What to look for when your affirmations for success aren’t working for you…
Doing more of what’s working for you makes sense but saying affirmations for success when they aren’t working doesn’t make sense. But too often, a person will just keep saying them.
Here’s the problem with that. You aren’t feeling it with your heart and there is no amount of forcing that can cause a feeling to be there when it isn’t-not in this case anyway. You can talk yourself into being grateful for something simply by using logic, but when there is trauma in your past or something has registered as painful that causes discomfort when it is remembered, your autonomic nervous system kicks into gear and prepares you for physical danger. That isn’t something you control.
If you are saying affirmations for success as your brain is referencing any associations it makes with past experiences when you have been hurt, you are simply strengthening those neural pathways in your brain. That subconscious fear reaction that will repeat each time you affirm things that your subconscious isn’t on board with.
But there are affirmations for success that will work for you in these situations!
You just have to temper what you say with some clarifying language that “tricks your brain” into getting a little familiar with the thoughts without making it uncomfortable enough to shut down and prepare you to run from danger.
Our older brain, called the reptilian brain, was around in primitive times when there were real, physical threats at every turn. If a caveman’s brain didn’t alert him when there was a threat, he probably wouldn’t be around tomorrow, so the reptilian brain didn’t mess around. It shut down any bodily functions that weren’t necessary for survival so that blood could flow to the limbs, assuring the best chance of survival.
Today, when we are facing the stress of rush hour traffic or financial woes, the same survival mechanism kicks into high gear. When you say positive affirmations that your brain doesn’t believe, it feels threatened and uncomfortable as emotions associated with past experiences are aroused. If you are saying positive affirmations like I have $50,000 in the bank when you know that you can’t pay your mortgage in a few weeks, you subconsciously feel the stress of a fearful situation and your body closes off in protection. But maybe you could get away with something like, “I am feeling grateful because I am working towards the day when I have $50,000 in the bank.” Pay attention to how it feels when you say it. That is the secret.
Everyone is different so what works for one person may not work for someone else. But you can play around with your own qualifiers until you find affirmations for success that make you feel good as they roll off your tongue or go through your mind.
Topic: Affirmations for Success
Hi Terri!
I know I have a fear of being successful. Or more accuarately, I have a fear of too much responsibility, taking on too much for me to handle. My dream is to run a successful business; but I always do things to cause myself not to succeed or have only a little success. If I tell myself “I am grateful because I am working towards the day when I am running a successful business.”, wouldn’t that still cause my hindbrain to go into a fear response due to the responsibility issues? What phrase should I use in this situation?
I’m still buying the lessons you send out each month. I am way behind on studying them, though. There’s just so much to do and so little time to do them. I will get caught up when I can.
Kathy
Hi Kathy,
A lot of times, we don’t absorb some important points just from reading things the first time. I think you may have missed the most important thing that I said about everyone being different so you have to find what works for you, paying attention to how it feels when you say it. You have to play around with adding, subtracting, or substituting words until you hit that “Ahhh” feeling, when it seems just right. And as things change, as life continually does, you just keep adjusting things to that moment.
Also, I want to encourage you to change your thinking about the TFS membership and that you have to study them. The whole purpose of the membership is to provide a simple little technique or training that you apply as you go about your day so you are developing or strengthening skills every month. I continually have new stories of some pretty fascinating things that happen, not because I set aside a bunch of time but because I incorporate simple things into my day as I am doing other things. We think and create all day long so I practice thinking differently and paying more attention to my thoughts as I go about my day so I am consciously creating. And yes I do my best to sit down 5-10 minutes and use my thoughts consciously but who doesn’t waste 5-10 minutes/day talking with friends or co-workers, watching TV and sitting through commercials etc. In general, I don’t need much “extra time” at all in order to see the results I do see.