Do Affirmations Work?

And now it's time to ask the shrink. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this bonus episode of Ask the Shrink. Today's question comes from Ingeborg. Ingeborg says, as probably all of your clients, I too used to struggle a lot with shyness. But then I've had some progress, thanks to Sean Cooper. Shawn is awesome. He recommended you, and I think your tips are great. Smiley face. Thank you, Ingeborg. I know you have been brave enough to face fear an incredible amount of times to get where you are today, and that deserves to be admired. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with others who struggle like me. Anyway, there's one thing I don't quite get. In Sean's book, he mentions that he is against affirmations in addition to the reason why they don't work. But listening to your videos about stories and why they work seems very logical to me. So my question is this. What is the difference between using affirmations and your techniques for changing stories? That is a great question. Affirmations, they're a hot topic, right? You know, look up affirmations, you'll find out what they are. If you don't know what they are, they're self affirming or inspiring or powerful statements that you repeat to yourself. So if you think I'm a loser and no one's gonna want to talk to me, obviously that's gonna affect how you approach people and your energy and all that. So the idea of an affirmation is you like, I'm awesome and everyone loves talking to me. And that by saying that, by repeating that in your mind, you're going to believe that more and then have a better response. And that could be affirmations for your social confidence, for your dating and relationship confidence for work. You know, everyone wants to buy my product and listen to me. Everyone wants to be my promotional partner. You know, those affirmations in that arena too, as well as I like myself, I love myself. You know, the most classic example that still lives on today is Stuart Smalley. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me. And you know, people ridicule that, make fun of that. So wherever you stand on them, that's sort of what affirmations are and the theory behind them. There's interesting research about them and people studying them and do they work and do they not? And it's kind of mixed. Some people will say, look at this research. It says people feel worse afterwards. And other people say, well, it's not addressing lying, the underlying beliefs, and we can Go back and forth theoretically all day long. But that's why I got out of clinical psychology and research is because the theory honestly bores me. I'm about real practical experience, what works in my life and the people that I'm working with face to face. And if some research study says it works, great. If some research study says it doesn't work, but I see it working, I say, great, let's just keep using it because it's working. So here are my thoughts on affirmations. I think they're powerful. I think they can be life changing. I think they can also not do anything and make you feel worse. Depends upon you, where you're at and how you're using them. So a couple of key tips to make them more powerful. One is you gotta get your emotional state in it. You can't just say it passively. You gotta get activated. And actually, in my interview with Sean, you should check that out. We did a full two episode interview a while back. Just type in Sean Cooper in a search@drinkforthshyguy.com youm'll be able to find those episodes. They're great. And even in the interview I bring it up, I'm like, dude, we got beef Sean. And he's like, what? I'm like, you're anti affirmation. I am pro affirmation. And here's what I mean is you got to get activated when you do it. So let's say you're working on social confidence and you think people don't want to talk to me. I'm not interesting, I'm boring. So I like to call them power beliefs too. Because when you believe them, you become powerful and your life explodes in good ways. So a power belief in that situation might be I am fascinating. Everybody wants to talk to me. I am fascinating. Everybody wants to talk to me. So if you say that I'm fascinating, everybody wants to talk to me and your mind says bullshit. Nuh. Then you got to get in this debate. And I wouldn't get in the debate. Here's what I would do. I would get myself into a strong, powerful peak state. And I teach you how to do that. Inside of confidence unleashed. Super powerful, super valuable life skill. We also go deep into that at all my events, especially the ultimate confidence breakthrough. I really train people how to do this. But you get into an activated powerful state and then you say with your full body, your face, your energy and everything, you say, I am fascinating. Everybody wants to be my friend. Everybody wants to talk to me. I am fascinating. Everybody wants to talk to me. Everybody wants to be my friend. I aziz see, hear, feel, and know that I am fascinating. Everybody wants to talk to me. Everybody wants to be my friend. Then I would just go off on a rant. I aziz see, hear, feel and know that I am fascinating. I am fascinating because. And then you just say some shit, whatever comes to your mind when you're in this empowered, kind of amped up state. And you want to do it out loud, you want to do it with energy and intensity. I am fascinating because I am talking to people all day long. I am studying, I am learning. I am deep diving into psychology and how people work and how they think and confidence. And it's the most fascinating topic in the world because everybody wants confidence. So everybody's interested in talking with me and learning from me and sharing with me. That's the first things that come to my mind. But you can build on that, right? So that is how you make them way more powerful. And then here's another thing. You gotta follow it up with action. You gotta show up that way. Because if you just say that like, I am bold. I love that one. I am bold. And if you say that and you get pumped. I do that every morning. There was a period of time where I slid off of that and I'd get in my office and I'd start checking my email first thing. And then I was like, wait a minute, is this. If I'm teaching confidence, I gotta live confidence? Is this a ritual that's gonna build my confidence? And the answer is no. So now I actually check my email in the afternoon, which is awesome. So first thing in the morning, I'm doing something that's empowering me and then working on a project or maybe doing a session with someone where it's just like, I'm getting activated. So first thing I do is I jump on my trampoline in one of the rebounders in my office and I say, I am bold. I say a lot of other stuff, too. That's one of my favorite ones. I am bold. But then, guess what you got to do that day, man, you gotta take bold action that day. Otherwise it just becomes some fluff that you say to yourself, you gotta use these affirmations to then get yourself to take the actions that create that reality. Does that make sense? That's why affirmations can be wildly successful. Or, you know, there's a wild range of success versus not success, because it really depends on how you're doing it and what the affirmations are. And then how you're living as a result. And incidentally, that's one of the techniques I teach on changing stories. If you want to get like the full master course on transforming your story and be guided through a step by step process which is super powerful on transforming your stories, go to Confidence unleashed Now.com Confidence unleashed Now.com youm can enter your email, I send you an ebook, and I teach you in some free training videos how to transform your story. That's confidence unleashed now.com so go there and check out more. Thanks for your question. Ingeborg, you are awesome. Till we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.