Daily affirmation posts on Instagram and TikTok are all the rage. And like many, you’ve probably even tried repeating them for a few days without seeing much improvement 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 were 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 in self-reflection.

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

1. Make an effort to clear your mind before reading an affirmation. Ensure you have enough time, like 15 minutes or so, 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. Describe 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, “For me, 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 really feel.”

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

   • If you already believe the values portrayed in the affirmation, then the affirmation confirms this quality in your mind and helps boost your self-confidence.

   • If you find it hard to believe and respond in less than positive ways to the situations described, ask yourself, “what can you learn from the affirmation?”

     • Ask yourself: What is keeping you from relating to the affirmation? What life event or story is making the affirmation unrealistic for you? What would you need to say instead to turn this affirmation around?

   • 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 important function of an affirmation is encouraging you to look within yourself. Effective affirmations usually state you’re skilled at something or can emotionally deal with situations in healthy ways.

6. Achieve self-improvement with affirmations. For people like you, who seek to live the most fulfilling life possible, affirmations can provide endless self-improvement topics upon which you can reflect.

   • Affirmations confirm your positive 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 change 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 life in ways that strengthen and benefit you.

Check out this Facebook Live replay to hear examples of powerful affirmations that work quickly.