To be effective, affirmations must be written correctly.
You can use our free affirmation creator to create your affirmations. Even if you have already written your affirmations, use it to ensure that they were written correctly.
The most effective affirmations recognize your unique good qualities and your actual achievements and accomplishments. You might not even be aware of them at the moment.
We offer a free printable affirmation journal that will help you review your life and recognize the things you have achieved and the things you should be proud of.
Download the affirmation journal before you continue.
The affirmation journal will ask you many different questions about yourself, your qualities, your achievements, etc. Write down whatever comes to mind. Use the journal prompts to brainstorm about your qualities, traits, and achievements.
You will then take that material and use it to create affirmations.
On the left side of each spread is an example affirmation related to the journal prompt. You can use that example as a basis for your affirmation. If it resonates with you, then use it as-is. If not, personalize it and customize it so that it feels right for you.
In the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey explains that a good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it’s personal, it’s positive, it’s present tense, it’s visual, and it’s emotional.
An affirmation example could be: “I am exciting (emotional) that I (personal) am getting (present tense) a great job offer (positive) very soon”
Start writing your affirmations
Writing affirmations is easy if you follow the following tips. You can also use our free affirmation creator to create your affirmations or to check if they were written correctly.
Affirmations must always be positive
Affirmations must always be written in a positive manner. Never use negative phrasing in affirmations. Never say “don’t” or “can’t”. Affirmation words are always positive and reassuring.
Don’t make them too extreme and far fetched
You want your affirmations to be positive but you don’t want them to be totally unbelievable. You want to say that you are great but not perfect. Nobody is perfect and you don’t want to use affirmations that are too bombastic and unbelievable. The affirmation has to be meaningful to you else it will not create the positive feelings you need to generate for it to be effective. It should be realistic and achievable.
Affirmations should be based on real traits
The idea is to focus on the positive traits that you have not recognized in the past. Everyone has good traits, but we don’t always focus on them. Recognize your good traits, attributes, qualities, and accomplishments. The idea behind positive sayings is not to invent traits that you don’t have but to rather focus on traits that you never gave yourself credit for in the past. Therefore, before you write your positive mantras, you have to spend time analyzing your personality and your traits. Our affirmation journal will help you do that. It will help you find your good qualities and things you should love about yourself.
Don’t be modest
We are all taught to be modest as kids. Our parents taught us not to brag or be egotistical. As a result, we might feel uncomfortable reciting positive mantras that focus on how great we are. Don’t! This is between you and yourself and you have every right to feel great and to let yourself know just how great you are!
Make affirmations specific
Don’t use general positive statements. Instead add detail to highlight your achievements, identify your abilities and give yourself credit for things you do. For example, don’t say “I have a job”. Instead, say, “I have a successful career as a teacher and I am professional and hardworking and I do my job well.
Don’t just read general affirmations from the internet. You can use them as a base to create your own personalized affirmations but take the time to customize them. All our affirmation quotes are customizable. You can also customize the positive affirmation cards before you print them.
Affirmations are written in the first person
Write “I”.
Make them in the present tense
Don’t mention things you will do or be in the future, but phrase them to be in the present.
Create one or more affirmations to reprogram negative self-talk
There will be times when you find yourself engrossed in negative self-talk or you put yourself down for something specific. For times like these, have some ready-written positive affirmations to offset the damage your negative self-talk does to your self-image and to your confidence.
Don’t give up and be consistent
You need to recite affirmations for long enough for them to reprogram your mind. Don’t give up too soon. It takes time and you need to be consistent.