Daily Affirmations
Affirmations are so simple, yet sooooo powerful.
I began saying daily affirmations after I watched The Help for the first time, and fell in love with the scene that quoted “You is smart. You is kind. You is important.”
I first started to repeat it to myself as a little joke in high school, but as I grew older and thought more deeply about the power those words held, I said it more to affirm myself. This small, simple line from a movie inspired me to dig deeper into the concept of daily affirmations.
Daily affirmations have two sides to them, both stemming from their actual definitions.
1) An affirmation is emotional support or encouragement.
I’ve always been a firm believer that we shouldn’t rely on other people’s encouragement or affirmations to determine our own value or worth. Sure, encouraging words from others can definitely give you a nice boost and make you feel a little more confident, but the root of your self-worth should be intrinsic.
Providing yourself with emotional support and encouragement is so fruitful. By saying daily affirmations to yourself, you slowly develop a stronger sense of self-worth, while also diminishing the power of other’s words to negatively impact you.
2) The act of affirming is to state something as a fact; assert strongly and publicly.
It’s not enough to just mumble your daily affirmation once and move on. Dig deep, and say it with your chest!
When you affirm something, you say it with confidence, pride, and a matter-of-fact attitude. If you’re going to tell yourself you’re beautiful every day, don’t just mumble it to yourself when you’re half asleep after pressing ‘snooze’ on your alarm. Stand up, wash your face, look yourself in the eyes through your mirror, and confidently and assertively say, “I AM BEAUTIFUL.” Mean it and you will believe it!
According to an article on The Chopra Center, some of the key benefits of positive, daily affirmations include;
With all of these benefits I’m sure you’re excited about daily affirmations, but might be a bit confused about how to develop your own set of affirmations. It’s easy, actually, and there are two ways you can go about it.
If you’re intimidated by the idea of developing your own affirmations, you’re in luck! There are so many resources that will provide the affirmations for you. There are apps, self-help books, motivational calendars and even podcasts that all provide you with daily affirmations.
One of my favorite affirmation books is a special series called 100 Positive Affirmations For… The author, Candice MacAulay-Hawes, created a series of positive affirmation books that are specifically tailored to your zodiac sign. She combines self-help with astrology in a masterful way!
As a proud Taurus, I, of course, had to help myself to 100 Positive Affirmations for Taurus. I’m not heavy into astrology (I only know the bare minimum plus a little extra fluff), but I have found that the affirmations in this book are completely relatable and relevant to myself.
Rather than going through the book page by page in chronological order, each day I pick a random number and go to that affirmation. Surprisingly enough, the “randomized” affirmations are scarily accurate.
Like today, I was working from home with my boyfriend who was super sleepy, so he kept getting off track from his tasks. This isn’t typical for him because he’s usually super focused, and one of the most focused people I know. So, I chose 29 as my number of the day and this was my affirmation:
“At work and at play, I can provide a reality check to others who go off track.”
I mean, CRAZY ACCURATE, RIGHT?! Yeah, so this isn’t a sponsored ad or anything, but if you need a little help with your affirmations, I highly recommend getting Affirmicious’ 100 Positive Affirmations For *Insert Your Zodiac Sign Here*.
Your other option is to create them yourself. Make a list of all the things that are true about yourself or that you love about yourself. Once you’ve got your list, sprinkle in a few things that you might struggle to love about yourself. Then use that list to develop affirmations for yourself.
For example, your list of things you love could look like:
Hair
Intelligence
Style
Compassion for others
Curves
Then, when you add the things you struggle to love about yourself to the list, it’ll look something like this:
Hair
Intelligence
My loud laugh*
Style
Compassion for others
My short attention span*
Curves
After you’ve completed your list, you’ll turn it into a list of affirmations, emphasizing the things you love, and taking a positive spin in those you don’t love so much, like this:
I have GREAT hair!
I am an INTELLIGENT woman!
My sense of humor is FANTASTIC!
My style game is OFF THE CHARTS!
I have such a COMPASSIONATE heart!
My active mind FUELS my most creative ideas!
My body is BANGIN’!
BOOM!
Just like that, you’ve got your set of daily affirmations. If you don’t think you could memorize all of those at first, jot them down as a note in your phone, write them in the front page of your planner, or write each one on a sticky note and place them on your mirror so it’s something you see every time you look at yourself. After a few weeks of affirming yourself, you probably won’t even need the paper because you’ll have memorized them!