In the last lesson, you learned a few different gratitude exercises that can be put into place immediately to help reduce your stress level.
In this lesson, we will talk about affirmations and how they differ from gratitude.
While practicing gratitude is about being grateful and appreciative for what you currently have or for what you can give to others, affirmations are more about manifesting what it is that you want out of life.
These positive statements can HELP you to challenge and overcome self-sabotage and negative thoughts. When you repeat them often, you start to believe in them, and THAT can lead you to make positive changes on a SUBCONSCIOUS level.
Affirmations are a REALLY powerful tool that works on your subconscious mind. Remember, it is the subconscious mind that is your internal wiring, essentially controlling who you are and how you perceive the world around you.
Affirmations are to the mind what exercise is to the body. They exercise your mind and reprogram your thinking patterns so that, over time, you begin to think and act, differently.
This helps to mitigate the effects of stress, calm your nerves, and increase your confidence.
What's more, affirmations have even been used to successfully treat people with low self-esteem, depression, and other mental health conditions.
You may think that affirmations are not necessary for you but, even if you had a relatively easy childhood, I am sure that you had experiences that, in some way, dented or dinged you on a subconscious level...you just may not realize it.
Those dents and dings, though small, still have the ability to hold you back from what you may most desire, because the goal of your subconscious mind is to keep you safe. It's not to keep you HAPPY...it's to keep you protected, which is a great thing at its core, but can be a damaging thing in the long run.
If you tend to have similar negative or paralyzing events that occur within your life, and you find yourself saying something similar to "why does this always happen to me?" It is very likely that, in some way, you are navigating your way into those situations...though not on a conscious or intentional level.
It is your subconscious that, for whatever reason, is guiding you into that direction BECAUSE it's trying to protect you, even if it doesn't feel like it.
Affirmations are the key to letting yourself out of these circumstances.
YOUR TASK: Take a few minutes and write down a couple of things that you would like to see happen in your life. Do you want to make more money? Get a promotion? Have more self-confidence?
Write them down because, in the next lesson, you'll learn how to craft those wants into meaningful affirmations, specific to your desires, and start to shift your mindset.
