Affirmations

[Southern Capitalist]

Over the years I have studied and researched many wealthy and successful individuals. (Prime movers of the industrail progress age) What I find is most have habits in common. These habits have lead to a movement in positive thinking and Affirmations said to ones self over and over. I was curious as to what everyone feels about Affirmations and other techniques of self improvement. Is it all a way to building self esteem and helps with achievement and success? Or dillusions of mysticism?

[Wolf DeVoon]

Every day in every way I'm getting better and better. [Émile Coué]

Your mileage may vary.

[Southern Capitalist]

Exactly... What the mind can conceive. The mind can achieve.

[BaalChatzaf]

Exactly... What the mind can conceive. The mind can achieve.

The mind can conceive of an instantly fast computer. But that is a physical impossibility.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Wolf DeVoon]

At the moment I don't feel so swell, crushed under John Steinbeck, who I hate, on a beloved friend's bookshelf.

Got any magic affirmations to fix this predicament?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

SC,

Affirmations are great for planting ideas in the unconscious. I have an entire set of thoughts about self-help that I am going to develop on a blog (spearheaded by a Think and Grow Rich study project).

I came up with a theory about why self-help works so well for so many people. It takes a principle and grows a neural pathway with it, something like the way rock candy is formed:

A principle accepted deep down is like the string in the video. Things start attaching to it as it gets thicker. In the brain, lots of habits, thoughts, mental processes, emotional reactions, etc., get automated around a principle with focused repetition, somewhat like the rock candy crystallizing on the string.

I believe church sermons and other religious rituals work like that.

The problem with affirmations is to make sure your core is receptive to the affirmations you choose. If you are a short man and keep telling yourself you are tall, your BS meter might keep the neural pathway from getting thick or even forming.

I find it is always better to connect an affirmation to a story, which is nature's form of interconnecting all the different parts of the brain at the same time. Once the story comes to mind along with the affirmation, you don't have to go through it anymore. Even stories become automated (i.e., crystallized).

Another very clever way to use affirmations is mind movies. There's a guy who came up with a business plan around this concept and is now a bazillionaire (see here), but you don't need to make him richer or swallow the law of attraction metaphysics if you don't want to. Type mind movies into YouTube and you will see a bunch of them, unfortunately many with hardcore law of attraction stuff in them.

It's easy to make these movies. Use almost any slideshow video editor (Windows MovieMaker works just fine), string out a bunch of images that represent what you want to achieve (but keep them moving with the built in effects the software comes with), throw in and out short text affirmations over the images, and run a song you love underneath. Make it about 3 minutes or so. You watch that thing once in the morning and once at night for a few weeks and pretty soon you have a healthy neural pathway growing and you start acting on it.

The rest happens because you do stuff. Since your attitude is good about it from all the unconscious growth around the idea, you naturally attract those who respond to similar nonverbal cues like body language, inflection patterns, and so on.

This is a long subject, but I hope I have opened a door for you to a new way of thinking about it.

I think affirmations rock.

Michael

[Southern Capitalist]

I have just noticed most self improvement books always covers Affirmations and auto suggestion and it seems to work for those who keep at it and turns these techniques into habits. I've read all of Napoleon Hills work (enjoy it) but loses me on the whole infinite intelligence part. He does say that it is a practical science using brain waves and using the brain as a receiver for ideas.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

SC,

One of my favorite Napoleon Hill techniques is his imaginary mastermind group. He put Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie and God knows who else in his. He had them all sit around a table. He would present his idea and problem to them, then have each of them speak to him about it.

I have done real-life masterminds and they absolutely rock. They need strict rules, though, or they go off course. I haven't done the imaginary one yet because I'm afraid of who I will put at the table.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

If you are a short man and keep telling yourself you are tall, your BS meter might keep the neural pathway from getting thick

I was in a Safeway checkout line one day, looked up and said to Pete Coors, who was standing behind me: "I always wanted to be taller."

The chairman of MillerCoors replied from his lofty 6' 6": "Not much you can do about that."

Reminds me of Kareem Abdul Jabbar in a head shop in 1968. He had to bend down almost in half to enter the back room.

We are what we are.