am regularly saving. I have financial reserves. I am easily able to pay all my bills. These are just examples that can still be fine tuned. But here it is about the point to use the imagery that correlates with your desired result. Let's move to the next point.

Nadja Hagen [00:09:10]:
When you create an affirmation, use the present tense as if it is already your reality. So instead of saying, I'm becoming rich, you say, I am rich, because you already are. And this, again, has to do with the way your brain is processing information. If I'm becoming something, becoming always lies in the future, and this instantly makes it the carrot that you're running after. You will never, ever be able to reach this state, and that's not what we want. Use the present tense and make it a defined expression. Let's move on to the next thing. Be short.

Nadja Hagen [00:09:58]:
When you're creating an affirmation that is very long, your brain starts to analyze and deeply think about it instantly. You just can't stop this brain behavior. That's just not possible because that's the way our brain is designed to be. But if you have a very short and precise statement, your brain can instantly create the imagery. And the moment the imagery appears on your inner mind, that's the exact moment that you feel the emotions that come with that imagery. And this is where the magic happens. Emotions are created, your vibration is changing, you are feeling differently, and this creates a virtuous cycle. That's exactly what we want.

Nadja Hagen [00:10:44]:
I don't have that many points left on my list that I want to share with you, but the next one is keep it simple. So let yourself be guided by the kiss methodology. Keep it simple and stupid. But instead of stupid, let's change this to precise. So when you create an affirmation, make it short and make it precise. By precise, I mean when I come back to the example of I am rich, when I create this affirmation, what does it mean for me to be rich? Do I already have this defined internally? Because the affirmation I am rich is very short, but is it precise enough? What imagery is created in your inner mind? When you say and read the affirmation I am rich, I can make it more precise by adding, I am rich in money, I am rich in good friends, I am rich in health. That makes it much more precise. Do you feel the difference? And now I want to share the last point on the how to create an affirmation correctly.

Nadja Hagen [00:11:57]:
List. Stick to one or two or a maximum of three affirmations that you use at the same time. If you use too many, you can't repeat them as often as would be helpful and needed for them to work properly. And it can also create some confusion in your mind, because when you try to change things, for most of us, change is hard and it doesn't come naturally. So the first moments we try to create this change, we need to do this intentionally and to remind us and guide us back to our desired outcome over and over again. And this is much easier achieved when you are working with only one or maybe two affirmations instead of five or ten. And I mean, who can remember ten affirmations on a daily basis with a busy schedule? To be honest, I can't. If you can, congratulations.

Nadja Hagen [00:12:53]:
But I think the majority of us is better advice to keep it simple. So it's time to move on to the second part of today's episode. In the first part, you have learned how to create your affirmation correctly so that they have a maximum benefit for your desired outcome. In the second part, I share with you how you can work with your affirmations. So the first thing here is that the more often you repeat them, the more power they gain and the better they work in your favor. So I advise you to create what I call a goal card, where you write down your affirmation and you place these cards. You can also just use postits if that's easier. It doesn't make a difference.

Nadja Hagen [00:13:42]:
You don't have to create a beautiful goal card. You can use a simple postcard for this, and you write your affirmation on your posted and you post this posted where you see it regularly. To share one of my best working affirmations. It was actually not an affirmation. It was 20 years ago when I was studying for my law exam and I needed to remember a specific expression in Latin. I've never had any touches with Latin so far, so this was quite a challenge. And this word was so difficult for me. Whatever I've done, I couldn't remember it properly.

Nadja Hagen [00:14:22]:
So I created a postit and I wrote it down and I put this postit in front of my toilet seat. So whenever I went to pee, I had this expression in Latin directly in front of my eyes. And you know what? I can remember it till this day. It was invitatsio at offerendum. Sounds awesome. Yeah, I'm so proud. So this shit really works. You can do the same with your affirmations.

Nadja Hagen [00:14:54]:
Put it in front of your toilet seat, put it on your bathroom mirror. Put it on the mirror that's beneath your entrance door. So when you enter your home or you leave your home, that you view it over and over again. Maybe you put it. That's a place I still really like on the door of my fridge. Do you know how many times a day you open your fridge? Seriously, it's a good place. Another thing that is highly efficiently and effectively when working with affirmations is when you write them down and you put them on your bedside table and you read them directly before you go to bed to sleep. And you also read them first thing in the morning when you're still in the process of waking up.

Nadja Hagen [00:15:43]:
These are the moments during our day where our brain is in between different conditions. So we are not fully awake still, but we aren't asleep yet. And this is the exact place where our subconscious is wide open. And that's the reason why these are so good moments. To use a powerful affirmation. Other things you can do, you can create a wallpaper for your mobile phone and you can write down your affirmation there. So every time you look at your mobile, you repeat your affirmation. There are also specific apps that help you with affirmations work.

Nadja Hagen [00:16:25]:
Do your search in the App Store or on Google. You will find a huge variety of apps supporting you here. In these apps, you can type down your affirmation and you can tell this app when you want to receive a notification. So if you get a notification every single hour, your affirmation pops up every single hour and you read it over and over again during the course of your day. How easy and how cool is that? So these were all valuable and good tips for affirmations, but my most potent one is still to come. What I have experienced when working with affirmations and something I have observed over and over again with clients is that an affirmation is created that has a huge desired outcome or goal in it. So as an example, when I have a challenging relationship with myself and my self love journey has been a bumpy road so far and I want to really learn to love myself fully and completely, but there are still so many things that I don't like about myself or that I still hate about myself, and I create an affirmation, I love myself. This is my desired outcome.

Nadja Hagen [00:17:50]:
It's a good affirmation, but my brain will instantly reject it because this is not true. At least not yet. Not at this point of time. It might become true, and hopefully it does. But right now it is just untrue. If I don't love myself and I'm working with an affirmation I love myself, I can repeat this over and over again and subconsciously my brain will reject this over and over again because it instantly says this is not true. So away with this. I have so much information I need to filter.

Nadja Hagen [00:18:27]:
This information is bullshit. It's not true. Move it away out of my sight, out of my feelings word. But when instead of using the affirmation I love myself, I'm changing this and allowing myself to be a learning progress, to be learning and evolving over time. How does it feel if you use I'm loving myself more and more every single day, or I'm loving myself more and more? Another version, I learn to love myself more from day to day. How does this feel? Because if you are on your journey to learn to love yourself fully and completely, this is a perfect match because it has your end goal to love yourself fully and completely wrapped in it. But it's phrased in a way that your brain says yeah, okay, that's true. I am actually learning to love myself more and more.

Nadja Hagen [00:19:35]:
This has really been the most important game changer for me and my clients to make affirmations work. I would love to learn more about your experience when it comes to working with affirmations. What has been your biggest struggle and what has worked well for you so far? I would love you to shoot me a note and let me know if you'd like to get in touch with me. Visit my digital home. It's nadyahegan.com. You will be able to shoot me a message on the contact page and I would love to hear more from you. I deeply hope that today's lesson taught you a lot about affirmations and is a game changer for your affirmations work as it was for mine and for my clients. I wish you so much fun with creating your own affirmations and putting them into work and of course, getting the results.

Nadja Hagen [00:20:31]:
Thank you for tuning in in today's episode and I talk to you in the next episode. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you found this valuable, please give a five star rating and tell other women that this show is worth listening to. I talk to you in the next episode.