Do Positive Affirmations Really Work For Confidence?

Do affirmations work? Should I do them? Do they help with confidence? These are important questions and I'm going to answer them in this short little video. There was a video I recorded a little while back that mentioned affirmations and there was a heated discussion in the comments about whether they work or not. And here's my quick thoughts on that. People who don't, people who like them say they're amazing, do them. And if everyone did them, then the world would be, you know, all the problems would be solved. And people who don't like them say hey listen you namby pamby, you know, whatevers, science, science has proven that affirmations do not work. All hail science. And I fall somewhere in between those two camps. I think they're both extreme. So here are my thoughts and affirmations. First of all, anytime science has proven anything, especially about the human, human psychology and emotion and self concept and all these really elusive things, nothing is totally conclusive. It just means in one or several research studies they studied some kind of affirmation on some measure and it had some effect. So you know, that's where you want to be wary of saying something totally works or totally doesn't. We like to put things into all or nothing categories. And the truth is, well, in certain ways of use it might not be the solution. And that's how I see it. I see affirmations as a tool. They're not the end all, be all solution because there's an element of them that's, that's too easy. So what we want is we want to say the affirmation in the mirror. Say the affirmation, listen to it as we go to sleep at night with no effort whatsoever. And all of a sudden our self concept has changed. And now I feel confident, now I'm thinking I'm beautiful and I can go talk to anyone. And I don't think it works like that. I think if you want to change your identity, because that's the point of affirmations, right? Like you want to change how you feel about yourself or you want to change the way you see yourself, that's changing your identity. If you want to make that change in your identity, then you're going to need to do different things in the world. We transform our identity through action. So if you want to be more, think you're, you know, you want to think you're more attractive by practicing and approaching people more and more and more, you're going to start to see wow. Actually when I'm not up in my Head and hiding. When I really put myself out there, people seem to really like me or want to date me. So your life and your identity change through action. Here's where affirmations can be useful. If I think I'm ugly and no one's going to talk to me, no one's going to want to be my friend. Alright, I guess I'll go talk to those people because Aziz told me to take action. Hi. Do you want to date me? No. That's what I thought, right? And that's how you know if we're self fulfilling prophecy or we think it's not going to work, it's not going to work, it's not going to work and then we go take the action and lo and behold, it doesn't work. That's where affirmations can be really useful to open up a doorway of possibility. Hey, you know, maybe people do want to be my friend, everybody. So I like them as kind of like they create a more expansive mindset, put you more in the realm of possibility. So you could say I don't know how people are going to respond. Let's find out. Or you could say people love talking with me. In general, people love talking with me. That's one of the reasons why affirmations don't work as well for some people in some situations is we make them so extreme. Everybody everywhere likes me and thinks I'm amazing. We know that's unrealistic. So I like things that are more. They open up to possibility but they're not so extreme. Such as many people love talking with me. I'm fun to talk to. I'm an interesting person. These are things that are inside of me and they don't require that everybody has to think so. So if you can say like I'm interesting, I'm engaging, I'm fun, I'm intelligent, then that allows you to then go walk over there and take the action and approach the person in a more open, expansive way. That is the value of affirmations. So they're a tool that supports you in taking the action that's going to transform your identity. It's awesome. Share your comments below. What you have learned from this video, what you're going to use and what your thoughts on affirmations are. And I'll look forward to seeing you in the next video until we speak again. And I may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.