Have you ever had affirmations fail to work, or even bring you the opposite of what you wanted? I have, and so have plenty of others. By going back and looking at the affirmations objectively, it can be really clear why they have not worked, and once you recognize where things have gone wrong you can fix them.
Let me give you a little background on a particular affirmation that I was using throughout 2013 and early 2014 to put this in perspective for you. It was a short and sweet one that I’d written to help me become better at following through with commitments and promises to myself.
I am disciplined.
This affirmation was part of each day for me. I would say it to myself on the way to work, at the time it was even my password on my work computer. Every day, I am disciplined, I am disciplined, I am disciplined.
So what sort of results do you think I created with this?
If you’re thinking I got my shit together and was a well-organized, goal achieving machine then you’d be totally wrong.
What I received, particularly in the workplace, was exactly what I asked for.
I was disciplined.
Continually…
Disciplined to the point where I felt no matter what I did it wouldn’t be right anyway and I would be in trouble for something regardless of what I did. My job just felt like an endless experience of being controlled to the point where I was suffocating. I’d drag my butt in each day expecting to be shit-picked and lectured whether what I did was perfect or terrible.
I am disciplined.
Yep, I sure was!
Now looking back I can see clear as day why this was never going to work. Just a small tweak of this affirmation would have given me the results I was after. Just adding one word would have made all the difference.
I am self-disciplined.
Small change, humungous difference!!!
Laughing now because I just used the word humungous, don’t even know if it’s spelt correctly. But, I remember being ‘disciplined’ in year two at primary school for using that word as it apparently doesn’t exist!!!
Back to my epic affirmations fail.
The reason I am sharing the experience of having my affirmations fail is to show you the importance of wording your affirmations carefully and deliberately. Even after years of writing and using affirmations in my own life, I was truly a little dumbfounded when I realized what a basic and obvious mistake I’d made.
Me… the person who usually takes so much care in crafting affirmations.
How had this happened??
One of the biggest lessons I have learned from this is to think about what a word really means to me if I take it out of the context of the affirmation.
Using the example above, I would look at what the word ‘discipline’ actually means to me in isolation from the affirmation. So when I stop and do this I come up with:
- Getting in trouble
- Being controlled
- Being told what to do
- Having to do things that I don’t want to
- Being yelled at or spoken to harshly
- Being criticized and judged
Now, these may not be things that the word discipline means to you, but they are what I conjure up in my mind when I hear or see the word.
As you can see, they are nothing like the qualities of being ‘self-disciplined’ which I was hoping to be.
Our words have so much power, whether we believe it or not. Unless you want to experience having your affirmations fail like I did, taking the time to word them in support of your outcomes is critical. Affirmations are such a powerful tool when used correctly and should be part of everyone’s manifesting toolkit. If anyone would like a second opinion on affirmations they have written, let me know in the comments below or join our Facebook Group ‘Olive Lantern’ and I’d be happy to help.
