LIFE S.A.V.E.R.S.
A Is for Affirmations
“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. Once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”
—Muhammad Ali
“You will be a failure until you impress the subconscious with the conviction you are a success. This is done by making an affirmation, which clicks.”
—Florence Scovel Shinn
I am the greatest!” Muhammad Ali affirmed these words over and over again—and then he became them. What we repeatedly tell or affirm to ourselves becomes our internal reality and impacts our ability to affect our external reality. Thus, affirmations are one of the most effective tools to articulate the person you need to be to achieve everything you want in your life, and then become that person.
Every one of us has an internal dialogue that runs almost nonstop through our minds. The problem is that most of what we think is unconscious, meaning we don’t actively and intentionally choose our internal dialogue. As a result, we allow our past experiences and limitations to replay in our heads. Doing this reaffirms and perpetuates our limiting beliefs in ourselves and the world around us. Although this is a “normal” thing that we all do, it can be one of the most detrimental factors holding us back from fulfilling our potential. As Henry Ford famously said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
How’s Your Mental Programming?
We’ve all been programmed—at the subconscious level—to think, believe, and behave the way we do. Our programming is a result of many influences, including what we have been told by others, what we have told ourselves, and all our life experiences—both good and bad. Some of us have programming that makes it relatively easy for us to be happy and successful, while others—possibly the majority—have programming that can make life more difficult than it needs to be.
The bad news is that if you don’t consciously design and choose your inner dialogue, you can easily fall victim to repeating and reliving the fears, insecurities, and limitations of your past. When we constantly focus on what we’re doing wrong and where we’re falling short, we can cause ourselves to feel guilty, inadequate, and undeserving of the success we really want.
The good news is that our programming can be changed or improved at any time. We can immediately begin to reprogram our minds to overcome all our fears, insecurities, and past limitations so that we can become as successful as we choose to be, in any area of our lives. I’m going to walk you through a simple but powerful step-by-step formula to create written affirmations designed to produce meaningful results (not just make you feel better). You’ll be able to identify, articulate, and affirm what you’re committed to accomplishing and experiencing in your life, why it’s a must for you, and which specific actions you’re going to take to accomplish it. With enough repetition, your subconscious mind will begin to believe what you tell it, act upon it, and eventually, create your intentionally chosen reality.
It is imperative that you draft your affirmations in writing—either on paper or digitally. This way, you can carefully craft them using precise language so that they are authentic and tailored to you. Everyone’s desired outcomes are different, as are the self-imposed limitations that are getting in the way, so it only makes sense that the language you choose should resonate with you. Another benefit of writing them down is that you can recite them every day. It’s through this repetition that your mind begins to accept the possibility of a new reality for you. It’s the constant repetition of an affirmation that spurs the action necessary to make real change in your life.
Why the Old Way of Doing Affirmations Doesn’t Work
We can clearly see that affirmations, when done correctly, have proven to be highly effective at transforming our thoughts and behaviors. But affirmations have also gotten a bad rap. They’re often viewed as ineffective, at best, or totally cheesy, at worst. For decades, countless well-meaning self-help experts and gurus have taught affirmations in ways that are ineffective and unintentionally set people up for failure. Many people have tried them only to be disappointed.
When I was younger, I was among the crowd who considered affirmations to be both cheesy and ineffective. I thought they were a lot of feel-good statements that had zero grounding in reality and that just deluded people into feeling better in the moment. Those of us who are results oriented and, you know, sane, didn’t bother repeating feel-good statements just to mask our insecurities. I had no confidence that they would produce results.
My first real-life exposure to the power of affirmations came when I was living with one of my closest and most successful friends, Matt Recore. Nearly every day, I would hear Matt shouting from the shower in his bedroom. Thinking he was yelling for me, I would approach his bedroom door only to find that he was shouting things like, “I am in control of my destiny! I deserve to be a success! I am committed to doing everything I must do today to reach my goals and create the life of my dreams!” What a weirdo, I thought.
The only previous exposure I had to affirmations was through a popular 1990s spoof on the hit TV show Saturday Night Live in which Al Franken’s character Stuart Smalley hosted a fictitious show called Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley. He began each episode by staring into a mirror and repeating to himself, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” The bit was funny, but it also made me believe that affirmations weren’t to be taken seriously.
Fortunately for Matt, he knew better. As a longtime student of Tony Robbins, Matt had been using affirmations and incantations for years to carefully program his subconscious mind and create extraordinary levels of success. As a self-made millionaire who owned five homes (all by age 25), Matt clearly knew what he was doing. Had I been paying closer attention, I might have made the connection between Matt’s yelling in the shower and his success. After all, I was the one renting a room in his house. Unfortunately, it took me a few more years to realize that affirmations were one of the most powerful tools for personal transformation.
As I began studying personal development, I was reintroduced to affirmations as a legitimate tool for transformation. The promise was that affirmations could change my life by repeating them until I believed them. For someone who grew up believing I was lazy (because I was), that sounded right up my alley. I don’t have to do anything, I thought. I was all in.
Until I wasn’t. It didn’t take long for me to hit the same brick wall with my affirmations that most people come up against. Nothing happened when I used the format that was commonly taught by pioneers in the self-help field. That great life I kept talking about didn’t appear. Using “I am” statements to affirm I was something that I wasn’t felt inauthentic.
Then, one day, I had an epiphany. I realized that the flaw wasn’t in affirmations themselves. They had simply been misunderstood, mistaught, and misused. I eventually narrowed the flaws down to two that were significant, which enabled me to completely change my approach and design affirmations that were practical, actionable, and consistently produced tangible, measurable results.
In the following pages, I’ll give you a step-by-step formula to create your own Miracle Morning results-oriented affirmations that are rooted in truth and strategically designed to reprogram your subconscious mind and help direct your conscious behavior. Before we get to that, let’s take a minute to explore these two flaws and the problems that they cause.
Flaw 1: Lying to Yourself Doesn’t Work
“I am a millionaire.” Are you? “I have 7 percent body fat.” Do you? “I have achieved all of my goals this year.” Have you?
Wording your affirmations as if you’ve already achieved, overcome, or become something that you haven’t (yet) may be the single biggest reason that affirmations are ineffective for most people. This technique teaches us to repeatedly affirm something that we wish were true in the hope that we trick ourselves into believing it. Deep down, if these statements aren’t true, then you know they’re not true. And every time you recite an affirmation that isn’t rooted in truth, you are lying to yourself, and your subconscious mind will resist or reject it. If you affirm “I am wealthy” or “I am happy” when that doesn’t resonate as true for you, you’re going to create an unnecessary inner conflict (as if we need one more).
Given that you’re an intelligent human being who isn’t delusional, lying to yourself repeatedly will never be the optimal strategy. The truth will always prevail.
Flaw 2: Passive Language Doesn’t Produce Meaningful Results
Many affirmations have been designed to make us feel good in the moment by creating an empty promise of something we desire, independent of any effort. For example, here is a popular money-related affirmation that’s been perpetuated by many well-meaning spiritual teachers and self-help authorities: “I am a money magnet. Money flows to me effortlessly and in abundance.”
If only making money were that simple. Sign me up!
If we’re going to take time to recite affirmations, we’d like to see them produce meaningful results, not merely delude us into momentarily feeling better. If we’re reciting an affirmation about improving our financial situation, we want to see our income or bank account balance begin to increase. If we’re repeating an affirmation about losing weight, we want the results of that affirmation to show up every time we step on the scale. If we’re using affirmations to improve our marriage, we want our spouse to experience (and ideally, reciprocate) the improvements we’ve made.
In order to achieve concrete results, our affirmations must lead to changes in our behaviors. That’s why passive language affirmations are ineffective.
3 Steps to Creating Miracle Morning Results-Oriented Affirmations
Creating affirmations that enable you to improve any area of your life isn’t complicated—it’s a matter of understanding the approach that’ll get you there. There are three simple steps you can follow to create practical, actionable, results-oriented affirmations that effectively reprogram your subconscious mind and redirect your conscious thoughts to align your behavior so you can achieve your goals and make the changes you want to make in your life.
Step 1: Affirm What You’re Committed To
Notice we’re not starting with what you want. We all want countless things, but we only get what we’re committed to. One could even argue that the single most determining factor in whether we reach any goal or make any meaningful change in our lives is our ability to fully commit to something, and to remain committed for as long as it takes. When you’re committed, there is always a way. However, most people struggle to make new commitments beyond what they’re already doing. Thus, nothing changes.
Repeatedly affirming what you’re committed to, every single day, both keeps your commitment top of mind and consistently increases your level of commitment over time. So, each of your affirmations should first clearly articulate exactly which outcome (goal, result, improvement, etc.) or activity (action, habit, ritual, etc.) you are committed to experiencing in your life. To help clarify the difference between an outcome and an activity: an outcome would be “losing 10 pounds.” An activity would be “exercising five days a week.”
Here’s what that looks like in the form of a written affirmation:
I am committed to _____________ no matter what—there is no other option!
The more consistently you affirm what you’re committed to, with conviction, the more committed you will become to making it happen.
You may notice that there is an exclamation point (!) after the affirmation. That is intentional, as it reminds me to read and embody it with emotion and conviction. Real commitment isn’t something you do haphazardly. The more you can embody your affirmations with emotion and conviction, the more effective they will be.
Your Turn: Apply Step 1 to Your Affirmations
What do you want to accomplish or change in your life that you need to commit to? Do you have an important goal that you’ve been putting off? Is there an area of your life that is a source of pain and frustration? Is there a change you’ve attempted to make but haven’t succeeded (yet)?
Start by writing down a specific, meaningful outcome or activity—one that challenges you, would significantly improve your life, and that you are ready to commit to—even if you’re not exactly sure how you will do it or you’re feeling afraid of falling short.
You can handwrite your affirmation in a journal or on a piece of paper, but I recommend using a digital device, such as a notes app on your computer, phone, or the free Miracle Morning Routine app (which has a built-in affirmations creator that follows these three steps). What I like best about using a digital device is that it enables you to go back and easily update your affirmations as often as you’d like, since, as you continue to learn, grow, and evolve, your affirmations should evolve as well.
Once you’ve identified a meaningful outcome or activity you need to commit to in order to make it a reality, then write or type it using the following (step 1) template to fill in the blank and make it your own:
I am committed to _____________ no matter what—there is no other option!
Whatever goes in that blank is up to you. If you’re feeling unsure or hesitant about what you want, you may be censoring yourself because of a lack of clarity or a lack of confidence in your ability to commit and follow through. That’s totally normal. However, you don’t have to have everything figured out to begin your affirmation. In fact, it is often after you commit to something that the how reveals itself. You figure it out along the way. Writing down your affirmation is the first step in establishing your commitment, then affirming your commitment each day keeps it top of mind and consistently increases your level of commitment over time. Remember: there’s always a way when you’re committed.
Step 2: Affirm Why It’s Important to You
Next, it is time to support, enhance, and reinforce your commitment by including your why—the deeply meaningful, compelling reason(s) that will continuously fuel you to stay committed and take the necessary actions until what you’re affirming becomes your reality. Why is this commitment meaningful to you? Why is it a must for you? In what ways will it enhance your life and/or the lives of those you care about? The more compelling the reason(s) you have to follow through with your commitment, the more likely you are to follow through.
Your Turn: Apply Step 2 to Your Affirmations
Let’s continue drafting your affirmation. Underneath your commitment (step 1), begin listing the reasons that following through with this commitment is important to you. Again, why is it meaningful to you? Why is it a must for you? In what ways will it enhance your life and/or the lives of those you care about? What are the most compelling reasons/benefits that will keep you inspired to do whatever it takes?
I am committed to ____________ for/because:
• ________ [Insert meaningful reason/benefit]
• ________ [Insert meaningful reason/benefit]
• ________ [Insert meaningful reason/benefit]
Keep in mind that these reasons are personal to you, and you’ll never have to share your affirmations with anyone else, unless of course you want to. Also, remember that this is your rough draft. You can always edit your affirmations, so don’t worry about getting anything perfect. A poorly written affirmation is far more effective than a nonexistent affirmation.
Step 3: Affirm Which Actions You’ll Take and When
Writing an affirmation that merely states the outcome you’re committed to and why it’s important to you, without clarifying the necessary actions that will produce the outcome, is one notch above pointless. It can also be counterproductive, tricking your subconscious mind into thinking that the result will happen automatically, without any effort.
In this third and final step, you’ll simply ask yourself what you need to do to achieve your ideal outcome, clarify the specific action(s) that are required for you to follow through with your commitment, and clearly state when and how often you will execute the necessary action. This step may be obvious and come to you quickly. Very often, we already know what we need to do to improve, we just haven’t committed to doing it.
My sixth and final year working for Cutco, I set a monumental goal of doubling my best year ever in sales. While attempting to double my sales (and income) was extremely intimidating, I realized that to achieve it, I simply needed to double the number of phone calls I made to prospects. Twice as many calls should mean twice as many appointments scheduled, which should theoretically result in twice as many sales. Having averaged roughly 10 calls per day during my previous best year in sales, I determined that if I increased my calls to 20 per day, then I would inevitably double my sales. I knew what I needed to do; I had just never committed to doing it (at that level) before. So, I made a commitment to simply schedule time to make 20 calls each day from 8 to 9 AM, no matter what. At the end of the year, I had followed through with my commitment and more than doubled my sales, which more than doubled my income from the previous year.
However, depending on your desired outcome, you may have little to no idea what you need to do to get started. In that case, the initial action you’ll commit to taking will be scheduling time to figure out which other actions you need to take. For example, let’s say you’ve always wanted to start your own business or you desperately want to save your marriage, but you’re not sure how to do it. In that case, your first action is scheduling time to figure out the next steps. A simple Google search for “How to start a business” or “How to save my marriage” can get you started. Of course, there is an endless supply of resources (articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.) available for free on just about any topic, and to go deeper, there are countless books available from authors and experts who have experience with whatever you’re trying to accomplish.
Here are a few examples of different goals you might have and specific actions you could take to meet them:
To ensure that I follow through with my commitment to increase my income and provide financial security for my family, I will schedule time to implement the following actions:
•Read books on how to make more money, every single day, so that I can learn effective strategies to model.
•Find a local business networking group and join it.
•Make 20 prospecting calls per day, five days per week, from 8 to 9 AM.
To ensure that I follow through with my commitment to optimize my health, I will schedule time to implement the following actions:
•Practice intermittent fasting and start each day with a low-sugar, organic, plant-based smoothie that’s high in healthy fats.
•Exercise for 10 minutes every morning, during my Miracle Morning. And when the weather is nice, go for a 10-minute walk every day after dinner.
•Finish my last meal three to four hours before bed so that my body can fully digest my food before sleeping.
To ensure that I follow through with my commitment to be the best husband I can be for my spouse, I will schedule time to implement the following actions:
•Read books on marriage every morning, before reading any other books, so that I can continuously learn how to be the best spouse I can possibly be.
•Every morning, I will identify at least one thing I can do that day to either enhance my wife’s life or make it easier in some way (e.g., get her flowers or a card, give her a massage, write her a love note, go on a walk together, do the dishes, pick up the kids from school, play a board game, sit and talk in the evening, watch our favorite show together, etc.).
•I will bring romance and connection back into our relationship by scheduling a date night twice a month on Wednesday nights (to avoid the weekend rush).
Your Turn: Apply Step 3 to Your Affirmations
As you implement this third and final step, keep the following in mind:
•Some actions may be repetitive and recurring (like when I committed to making 20 calls per day, five days per week, from 8 to 9 AM to double my sales), while others may be sequential (step 1, step 2, step 3, etc.).
•If you’re not sure which actions you need to take, simply affirm when you will schedule time to discover and determine what those actions will be. You don’t need to have everything figured out to get started. In fact, that false belief is often what prevents us from getting started in the first place.
•Keep this as simple as possible. Don’t overwhelm yourself.
The more specific your actions are, the better. Be sure to include frequency (how often) and precise time frames to clarify when you will begin and end your actions.
To ensure that I follow through with my commitment, I will implement the following actions at these specified times/frequencies:
•_________________________________________
•_________________________________________
•__________________________________________
Putting It All Together (Step 1 + Step 2 + Step 3)
The key to achieving any goal or improving any aspect of your life is harnessing your ability to make a commitment and maintain that commitment for as long as it takes, even when you don’t feel like it. Your Miracle Morning results-oriented affirmations are designed to help you do exactly that by ensuring that you stay focused on what you’re committed to improving or achieving in your life, why each improvement or achievement is so important to you that you’re willing to do whatever is necessary to do it, and which specific actions you’ll take (and when) to ensure that you follow through.
As I said earlier, my experience has been that affirmations, when approached in the ways outlined in this chapter, are the most effective form of personal development. They allow you total precision when designing your present and future reality. So, choose one area of your life that you want to improve, or your most important goal, and follow these three steps to write an affirmation that will keep you focused on what matters most to you.
Tips to Maximize the Effectiveness of Your Affirmations
•Consider creating additional affirmations beyond this formula. In its simplest form, an affirmation is merely a reminder of something you deem important that you want to embody or integrate into your life. This results-oriented affirmation formula reminds you of what you’re committed to, why it’s a must for you, and which specific actions you’ll take (and when). However, other styles of affirmations can also be useful, so long as they’re rooted in truth. “I choose to be happy” is an affirmation. “I am at peace with what I can’t change” is an affirmation. “I am exactly where I am supposed to be to learn what I need to learn to become the person I need to be to create the life I want” is an affirmation. In fact, one of my favorite affirmations doesn’t follow this formula at all. It reads, “I am just as worthy, deserving, and capable of creating the life I’m committed to as any other person on earth, and I will prove that today with my actions.” This foundational affirmation helps me to overcome my insecurities and imposter syndrome by reminding me that all of us are inherently just as worthy, deserving, and capable of whatever we are willing to fully commit to. So, while I recommend using the three-step formula taught in this chapter to create results-oriented affirmations that will help you achieve your goals and make significant improvements, don’t feel that you are constrained by it. Feel free to affirm whatever you deem important, and that you want to keep top of mind.
•Update your affirmations as needed. Keep in mind that your affirmations will likely never be a final draft because as you continue to learn, grow, and evolve, your affirmations should evolve as well. When you come up with a new goal, dream, habit, or philosophy you want to integrate into your life, create an affirmation to support it. When you accomplish a goal or completely integrate a new habit or philosophy into your life, you might find that it’s no longer necessary to affirm it every day, and thus you can choose to remove it from your written affirmations. Regularly updating your affirmations also keeps them from getting stale and you from getting bored. This is why I recommend typing your affirmations on a digital device, such as your computer or phone. That way you can update them as often as you’d like.
•Read your affirmations daily. It’s important to be consistent with reading your affirmations, ideally at least once a day. Reading an affirmation occasionally is as effective as getting an occasional workout. You’re unlikely to see any measurable results until you make it a part of your daily routine. The more often you read them, the faster they will reprogram your subconscious and upgrade your habitual thought patterns so that your thinking will be in alignment with how you want to feel (good) and what you want to do (be productive).
•Recite your affirmations with emotion. When you recite your affirmations, whether out loud or in your head, I recommend putting yourself in a heightened emotional state to reinforce your conviction and commitment. Remember, your Miracle Morning affirmations aren’t intended to be read just for the sake of reading them. These are thoughtfully crafted statements, strategically engineered to program your subconscious mind and upgrade your identity with the beliefs, perspectives, and commitment you need to achieve your desired outcomes, while directing your conscious mind to keep you focused on your highest priorities and the actions that will get you there. For your affirmations to be optimally effective, it is important that you engage your emotions while reciting them. Mindlessly repeating an affirmation without intentionally feeling your commitment to it will have minimal impact. You must take responsibility for generating authentic emotions, such as excitement and determination, and powerfully infusing those emotions with every affirmation you recite. If this doesn’t come naturally to you, or if you find yourself in a perpetually negative mental and emotional state, such as feeling discouraged or depressed, this may seem easier said than done. This pairs nicely with Emotional Optimization Meditation, as you can use EOM to get yourself in a peak state before reciting your affirmations. Focus on the mental and emotional state(s) you want to experience, and ask yourself, “When was the last time I felt that way? What did it feel like? How would I show up now if I felt that way? What would I think? What would I say to myself? What would I do? How would I move my body?” Then, think, speak, and move as if you were experiencing those heightened emotions. Do this each day during your Miracle Morning, and in time, you will condition yourself to experience those emotions naturally and authentically.