Positive Affirmations: Why They Work

By Drew Graham

Most people are willing to accept that positive affirmations work, they are however often not clear on just why they work. The answer is actually pretty simple, they work because we can convince ourselves of almost anything if we really want to. Knowing this it is a simple matter to convince ourselves of things that will be helpful.

The reason that positive affirmations work is that the more you tell yourself something the more likely it is that you will believe it. You have almost certainly had the experience where you have managed to convince yourself of something that wasn't actually true simply by telling yourself that it was over and over again, positive affirmations work the same way. By repeating them over and over again you will convince yourself of what you are saying.

In order to understand why you are able to convince yourself of something by repeating it over and over again you have to look at how the mind works. Once we believe something we usually continue to believe even when there is evidence to the contrary. This is so that we are not constantly changing what we believe and running the risk that we will no longer believe things that we need to believe in order to survive, like running into a busy street is not safe.

To change what we believe we have to hear something that is contrary to what we already believe many times over, this is where positive affirmations come in. When you hear something that contradicts what you already believe your mind has two choices, it can choose to assume what you have heard is untrue or it can reappraise what you believe. In most cases it will choose to deny the new statement. However if you hear it enough you will eventually be forced to reappraise and consider that it might be true and eventually you will reach the point where you believe it to be true.

Once you have convinced yourself that the new statement is true you will have changed your beliefs and changing them back again will be very difficult. This is why you have to make sure that if you are going to use positive affirmations that you use them in the correct way. If they are not worded properly you may convince yourself of something different than you intended. It is therefore a good idea to use affirmations that have a proven track record of success.

The best way to use the power of positive thinking is by using positive affirmations.

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