Using affirmations is a great way to boost your moral, help you to become more positive and change how you view yourself and your life. However all over the Internet you can see many instances of people stating that affirmations do not work. But is this really true? Are affirmations useless?

It is possible that many people do not experience any positive results when using affirmations because they really do not understand what affirmations are, when to use them and most importantly how to use them. There is definitely a specific way to get the most out of affirmations and it is also extremely important to learn how to write your own powerful affirmations instead of just using ones you see online or in a book.

When you write your own affirmations they become much more personal and therefore much more effective. Affirmations should invoke strong emotions within you. They should get you excited, make you happy, and make you smile, bring on a warm fuzzy feeling inside or bring out some other strong positive emotion. But many people find affirmations useless because they are using words written by someone else and the words simply do not ring true for them.

If you have used affirmations and thought that they did not work here are some suggestions that will help you to get the results that you are looking for: -

First, if you must use affirmations written by someone else, use them as a guideline only.

Second, write your own affirmations and then focus on how they make you feel when you say the words. If they do not bring out any positive feelings then they are not powerful enough and you should look at changing around one or two words and see if that invokes any good feelings. If your affirmation brings out negative emotions then you need to start over, look at making the affirmation less general.

Third, be specific in your wording; try to get to the heart of your challenge instead of skirting around the outside. For instance if you were to say, "I am confident and happy" this may immediately bring up negative mind chatter and you may hear that little voice inside of your head saying "that’s not true you are not confident and you are unhappy". So instead, make the affirmation more true to your circumstances. If you know you have trouble being confident in certain situations, you could use an affirmation like "I am learning to be more confident" or "little by little I am increasing my happiness". You will find less resistance to these words and as your confidence grows you can then move onto making your affirmations even more positive by removing words like "learning to" and "becoming more".

Fourth, be clear about what you are using the affirmation for. There is no sense in using an affirmation to boost your moral when really you are struggling with your self-esteem. Be clear and be specific about what you want to change and why. This will help you to write more specific focus and powerful affirmations.

By simply following these four simple steps you will be well on your way to writing life-changing affirmations and set yourself on a path to lasting happiness and success.