We are what we repeatedly do. We are also what we repeatedly think. If you think about something 200 times a day, you come to believe it to be true. If you think you are poor, unhealthy, socially unskilled or out of shape and repeatedly tell yourself this, then you come to strongly believe in them, irrespective of whether they are true or not.
The power of positivity is well known, so much so that it has become a large field as Positive Psychology. Nevertheless, most people don’t think enough of what they are good at or have and instead are focused much more on lack of stuff, problems, negativity, shortfalls and inadequacies.
This negativity seems to have been exaggerated by the culture of comparison which has been fuelled by social media. Awareness of an idealistic and exaggerated lifestyle of others consumed through social media can make us feel average at best or a lost cause.
We need to fight back. For this, we can use a powerful technique known as positive affirmations. The aim is to turn something negative into positive and consciously reinforce it in your mind until it becomes a thought habit. Gradually you get to eliminate the negative language altogether.
This exercise is ideal for courses covering emotional intelligence and motivation.
Turn negative thoughts into positive affirmations, empower yourself and eliminate depressing thoughts.
What You Need
- Create a list of negative thoughts you regularly think or state. Record them in your notebook. This may take several days. Include all such thoughts including those you mention about yourself to others in a conversation. Train yourself to catch these negative statements. You are training yourself to boost your self-awareness—a critical part of emotional intelligence. Remember, before you can address any issues, you need to be aware of them.
- Your list may look like this:
- I don’t do enough.
- I hate my job.
- I hate my body.
- I don’t like where I live.
- Nobody loves me.
- I hate living in this country.
- Having compiled the list of negative thoughts, you can now turn them around to something positive. Here are examples of turning the above into positive:
- I am busier than ever before.
- I am creating a great new job.
- I have a beautiful skin and pretty eyes.
- I have an ideal living space.
- I experience love wherever I am.
- I love what this country offers that I know I won’t get anywhere else.
- For more examples of positive affirmations see a useful list provided by e-counseling.
- Don’t worry about the truth of the statements. At first, these statements may sound odd to you. You may think they are not realistic. This is natural. Change takes time. The aim here is to simply create a positive affirmation that you can state over and over again until it becomes second nature and overcomes previous negative thoughts. Gradually, this positive affirmation is all you think of.
- Repeat these positive affirmations every day. It is not enough to do this exercise only once. Think of it as self-advertisement. Much like how savvy marketers advertise, you must be exposed to your positive ads continuously until you believe them. Only then the magic happens.
- Finish stating your positive affirmations by saying, “I deserve the best. I accept who I am.”
Explaining the Exercise: 5 minutes
Activity: 10 minutes
Group Feedback: N/A
After a set period, review your thoughts and see how this exercise has helped you. Share this exercise with others and discuss how it has improved your thinking. This acts as positive affirmation that indeed the technique is working and so you continue using it until positive thoughts automatically pop into your mind whenever you think of something negative.