Key Concepts: Affirmations, Mind Power, Success, Changing Behavior

According to Oregon Health Sciences University (1994), 83.3 percent positively evaluate self-help books.  The public hungers for self-help knowledge. The reason? The masses desire more desirable circumstances in their lives.

Brenda struggles with her weight and doesn’t exercise. Tom wants to give up smoking but can’t kick the habit. Cynthia longs for more clients and success in her small business. Mary’s poor health is complicated by insomnia–she wants to feel better. Even highly successful Rick can’t find the woman of his dreams.

Despite their aspirations, not everyone becomes self actualizers and achieves his or her goals. Some do; others get half-way there and quit. Many lose hope they can even accomplish their objectives.

Most people agree that changing one’s identity, habits, behavior is a Herculean task? Why?

The problematic part began in childhood. During our upbringing, as we responded to our parents or care takers (their actions and attitudes) as well as other experiences, our neurons were actively at work, laying down connections and wiring our brains. Although as adults we may gain skills, knowledge and redefine ourselves, we conform mainly to those patterns set down in childhood.

Desiring transformation, we then find ourselves facing these deeply embedded neural networks. We try to do it differently only to find ourselves returning to old habits. We may become frustrated and lose motivation when all our will power turns out to be weak power.

Shad Helmstetter in his book, What to Say When You Talk to Your Self, asks, “Why are some people, day to day, happier, more productive, more fulfilled than others? What makes the difference?”

Helmstetter goes on to say that over seventy-five percent of everything recorded and stored in our subconscious minds is counterproductive and works against us.  Also the reason motivation seminars and self help books don’t work is because they have overlooked how the brain works.

“We now know that by an incredibly complex physiological mechanism...we become the living result of our own thoughts...Have you ever considered just how much of what you do–how you act, how successful you are–is dependent on the conditioning, programming you received from others and on the conditioning you subsequently bought and kept giving yourself?”
    

Since much of this conditioning is negative, Helmstetter recommends positive self talk or “programming the brain with a more successful ‘new picture’ of yourself....a new, word-for-word set of directions, new programming to the subconscious mind (the control center of the brain).

So there is hope. We can upend these patterns and turn our behavior around, if we override the old through new mental instructions. Affirmations fit that description and definition.

By developing affirmations pertinent to the problem we seek to overcome, and reading them daily, we can record over the old programming.

So get busy writing out your affirmations that will change your self talk and your life.
    
Here’s three you can start out with:

    I choose to be a happy and productive person.
    Everyday I choose to work on myself, my thoughts and my self talk.
    I choose to read (or say) my affirmations daily.

In an upcoming blog learn how to develop affirmations and deal with resistance.

Go to the mirror and look at yourself square in the face.  Do you like that person? Or do you start to criticize or even look away?

If you answer, “I like me.  I’m wonderful,” you have high self esteem. 

If you answer, “You’re okay if would just lose weight (or something similar),” your self esteem needs some shaping up.

If you answer, “I hate me. You’re no good,” you have severely damaged self esteem.  

No matter your status, the good news is that self esteem can improve with a little work.

Look for upcoming articles on how to improve your self esteem.