Goal Oriented Self Affirmations:
The Simplicity In Changing Your Entire Life
How many times have you decided that you wanted to change something in your life, and made a good effort for a day or two, only to wake up one day a week or so later to realize, and dreadfully admit, that you're right back at where you began? Nothing had actually changed. Your new way of living, your new choices, your new outlook, simply fizzled into thin air without ever becoming a long-lasting reality.
Think of your diet, for example. You want to make some changes. You set up a plan to stop ordering 'take-out' every night and start making food at home with ingredients you know are better for you and your family. And then you tell yourself you're going to stick with it.
You make a conscious decision and effort to make this change.
And for awhile, you do make the changes.
But a week later, maybe a month, you're already done. You're living on take-out again.
And you don't even really understand how you've arrived back at square one.
Your conscious decision to make a permanent change has become a temporary one. With good intentions, but unfortunately, a bit too shallow to stick.
And then you begin again, only to falter yet again.
And the worst part of it all?
This type of cycling can go on and on...in fact, it can go on for an entire lifetime, if you let it.
How does this happen?
You see....
It's your subconscious mind, NOT your conscious mind, where the changes need to be made.
It's the story behind the curtain of your actual awareness. It's the written narrative that has laid the foundation for how you're living life right now that is actually controlling what you do and achieve on a daily basis, in the next month, year, and in your entire life.
Playing out the future you thought you were completely controlling with the thoughts you believed you were generating by you and you alone.
The craziest part, I think, is that many times (perhaps even most times?) we aren't the ones who actually wrote these stories (plural because we have many, 'storeis' after all). At least not completely. A parent, teacher, sibling, and even friend could have written our stories for us, or perhaps even....all of the above.
(And they could have had nothing but good and pure intentions for us.)
Labels. Stories. They're all the same.
We label ourselves and each other.
Some good and some bad.
And sometimes, these labels stick so well, they become how we live our life.
We accept these stories as part of who we are.
We believe them to be permanent.
And then we act on them for the rest of our lives until we realize that something needs to change. At least for the 'bad' labels.
And if we're smart, we do the research and figure how to actually change them.
So how do we change these cycles? These ground-hog day scenarios? These seemingly never-ending hamster wheels of unwanted behavior?
We re-write our subconscious stories.
And we do it on a daily basis in the form of goal oriented self affirmations.
(NOTE: Goal oriented - not simply statements of 'I am'. For example: "I am going to make the time today and every day to take care of my body by making myself fresh and nourishing foods. Feeling and looking healthy is important to me.")
What if writing the steps we want to take, saying them out loud, or thinking them continuously in our minds for a set period of time, every single day was the ONE and ONLY THING we needed to make actual changes in our lives? What if just by doing this ONE AND ONLY THING every day, the rest would simply fall into place?
I know. I know.
People have written entire books on these things.
Nothing new here.
Plus, it seems too good to be true. So why even bother trying, right?
But hear me out.
I ask you today:
Do you have things in your life that you'd like to change?
Do you ever find yourself in a Groundhog Day scenario?
Have you written and do you repeat on a daily basis self-affirmations, or steps and goals, of the things you wish to see in your life, permanently?
Have you ever read some simple studies or scientific papers on the matter that might convince you to actually try it all out?
Might be a good place to start.
And then.... maybe...just maybe..you'll want to... start experimenting.
What have you got to lose?
🤍🤍🤍🤍 🤍🤍🤍
STUDIES & RESOURCES:
(The studies below are nowhere near an exhaustive list. Always continue your own research and read the papers within each paper below)
1) Self-Affirmation Alters The Brain’s Response To Health Messages and Subsequent Behavior Change
3) Neural Mechanisms Of Self-Affirmation’s Stress Buffering Effects
(Be sure to also read the studies within these studies.)
🤍🤍🤍🤍 🤍🤍🤍
