Feeling down? Depressed? Insecure? Scared? Modern-day research has shown that telling your brain positive things--even if they don’t feel true in the moment--can turn your metaphorical frown upside down. It isn’t always an immediate change, sometimes it takes time for positive affirmations to sink in and make a difference, but the difference will come if you’re persistent. 

First made popular by French psychologist Emile Coué in the 1920s, positive affirmations are statements in the present tense, using only positive words, that are spoken as truth or fact. He believed that if you start your day by stating, “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better,” then your mind would come to believe it, and as a result your self-esteem and quality of life would improve. Today, self-help experts of virtually every single category encourage positive affirmations to help you lose weight, make money, feel confident, find love, or literally anything else your heart is hoping for. 

And the exciting thing is, it actually works!

When the brain hears an affirmation over and over again, that affirmation reinforces a chemical pathway in the brain, which leads to the brain believing it as the truth. Whatever your brain believes, that’s the reality you live in, so if you tell yourself, “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better,” that will become, in time, an actual truth in your experience of reality. And if you believe this about yourself, think of how good you’ll feel! And when you feel that good, think of everything you can accomplish! 

Any positive affirmation repeated consistently will begin to make a difference in your beliefs, but of course the experience will be more powerful and effective if you personalize your affirmation so that it comes from your heart. So, here are some guidelines to creating your affirmations:

• Consider What You Want
  Maybe financial success isn’t what you’re striving for. Maybe beauty, fitness, and love aren’t it either. That’s completely fine. You only need to know what it is that you do want--perhaps something as small as ‘I want to have fun tonight,’--and then use that as the basis for your affirmation. Of course, it could also be something as big as ‘I want to be the first female president’, or anything of any size in between. 
   
• POSITIVE WORDS ONLY
  This is really more of a rule than a guideline. As soon as a “don’t” or a “can’t” or a “won’t” or a “not” or a “never” is present, the positivity is undermined, and therefor the message sent to your brain simply won’t be positive. So, if your goal is financial success, your instinct might be to repeat, “I’m not broke, I will never be broke again,” but these statements are fraught with negativity. Instead, try “I am financially successful,” or, “I love how financially abundant my life is.” 
   
• Frame it in the Present Tense
  An affirmation needs to be worded in the present, otherwise your brain will only learn that positive things are happening in the future, and won’t experience the benefits of learning it--and therefore feeling it--as a current truth. For example, if you say, “I will feel beautiful,” and repeat it over and over, your brain will learn that feeling beautiful is always a day away. Instead, repeating, “I am beautiful,” will gradually teach your brain to believe it as the truth. Understand that it doesn’t matter if you currently don’t believe it, or if you even think that it’s a lie. As you keep practicing this affirmation, it will begin to feel true, so true that nobody will be able to take it away from you. 

If you’re struggling to get started on your personalized positive affirmations, here are some common examples. You can use them as a frame of reference or even borrow them for yourself!

• I have my dream job
• My romantic relationship is healthy, long-lasting and full of love
• My body is healthy and full of energy.
• I am enthusiastic about every second of my life
• I easily accomplish all of my goals.

Positive affirmations will help you believe positive things about yourself, your life, and the world around you. When you feel positive, it follows naturally that your life become positive. If this sounds too good to be true, there’s only one thing to do: try it out for yourself and experience the change first hand!