“You become what you think about.” — Earl Nightingale
This list is more than 100+ positive affirmations to choose from to help you change your negative thinking and limiting beliefs.
Affirmations can recondition your mind, the way you might perform repetitive exercise to improve your body.
Self-sabotaging and negative thoughts can dampen your outlook, darken your mood, and hurt your self-confidence.
They can also drag you down into thinking you’re not good enough and create self-fulfilling prophecies where you don’t perform your best.
The good news is you can practice affirmations to dissolve negative thinking patterns.
Your affirmations can become your breakthroughs as you dissolve negative thinking patterns.
What are Affirmations
Here is a simple way to define affirmations:
An affirmation is a positive phrase or sentence that you repeat in your mind, or out loud to change your thinking, feeling, and doing patterns.
Affirmations can serve as inspiration. Affirmations can serve as reminders.
Affirmations can focus attention on your goal or positive change.
Ultimately, an affirmation is an assertion or statement of what you want to be or become real or true.
By repeating the affirmation, you imprint it on your subconscious, and this can help with changing your habits, your behaviors, and your points of view.
Why Use Affirmations
Affirmations can help motivate you and keep your mind focused on your goals, the change you want to make, and the behaviors you want to create (and thoughts are behaviors, too).
Here is a summary of some primary reasons to practice affirmations to achieve your greatness:
- You can practice affirmations to improve your self-esteem and sense of self-worth.
- You can practice affirmations to raise your confidence before important moments or events, or even just day to day.
- You can practice affirmations to inspire yourself and motivate yourself to take action to realize your goals.
- You can practice affirmations to improve controlling negative emotions and feelings such as anger, frustration, and impatience.
- You can practice affirmations to improve your productivity.
- You can practice affirmations to break bad habits and build new ones.
What it comes down to is using affirmations to embrace and enable new thought patterns to dissolve negative thought patterns and create your breakthroughs.
To be the change you want to see in the world, you can use the power of your imagination to get your unconscious and subconscious on your side.
How To Practice Your Affirmations
Focus on one affirmation at a time. Don’t just have a list of affirmations that you can read through.
Your ability to find your breakthrough will depend on how open you are and how well you practice your affirmation.
According to Dandapani, the way to practice an affirmation is to choose concise words, see it in your mind’s eye, and feel it as if it’s true.
The most important part is the feeling part. As Bruce Lee might slap you upside the head and say, “Don’t think! Feeeeeeel.”
Emotion is energy, and you are baking that energy into your nervous system, by repeating and practicing your affirmation.
Dandapani recommends 108 repetitions out of tradition, but you will have to experiment what works for you.
What I do is just start with Dandapni’s recommendation. I gauge how well I’m practicing it by how well I’m “feeling”it, how much it rings true, and how well it resonates in all of me.
Over the years, I found in some cases I had to really temporarily suspend my disbelief, while focusing on the feeling and imagining what it would feel like it the affirmation were true.
I don’t think of this as “fake it till you make it”. I think of this as bridging the gap from my Current Self with my Future Self.
I imagine the feeling from my Future Self perspective.
The Best Affirmation of All Time
And, of course, I am also a fan of the most famous affirmations of all time from Émile Coué:
“Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.”
People have uses Coué’s affirmation to reframe their outlook, improve confidence, change behaviors, and change their mood.
A Powerful Affirmation for Setbacks
A powerful affirmation for setbacks could be:
“I am capable of handling any setback and turning it into a learning opportunity to grow and become stronger.”
Say that until you feel it in your bones and your body, all of you, believes it to be true.
My 5 Favorite Affirmations
These are a few of my favorite growth mindset oriented affirmations:
- I am growing stronger
- I am learning faster
- I am highly capable
- I am resilient in mind and body
- I am compassionate for myself and everyone around me
List of 100+ Positive Affirmations to Achieve Your Greatness
I created this list over the years as a set of reminders and changes I want to work on and as a set of possibilities to explore.
This list is simply meant to spark ideas in you so that you can create your own affirmation for what you might want to work on:
- I accept and love myself.
- I achieve my goals.
- I am.
- I am a force of nature.
- I am a good friend.
- I am adventurous.
- I am ambitious.
- I am at peace.
- I am beautiful.
- I am beautiful inside.
- I am better than I was yesterday.
- I am better than that.
- I am blessed.
- I am bold.
- I am brave.
- I am calm, cool, and collected.
- I am capable.
- I am comfortable with alone time.
- I am comfortable with stillness.
- I am confident.
- I am creative.
- I am curious.
- I am energetic.
- I am enough (or I am more than enough).
- I am excellent at what I do.
- I am fearless.
- I am filled with enthusiasm.
- I am filled with good will.
- I am filled with joy.
- I am flexible.
- I am free spirited.
- I am getting better and better every day, in every way.
- I am glad to be alive.
- I am good enough.
- I am good natured.
- I am grateful.
- I am growing better.
- I am healthy.
- I am in charge of my life.
- I am in charge of my thoughts.
- I am in control.
- I am in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing.
- I am infinite.
- I am inspired.
- I am intelligent.
- I am learning forward.
- I am light hearted.
- I am limitless.
- I am loved.
- I am loving.
- I am mindful.
- I am motivated.
- I am my future self.
- I am open to new ideas.
- I am passionate about life.
- I am powerful.
- I am precious.
- I am present.
- I am productive.
- I am proud of myself.
- I am resilient.
- I am safe.
- I am secure.
- I am skilled.
- I am smart.
- I am smart enough.
- I am strong.
- I am successful.
- I am super charged.
- I am the architect of my life.
- I am the captain of my life.
- I am the change I want to see in the world.
- I am the creator of my life.
- I am the director of my life.
- I am the hero of my own life.
- I am the thinker of my thoughts.
- I am this moment.
- I am thoughtful.
- I am unstoppable.
- I am unstuck.
- I am warm.
- I am worth it.
- I be myself.
- I believe in my dreams.
- I believe in myself.
- I bet on myself.
- I breathe deeply.
- I can and I will.
- I can become anything I dream of.
- I can create the life I want.
- I can do anything I put my mind to.
- I can do it.
- I can figure it out.
- I can get through anything.
- I can handle it.
- I can learn.
- I can let it go.
- I can quiet my mind.
- I can take care of myself.
- I choose better choices.
- I choose better friends.
- I choose how I feel.
- I choose how I respond.
- I choose me.
- I choose to be happy.
- I choose to be positive.
- I deserve the best.
- I do my best.
- I dream big.
- I embrace challenges.
- I embrace the life that’s waiting for me.
- I feel free.
- I feel grateful.
- I feel happy.
- I feel lighter.
- I feel the fear but do it anyway.
- I figure it out.
- I flow with abundance.
- I focus my mind.
- I focus on what I control and let the rest go.
- I forgive and let go.
- I get better with practice.
- I give my all.
- I give my best.
- I give myself permission to be happy.
- I give myself permission to root for myself.
- I grow better.
- I have a positive attitude.
- I have a strong sense of self-worth.
- I have a strong spirit.
- I have everything I need within me.
- I have infinite hope.
- I have self-respect.
- I have the power to create change.
- I keep growing.
- I keep learning.
- I keep my fire going.
- I laugh fully.
- I learn and adapt.
- I learn from mistakes.
- I let go of negativity.
- I let myself be seen.
- I live life on my terms.
- I live like everything is a miracle.
- I live my dreams.
- I live my passion.
- I live my purpose.
- I live my truth.
- I live with zest.
- I look on the bright side.
- I love myself.
- I make it happen.
- I make my dreams come true.
- I practice self-care, self-value, and self-worth.
- I radiate positive energy.
- I radiate warmth.
- I raise my standards.
- I show my inner demons who’s the boss.
- I show up.
- I speak my truth.
- I speak up for myself.
- I stand up for myself.
- I stick up for myself.
- I take care of myself.
- I think better thoughts.
- I thrive.
- I thrive on challenge.
- I try my best.
- I use my voice.
- I wake up creative.
- I wake up motivated.
- I wake up powerful.
- I wake up productive.
- I wake up strong.
- I win my day.
- I win my morning.
When In Doubt Whether Affirmations Work
Whenever you doubt the power of affirmations, just think about all the negative voices or thoughts that have held you back or brought you down in the past.
You gave them power. Maybe not even consciously.
Now is your time to take your power back and consciously choose better, more positive thought patterns.
Remember that the Placebo Effect works. Not only does the Placebo Effect work, and in many cases work very well, according to Harvard Medical, it works even when you know it’s a placebo!
But because you know how to practice affirmations better by choosing concise words, visualizing, and feeling the, you have a big advantage over everybody who is still practicing wrong.
Radiate the Person You Wish to Become
Let me leave you with some powerful words from none other than Earl Nightingale:
“We must be the epitome, the embodiment of success.
We must radiate success before it will come to us.
We must first become mentally, from an attitude standpoint, the people we wish to become.”
— Earl Nightingale
Call to Action
- Choose or create an affirmation that you can to practice.
- Make sure the words are concise, you can visualize what the affirmation is specifically, and you can feel it.
- Repeat the affirmation with feeling and clarity.
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