You’ve probably seen affirmations in books, or online and perhaps even tried repeating them for a few days without seeing much in the way of improvements in your life. Wouldn’t it be great if you could experience more positive personal changes from affirmations?

Making affirmations work for you starts with a clear understanding of what they are:

An affirmation is a positive statement written as if you are saying it and addresses a personal characteristic you may have, wish to have, or want more of. Many affirmations also include content that prompts your mind to ponder the characteristic of self-reflection.

This process will help you experience the most significant benefits from reading affirmations:

1. Make an effort to clear your mind before reading an affirmation. Ensure you have enough time, like 15 minutes, to read, process, and reflect on the affirmation. Then, read through the affirmation.
2. Are you familiar with all the words used in the affirmation? If not, look up any questionable words. Think about how these words relate to the topic.
3. Re-state the affirmation in your own words. This step increases your understanding and retention of the content as your mind mulls over the concepts.

• You could say, “I think this affirmation describes the best ways to talk about your feelings with another person. It focuses on being honest and not being afraid to share how you feel.”

4. Endeavor to apply the affirmation to yourself. Do you behave, think, or feel as the affirmation suggests?

• If you identify that you already handle the subject matter portrayed in the affirmation, then the affirmation confirms this quality in your mind and helps boost your self-confidence.
• If you believe you respond less than positively to the situations described, what can you learn from the affirmation?
• Reflect on the positive methods in the affirmation to help develop those methods in your own life. Strive to apply the information in similar situations in the future.

5. Recognize that an essential function of an affirmation is to encourage you to look within yourself. Effective affirmations usually state that you’re skilled at something or can emotionally deal with situations healthily.
6. Achieve self-improvement with affirmations. For people like you, who seek to live the most fulfilling life possible, affirmations can provide an endless array of self-improvement topics upon which you can reflect.

• Affirmations confirm your great qualities and help you develop and strengthen the characteristics you want to add to your repertoire.
• The combination of self-reflection and repetition enables the affirmation to reach your subconscious mind and changes your beliefs and actions, one thought at a time.

7. Discover new and exciting qualities about yourself. Because life is often a rocky pathway, engaging in ongoing self-discovery can help you better navigate the bumpy parts of your journey by figuring out things about your personal qualities and ways of relating.

When you use these strategies, you’ll not only discover new knowledge while reading affirmations but also learn to apply the new information in your own life in ways that strengthen and benefit you.