Neutralize and affirm
Psychologists say we talk to ourselves in our minds up to 55,000 times a day and most of what we say is negative.
Using both neutralizers and affirmations doubles your power in banishing those negatives and giving yourself a positive environment in which to flourish.
Neutralizing means you respond to negatives, which can come from your own mind or from other people, with a simple positive. You may have an all-purpose neutralizer or you may want to create a specific neutralizer for every negative that comes your way.
For example, if you’re spending time with a family member who makes you feel worthless, you could use a neutralizer like “I’m doing great, thank you” which you’d say out loud or repeat in your head. If you’re in a meeting at work and you know there’s going to be conflict, your neutralizer could be “We’re working well together”, aloud or in your head, whichever is appropriate.
Affirmations are your way of taking control: use them whenever you want to and be proactive about banishing negative scripts. For example, if your negative script was “I am hopeless at bookkeeping” a good affirmation would be, “I am very good at bookkeeping”. Your feeling about saying this positive version is an indication of how powerful the negative was, by the way. If you think: “I can’t say that because it’s just not true”, remember that your negative script was probably not true either, but it gained credibility every time it was repeated in your subconscious until, eventually, it became true. The same principle applies to your new positive script.
Simple affirmations such as: “every day in every way I’m getting better” can have a profound effect on the way you think about yourself.
Make your affirmations strong, in the present tense and brief. “I think I will be all right joining that new club” will have much less effect than “I’m confident and keen about joining the new club”.
Repeat your affirmations daily. Print them on postcards or post-it notes and stick them to your keyboard or monitor at work, the fridge and bathroom mirror at home, your bedside table – anywhere and everywhere. The more often you say them, the more they’ll embed in your subconscious and those negatives will be less likely to return to hold you back from living your best life.