Day 11 - AFFIRMATION

Affirmations can be used to strengthen faith and achieve your vision.

“Affirmations are like prescriptions for certain aspects of yourself you want to change.” - Jerry Frankhauser

Words can be powerful tools. This has been recognized and repeated throughout history.

Dr. Peale tells it this way in his book:

“The words we speak have a direct and definite effect upon our thoughts. Thoughts create words, for words are the vehicles of ideas. But words also effect thoughts and help to condition if not to create attitudes. In fact, what often passes for thinking starts with talk. Therefore if the average conversation is scrutinized and disciplined to be sure that it contains peaceful expressions, the result will be peaceful ideas and ultimately, therefore, a peaceful mind.”

Affirmations are short-hand statements of your vision. They contain the key point or points that remind you of your whole mental picture you are striving to achieve. These have been given some rough treatment lately, as we went over in Day 7, some have been trying to sing the words without knowing the tune. People can't just idly say they are rich, famous or “improving day after day in every way” unless they have a specific vision, faith and action to back it up. As well, affirmations seem to fail because they are too general. If you are going to keep an appointment at 3:00pm, then you know where and when you have to be there. People tend to use affirmations to each other daily, even as simple as, the office assistant telling you, “You've got a 3 o'clock meeting today,” or your spouse reminding you to bring a pound of hamburger back on your way home.

Affirmations can be far more powerful than the shopping list, though. If you plan out exactly what you have to do to get your vision accomplished, having a short version of that vision can jump-start your attitude at the beginning of the day and keep it in front of you the whole day. This is Napoleon Hill's advice to write that statement out and read it to yourself at least two times a day. But note how he said to do it: “AS YOU READ – SEE AND FEEL AND BELIEVE YOURSELF AS ALREADY IN POSSESSION OF THE MONEY.”

That is the key point. Unless you commit something to that piece of paper, it will be like all the old newspapers that are swept up in cities across this planet each night by sanitation departments and janitors, only to be dumped in refuse bins. These papers have many more words printed on them, far more artfully and professionally than your little piece of paper. Yet they achieve nothing in and of themselves. Take out a business card. It, too, has words on it. Does it do anything? If you lost it today, would it matter – just get another, eh? But that business card could be read as an affirmation of your current job, something that you are actively creating and achieving. Read with feeling, and belief, you can get quite a surge if you do it in a positive attitude.

Affirmations are a short-hand statement of your vision. Your vision is nothing but a daydream unless you are willing to go full-tilt at it, “firing on all eight cylinders” and ready to set the world on fire to get it. That is the power behind those words. That is all the power behind these words. Just what you put into them, nothing more.

Hill sold over 7 million copies of his book and put this above datum in the second chapter of his book, repeating it several times throughout. He considered it that vital.

Haanel covered it this way:

“Words are thoughts and are therefore an invisible and invincible power which will finally objectify themselves in the form they are given.

“Words may become mental places what will live forever, of they may become shacks which the first breeze will carry away. They may delight the eye as well as the ear, they may contain all knowledge; in them we find the history of the past as well as the hope of the future; they are living messengers from which every human and superhuman activity is born.

“The beauty of the word consists in the beauty of the thought; the power of the word consists in the power of the thought, and the power of the thought consists in its vitality.”

Dr. Covey has more insight into this matter:

“In effective personal leadership, visualization and affirmation techniques emerge naturally out of a foundation of well thought through purposes and principles that become the center of a person's life. They are extremely powerful in rescripting and reprogramming, into writing deeply committed-to purposes and principles into one's heart and mind.”

Not all of our self-help authors required affirmations as part of achieving self-improvement. I include it here as an explanation and additional tool which can help you achieve your own improvement in your own life.

Day 11 Exercise:

Try this –

While Napoleon Hill's book and principles are devoted to achieving prosperity, these can readily be converted to improving any area of your life:

“First. Go into some quiet spot (preferably in bed at night) where you will not be disturbed or interrupted, close your eyes, and repeat aloud, (so you may hear your own words) the written statement of the amount of money you intend to accumulate, the time limit for its accumulation, and a description of the service or merchandise you intend to give in return for the money. As you carry out these instructions, SEE YOURSELF ALREADY IN POSSESSION OF THE MONEY.

“Second. Repeat this program night and morning until you can see, (in your imagination) the money you intend to accumulate.

“Third. Place a written copy of your statement where you can see it night and morning, and read it just before retiring, and upon arising until it has been memorized.”