Self-Esteem Affirmations: Simple and Effective

Self-esteem affirmations are a great strategy for building self-esteem and for becoming a positive and self-reliant person. This is because positive affirmations have the power to change your habitual thinking patterns and your internal dialogues that shape your self-esteem. So why aren't more people using this method for building self-esteem? It’s because most people just aren't aware of how their own positive affirmations can actually be used to get solid results.

Thankfully, there is an easy set of principles which you can use to construct positive affirmations which are simple and effective. This article will give you a simple strategy for creating and using your own self esteem affirmations.

First, Define Your Standards

Before you begin writing your self esteem affirmations, you need to define your standard for building self-esteem. For example, what is your idea of a person who has high self esteem? Can you think of a specific person…alive or dead? If so, you can begin to define the standards upon which you're going to build your positive affirmations by observing the actions of a confident person. Think about it, what is the point in telling your brain if you're going to become more confident if your brain has no idea what being confident looks like?

Your subconscious mind (which is what you want to influence with your self esteem affirmations) responds to directions. You need to be as specific as possible and the best way to do that is by coming up with definite actions which represent high self esteem. It can be something like the courage to speak to strangers, to the opposite sex, or the courage to negotiate. Just make sure that you come up with a list of actions that you believe to be typical of a confident person.

Second, The Formula of Positive Affirmations

Your self esteem affirmations need to follow four basic principles: they need to be in the present tense; affirmative in nature (in other words, avoid statements like: not, don’t, won’t, can’t, and no); they must be in the first person; they need to be action driven (using the actions you collected in step one). For example:

“I’m assertive and persuasive in my business negotiations.”

“I approach women and strangers and engage them in conversations.”

“I’m a master at closing sales.”

“I disciplined and self-reliant in following my exercise program.”

Notice that all of these self esteem affirmations have four things in common:

They’re all in the present tense

They’re all affirmative

They’re all in the first person

They all involve a specific action

Once you have your positive affirmations written according to these guidelines, there's only one thing left to do…

Third, Rehearse Your Affirmations

Using self esteem affirmations is a perpetual process which you must do on a consistent basis. For best results, say your affirmations out loud in the morning and in the evening. This is important because you are actually training your mind, which is no different than training your body: both have to be done on a consistent basis and if you begin to slack off, your results will start to undo themselves. So practice your self esteem affirmations every day, and if you get bored with them, just write new ones. Make it a lifelong commitment, and confidence will become a natural part of your beliefs and your actions.