Affirmations are a powerful tool to create what you want in your life, when they are used in the right ways. I have been using affirmations on and off in my life since they first became popular in the 1980s. Teachers like Louise Hay have built million dollar businesses teaching others how to use affirmations to heal their lives. They do work, no matter how skeptical you are or if you have used them unsuccessfully in the past. In this post, I will share 4 ways to use affirmations to create more money in your business.
Affirmations are statements said with confidence about a perceived truth, according to Ronald Alexander, Ph.D. in an article on Psychology Today. We can trick our minds into believing this new truth because our mind cannot distinguish between fact or fiction, reality or fantasy.
Alexander goes on to discuss what I believe to be one of the first crucial steps for making affirmations work for you. You must first identify the negative beliefs that have been holding you back. One of the things I love about using affirmations is that they can help us discover what our limiting beliefs are, even if it we many not be consciously aware of them or of aware of how often they are running through our mind.
More Marketing isn’t the Answer
When it comes to making more money in our business, there are many marketing tactics we can employ to generate leads and specific tools to help us create more income. But our success has more to do with our mindset than with marketing.
Don’t get me wrong; I adore marketing and helping others create actionable, affordable marketing plans. Yet I am finding that many of my clients are struggling more with their beliefs and their mindset around money – they aren’t charging what they are worth, they aren’t tracking income and expenses and they are terrified of asking for money (closing a sale.) They have many negative, limiting beliefs that are stopping them from creating financial independence.
One way you can get clear about what is holding you back is to start a written dialogue with money affirmations like the ones in the list below. Read through the list and pick one that feels like a challenge or extra hard for you to believe it ever being true about you. For example you might choose, “Just because I might have debt, this does not make me a bad person.” Write this down on one piece of paper or a page in your journal. On a different page, write down all of the negative beliefs that come up around creating debt in your life. Once you have written down the negative statements, ask yourself “Am I willing to release these negative beliefs around debt and create something new in my life?” Answer yourself honestly! Keep writing until you feel like you can state the positive affirmation with confidence and belief!
- I am joyfully receiving wealth and abundance in my life.
- I am successful in everything I do.
- Just because I might have debt, this does not make me a bad person.
- No matter how much money I have, I am making positive choices about what I do with it.
- I am choosing to make the time to take charge of my money.
- I deserve to be wealthy.
- My job/business is one of the pipelines through which I tap the infinite wealth of the universe for my own desires.
- My personal connection to Infinite Being and Infinite Intelligence is enough to yield a huge personal fortune.
- People enjoy paying me for what I enjoy doing the most.
I think the reason that affirmations often don’t work for people, is that they skip this crucial step of clearing their negative thoughts to allow space for the positive. Attitude is everything! Affirmations must be stated with confidence and with a smile. Add feeling and enthusiasm to the statements when you are saying them aloud.
Here are 4 fun ways to use affirmations to create more money in your business:
1. Journaling for Self-Discovery and Growth
As in the example above, use affirmations in your journal to create a dialogue with yourself. Trust your own inner wisdom. Allow all of the negative thoughts to flow out of your head and onto the page so you can begin to focus on the positive. Then spend a few minutes each day writing out the affirmations, perhaps adding doodles, color, or collaged images to the pages to create a visual and sensory experience of the feelings the positive affirmation evokes. The more of this you can do, the more you will convince your brain to quickly believe the new reality.
2. Speak your Affirmations Out Loud
Two or three times a day, repeat several of your favorite affirmations around money mindset at 5 times each. You will be surprised how fast this goes! Don’t just blandly repeat the words – put feeling, emotion, belief, and confidence into the statements. In other words, say it like you mean it! You could also create a chant, sing the words or say them to your favorite instrumental music. Affirmations are most effective when used frequently!
3. Make Art with Your Affirmations
I personally love to doodle, color, paint and even write with different colored pens. I am also an addict of affirmation cards of all kinds, so much so that I even created my own deck of cards with core values and affirmations on them. I encourage you to get creative with your affirmations. Create a collage, a vision board or a painting around one affirmation. Add colors, symbols, images and words that enhance the meaning of the statement. I find that if I make something pretty out of my affirmations, I am more likely to keep them sitting out in front of me. I don’t like sticky notes on my mirror or my computer, but a decorated note card or small painting will stay visible. One of the tricks for affirmation success is keeping your statements top of mind!
4. Meditate on Your Affirmations
Finally, if you are a fan of silence, prayer or meditation – spend time sitting quietly. Use your affirmation as a mantra and just see what thoughts arise. Allow the thoughts to pass by without judgment or getting stuck. Keep repeating your mantra silently to yourself – try this for 5 minutes at a time if you are newer to meditation. Use the timer on your phone or if you have a smart phone download a fun app like Insight Timer with beautiful bells.
The trick to using affirmations to successfully create more money in your business is to use them often, in a variety of different ways and to infuse the words with meaning by adding voice, handwriting, art and meditation.