The use of affirmations as “positive brainwashing”

Brainwashing is a term perceived in a negative way by most people. But you know what; I think our brains could actually do with a bit of a wash sometimes!

You see, everyone comes into this world with a clear mind, and a belief that everything is possible. All is positive and well. Remember as a child, you could do and become everything, without any boundaries! As we grow up however, we pick up beliefs, fears and limitations from our surroundings and peers that gradually form the person we are today. A lot of these beliefs unfortunately are negative and as we build our lives they limit us in our actions and being. Very often they therefore contribute to unhappiness or feeling unfulfilled in our lives and business. It can be the smallest seemingly harmless- remark from a mother like “just let me handle that, you are no good at that” that can convince you that you are not good at a certain task. A teacher who calls a pupil ‘the clumsy one’ can do more harm with this remark than he realizes when repeated often enough. With every remark the belief is harnessed further in the child that it indeed is clumsy. Even though a remark is said with a smile or with the intent to be funny, it still leaves a legacy in the belief system.

This programming of course doesn’t stop at adulthood; it keeps influencing people in all stages of life. We are being influenced by our parents, kids, partner, friends, colleagues, television, newspapers, and magazines and so on. Sometimes in a positive, but very often in a negative way. No wonder we limit ourselves in so many ways! Belief is the key to your success. If you belief you can do something, you can. If you belief you can’t do something, you will be right too.

The good news is: we can ‘reprogram’ our mind and replace our negative, limiting beliefs for positive contributing ones. Positive brainwashing is what I like to call it! This can be done by the use of so called ‘affirmations’. An affirmation is a positive self talk statement, stated in the present tense that covers a goal you want to achieve and that ‘overrules’ negative beliefs towards that goal. An example is “I easily do 10 sales calls a day”. Or “I am an excellent negotiator”. By stating this affirmation regularly during your day, you will achieve the goal you have set for yourself easier. This positive self talk helps your mind to overcome beliefs that you have about yourself, that limit your success and actions. Compare our mind with a computer: when you change the input, the output will change accordingly. So if you have the limiting belief that you are no good in public speaking (probably because of negative experiences in the past) you can actually reprogram your mind by stating the following affirmation: “I am an excellent public speaker. I love to speak for huge audiences and people love to hear me talk”. By affirming this belief over and over, you actually start to believe it and your mind will find a way to make this statement a reality. At some stage, you might decide to do a course in public speaking, or someone might ask you to speak at some kind of seminar, which forces you to work on your speaking skills. Somehow, these affirmations help you to reach the ‘goal’ you have set for yourself and open doors for you that would otherwise have been kept closed. And this works for virtually everything. Belief and it will happen.

Imagine standing for a big river, with a heavy stream. You have to cross it, but you don’t think you can actually do it. Your belief is keeping you from crossing, although you physically should be able to do it easily. It just looks too hard! Then someone else comes up from behind you, and without thinking starts crossing the river and gets to the other side. His belief was positive, and he knew he could do it. The interesting thing is that this will probably influence your belief: “if he can do it, I can do it too” and you will then cross the river without any problem at all. Similar things happen when a group of people is introduced to the phenomenon of fire walking. At first a big group of people will say that there is no way they will walk on fire. Until other people with higher beliefs go first, then all of a sudden everyone else rushes over to do it as well.

So think about YOUR beliefs, and try to discover which belief are actually holding you back from reaching your full potential in your life. Then, one by one, start eliminating these beliefs from your system. Formulate an affirmation that counters your negative belief, and re affirm it daily. Write them in your diary, on your bathroom mirror, next to your computer; anywhere you see it often and say the affirmation out loud as often as possible. You will be happily surprised by the results!

Another powerful way to manifest your goals is by visualizing them. By looking at a picture of your goal or dream daily with a strong desire, you will start attracting them in your life. A brilliant visualization tool that can help you to create and maintain your affirmations and visualizations in a very powerful way is a software program called “Vision Board”. Use this fantastic tool to create a Vision Board with self chosen pictures and your personally formulated affirmations, which will help you to achieve the goals you have set in your life or business. Click here now for more information! [Visualize Your Goals]

Just what are you attracting into your life?

Sometimes people ask “how do I know how I am vibrating and attracting”? The answer is simple: just look at your life and what you are creating right now. Your current life is the result of the vibrations you have been having up until this point. So if you are facing all kinds of challenges, chances are you have been feeling negative, challenged and frustrated. These feelings as a consequence have attracted those challenges to your life. Simple as that!

Knowing this, you now have the chance to change what you are creating in your life by adjusting your vibrational level. Focus on feeling positive emotions such as excitement, happiness, gratitude, joy. You can start a gratitude journal to generate these kind of emotions, and it is crucial to use a Vision Board System (CLICK HERE for free e-book) to stay focused on and inspired by your goals and dreams in life. By looking at your vision every day with anticipation, you will feel excited about the life you are creating right now. Happy visualizing!

Maximize your creative visualizations!

Research shows that the energy vibrations created from your heart center are 5000 times stronger than the energy created from your head. So words and thoughts are much weaker in creating positive vibrations than emotions and feelings. Therefore when you create a Vision Board, it is crucial to use images, affirmations and power words that really TRIGGER certain positive feelings for you. This will have the biggest creation power! So when you start assembling your Vision Board, select only images that truly give you a strong positive feeling of desire, excitement and anticipation. With each image, observe it and choose whether the feeling that it generates is big and exciting enough. If you select each image that way, and formulate each affirmation and power word like that, your Vision Board will overflow you with positive feelings and excited anticipation on the fantastic life your are now creating! If you use a system like the VBS (CLICK HERE for free e-book), your chosen images and words will be displayed in the most dynamic and fun way possible, which will enhance your visualization experience even more.

Life Mapping: A Vision of Success

Success is more than economic gains, titles, and degrees. Planning for success is about mapping out all the aspects of your life. Similar to a map, you need to define the following details: origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks, and route.

• Origin:  Who you are- A map has a starting point. Your origin is who you are right now. Most people when asked to introduce themselves would say, “Hi, I’m Jean and I am a 17-year old, senior highschool student.” It does not tell you about who Jean is; it only tells you her present preoccupation. To gain insights about yourself, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic, professional, cultural, and civil status. Moreover, you can also reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses. Upon introspection, Jean realized that she was highly motivated, generous, service-oriented, but impatient. Her inclination was in the biological-medical field. Furthermore, she believed that life must serve a purpose, and that wars were destructive to human dignity.

• Destination: A vision of who you want to be- “Who do want to be?” this is your vision. Now it is important that you know yourself so that you would have a clearer idea of who you want to be; and the things you want to change whether they are attitudes, habits, or points of view. If you hardly know yourself, then your vision and targets for the future would also be unclear. Your destination should cover all the aspects of your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Continuing Jean’s story, after she defined her beliefs, values, and principles in life, she decided that she wanted to have a life dedicated in serving her fellowmen.

• Vehicle: Your Mission- A vehicle is the means by which you can reach your destination. It can be analogized to your mission or vocation in life. To a great extent, your mission would depend on what you know about yourself. Bases on Jean’s self-assessment, she decided that she was suited to become a doctor, and that she wanted to become one. Her chosen vocation was a medical doctor. Describing her vision-mission fully: it was to live a life dedicated to serving her fellowmen as a doctor in conflict-areas.

• Travel Bag: Your knowledge, skills, and attitude- Food, drinks, medicines, and other travelling necessities are contained in a bag. Applying this concept to your life map, you also bring with you certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These determine your competence and help you in attaining your vision. Given such, there is a need for you to assess what knowledge, skills, and attitudes you have at present and what you need to gain along the way. This two-fold assessment will give you insights on your landmarks or measures of success. Jean realized that she needed to gain professional knowledge and skills on medicine so that she could become a doctor. She knew that she was a bit impatient with people so she realized that this was something she wanted to change.

• Landmarks and Route: S.M.A.R.T. objectives- Landmarks confirm if you are on the right track while the route determines the travel time. Thus, in planning out your life, you also need to have landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your measures of success. These measures must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. Thus you cannot set two major landmarks such as earning a master’s degree and a doctorate degree within a period of three years, since the minimum number of years to complete a master’s degree is two years. Going back to Jean as an example, she identified the following landmarks in her life map: completing a bachelor’s degree in biology by the age of 21; completing medicine by the age of 27; earning her specialization in infectious diseases by the age of 30; getting deployed in local public hospitals of their town by the age of 32; and serving as doctor in war-torn areas by the age of 35.

• Anticipate Turns, Detours, and Potholes- The purpose of your life map is to minimize hasty and spur-of-the-moment decisions that can make you lose your way. But oftentimes our plans are modified along the way due to some inconveniences, delays, and other situations beyond our control. Like in any path, there are turns, detours, and potholes thus; we must anticipate them and adjust accordingly.