When It Rains, It Pours
Isn’t that how the idiom goes? Do you ever notice that things often pile on you when you are going through rough times in your life? Perhaps you have a conflict with a coworker, and while that is going on, you find out your child is struggling with their grades. The dog gets sick, and so on and so on. It can sometimes be overwhelming. How do you begin to manage what seems like another crisis when you can barely navigate the one that consumes you at the moment? Well, I don’t know that there is a quick fix, but you can try to pull your wits somehow together and push through it. However you choose to get through a crisis, it will be easier if you are mentally strong, which means doing daily practices to improve your well-being. It’s time to dust off that pen, paper and write some affirmations. Your words mean everything.
Life is Like That
I remember a church I once attended in my old town. It was a non-denomination church that we joined shortly after visiting because we liked the people and liked the energy. It was a great place, and we remained there for quite some time. However, I probably can’t tell you many sermons that the pastor talked about when we were there. I just enjoyed the music and the fellowship. However, in this one sermon in which he spoke about a crisis, he mentioned that we are either about to have a situation, are in the middle of one, or leaving one. I have not forgotten that message, and how true it is, that concept. We are either about to go through something, we are in the middle of something, or we are coming out of something. Read that again. Absorb it. Life is like that. We are not immune from it and I write this, I am exciting what I thought was a crisis.
In a beautiful world, of course, none of that would exist. Everything would maybe be perfect but then again. It wouldn’t. There would be no lessons learned, no pain, no crisis, and no victory. Unfortunately, we need problems, situations, experiences, and crises to have lessons learned, growth, and wins.
No Tinker Bell Shows Up, Sadly
So when I find myself in times of what I feel like are crises, I rely on the tools that help me navigate. It doesn’t mean the problems all go away with a brush of a magical wand. No Tinker Bell shows up, sadly. It means that I use what works to help lessen the pain, frustration, anger, and emotions consuming me. It’s not a fix-all because we know our well-being comes from many things. We have to be proactive on ourselves daily, and the more equipped we are, the better we become at making decisions, trusting gut intuition, and navigating scary situations. One of those tools that I often talk about is affirmations.
I was reminded recently of how powerful affirmations can be. My friend and inspiration, Trenell Walker, was a guest on my podcast, Starter Girlz, recently, and during his interview, he talked about the Trenell Effect. He uses an acronym to share with his audience about the seven principles for perseverance, and one of those letters is “E” for encouragement. Trenell discussed how vital it is to encourage ourselves because we have to be the most important person and our self-talk helps us persevere. He talked about getting in front of the mirror and talking positively to himself. You see, Trenell is paralyzed from the neck down. If you want to find out what that dialogue looks like, I encourage you to check out his book “The Trenell Effect.” He is truly an inspiration.
We Are Here
Encouraging ourselves through affirmations can be powerful. I describe affirmations as vitamins for our minds. We take vitamins to keep our bodies healthy, and we use affirmations to keep our minds healthy. Why are these so important? I describe it like this. Each morning when we wake up, we start at zero on the well-being scale, dependent on what is presently occurring in our lives. Let’s say, for now, we are starting at zero. It doesn’t mean we are sad or happy. I describe it as we are here. We are not negatively or positively affected. So by doing affirmations, we make deposits into our emotional state of well-being, giving us a five or ten-point advantage. Now we are moving upward in the positive mindset direction and improving our emotional state in the process.
Conversely, if we do nothing to improve our mindset and well-being, we remain at zero. As the day goes on and life begins to come at us, we have withdrawals taken from us, putting us in a deficit. Those withdrawals are all the negative experiences that deplete us and emotionally affect us. If you are improving your mindset, it is much more difficult to be affected by negative occurrences. And if you are not improving your well-being, you are setting yourself up for a sizeable emotional rollercoaster. Hence the words you choose to use to talk to yourself are essential, and affirmations are helpful.
Here Are a Few Tips for Creating Powerful Affirmations
1.) Keep the affirmations in the present tense.
Statements like “I am an influential communicator” are good examples. Hence the word “am” is present tense. You want to believe you are living this life already.
2. Start your statements with “I am.”
There is something powerful about declaring your position on a matter. You own your statement, and the conviction in that will make it much more believable.
3.) Ask yourself if nothing was holding you back; what does your future look like for you?
From there, craft your statements. In other words, you want to bring the future back to the present tense. If you see yourself as an author and tell yourself you are an author, you will naturally start behaving like an author.
4.) Put the affirmations somewhere where you will see them and recite them. The critical key here is to do it daily. You want to get it in your head, memorize them and believe them. They do no good if you just have written them down but never look at them.
In your daily practice of using affirmations, you will begin to create a healthy habit and eventually change the way you think. Now, of course, you have more work, but this is a start. You improve your mindset, well-being, and emotional intelligence, which makes navigating crises much easier. Why? Because you are focused on your vision, it becomes challenging to obsess over negativity. It doesn’t mean you never have a crisis, but it sure makes going through it a heck of a lot easier, and when you know you can rely on your tools, you always know what to do. If you want some more help crafting a fantastic affirmation, check out this article that I often refer to How to Write Affirmations That Really Work! and be sure you read my blog when “When An Affirmation Comes True.”
Are you ready to get started? Are you ready to improve your well-being? Let’s dust off that pen, paper and get writing.
Your words mean everything!
Cheers!
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