Positive Affirmations – Do They Actually Work?

How many times have you said something to yourself over and over again, only to find it actually happening later?

“I’m not going to be able to do it; I’ve tried before and it didn’t work, why would it this time?”.
“I’m going to fail. I’m just not good enough for this position”.

Call it imagination, law of attraction, or mental attitude. Sometimes we harness the power of imagination in our favour, while other times we just create obstacles.

Sometimes we harness the power of imagination in our favour, while other times we just create obstacles.

One of the people who dedicated his life to imagination and its power was Emile Coue, a French pharmacist and psychologist. While working as an apothecary between 1882 and 1910, Coue discovered that when he offered encouraging words and phrases to his customers, the effects of the medicines he handed out were much better, thus exposing the Placebo Effect to the public.

Coue moved to Nancy, France, where he established a clinic devoted to the investigation of the mind’s power and to the treatment of people using his self-developed method of positive affirmations, known as autosuggestions. Coue claimed that by repeating the phrase “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better” 20 times before falling asleep, 20 times upon waking up and as much as possible during the day, his patients were actually getting better. According to Coue, by repeating this phrase, the imagination bypasses the will and allows our subconscious to implement this powerful phrase into our daily lives, making it a reality and not just a collection of nice words.

Autosuggestions gain their power due to the fact that they focus only on improvement and healing. When a person turns his or her attention towards the solution to the problem, he or she allows the imagination to come up with new methods to deal with old ailments.

When a person turns his or her attention towards the solution to the problem, he or she allows the imagination to come up with new methods to deal with old ailments.

Autosuggestions, or positive affirmations, have become very popular recently specially thanks to the virality generated through social media. But what we seem to have forgotten from Coue’s conclusion is that we cannot make the mind believe something that it doesn’t. There is no use and there will be no result in repeating “I’m good enough; I’ll be be able to do it” if we still think that we aren’t and that we won’t.

This works the same as the placebo effect, which is based on the person’s expectations and has been used to prove the mind-body connection. A placebo is anything that seems to be a “real” medical treatment but isn’t – and the person doesn’t know it. Yet if a person expects the treatment to work, then it is possible that the body can cause effects similar to what the real medication might have caused.

What we are saying here is that in order to provoke lasting change, you have to believe what you are telling yourself – and that’s probably the main difference between the placebo effect and positive affirmations. Only if you repeat statements you believe are true or can be true may your situation change according to what you are repeating to yourself.

As Sophie Henshaw, DPsych says: “If you deeply believe and feel that you are ugly and worthless, it will set off an inner war. With each positive declaration, your unconscious will cry out, “it’s not true, it’s not true!””

To avoid this, you need to create honest and real statements that you can believe in. For example:

“I know that I may not have all the qualifications I would like to for this new job, but I am confident that my experience, curiosity and eagerness to learn will actually be more important that any official degree.”

The popular saying that we are what we think is true, and the words we use to speak to ourselves have the power to transform us, either positively or negatively. As we mentioned in a recent post about how simple words can change your life, we need to be careful with the our words and choose to speak only those which work towards our benefit. Be polite to yourself, speak positively, and work hard to be the energy you want to attract.

What about you? Have you tried positive affirmations? Have they worked for you?