Loving Yourself First

What’s up with those daily affirmations, anyway?

Now is my time to thrive.

I radiate positive energy and light wherever I go.

My potential to succeed is infinite.

I can achieve anything I set my mind to.

Read these. Say them out load. Write them down if you feel so inclined. How do you feel?

Kind of silly? That’s okay, that’s how I started out, too. But keep at it, and I promise it makes a difference.

Valentine’s Day may be over, but loving yourself isn’t limited to a single holiday, it’s a perpetual journey for a lot of us. Especially in this age of instantly accessible digital media where it is so easy to compare yourself to the perfect versions of others that fill our Instagram and TikTok feeds.

One of the reasons that the advice to “think more positive” is both excellent and borderline useless is that while it works, it doesn’t work by flipping some magic switch in our minds. Like most of the concepts that I’ve learned through several rounds of cognitive behavioral therapy, there is no power in trying to make immediate, monumental change. Nothing happens overnight, but lasting change can be accomplished through small, incremental practices.

I talk about this a lot when I talk about building habits. The classic example is exercise, right? You want to get in shape and run a marathon. If the first thing you do is get off your couch and try to run that full 26.2 miles, you’re probably going to fall short of your goal and feel a little defeated, maybe give up entirely. But if instead you start with a goal of 1 mile and do that every day for 20 days, eventually you’re going to build up the endurance to run 2 miles in one go, and then 3, and 6, and 13, and 26.

Self confidence is built in the same way. If you are struggling with self-image and confidence, the same rules of building positive habits and neural pathways applies: start small, and be specific. You don’t have to jump directly to “I am beautiful and powerful,” if those abstract and subjective comments don’t mean anything to you yet. But if you give yourself a small, daily practice — no matter how silly or uncomfortable you might feel at first — this is a mental muscle you can learn to build a flex. Start with simple, observable things that are important to you. “I like my green eyes,” or “I’m proud of myself for washing the dishes.”

There are two tricks I’ve learned when it comes to affirmations and maintaining a positive outlook. One: Identify when you are most receptive to taking in this kind of mood. For me, that’s first thing in the morning. I use my journaling time as a way to set myself up for a good day. But for several of my friends, that’s in the evening, as a way to reset anything negative that’s happened during the course of the day before they take that to sleep.

Two: Tone is harder to convey when you write. If I’m already in a bad way, speaking an affirmation aloud can come off sarcastic or even feel like I’m mocking myself. Putting pen to paper removes that barrier. If you aren’t a journaler, maybe that looks like a post it note, or scribbling over that junk mail before you toss it into recycling. You don’t need to keep your affirmations after you write them down for them to be effective; it’s the act of writing, of internalizing the message of the affirmation, that will make a difference over time.

To that end, I have one additional tip to offer. Back when I was in high school and writing college application essays, I mentioned to a teacher that I had difficulty with what felt like bragging about myself. Thank goodness it was my creative writing teacher, because she didn’t even hesitate, she told me that I should try writing the essays in the third person, treating myself like a character in a story, and then changing them back to first person after I’d finished. You can use the same “fictionalizing” advice here. When you go to write down your affirmation, turn it into a piece of dialogue by adding your qualifier: softly, gently, firmly, with determination.

The affirmations I get are from the Silk+Sonder companion app. I especially like their streak tracking features, and the library of completed prompts that it builds for you so you can go back and revisit what’s really spoken to you in the past. Searching ‘affirmations’ in your App Store of choice will also provide you a selection of similar services; I Am comes recommended by some other friends in my #plannerlife circle. If you prefer your journaling practice to be tech-free, you can also find books of affirmations to speak or copy down.

Another less conventional method — one which I actually started with, before I was at a point where I could regularly take in those first-person “I am / I can” type affirmations seriously — is to turn to your favorite book or movie and use those quotations. I’m especially fond of Tolkien, as I find a lot of meaning in the professor’s use of language. One personal favorite for bad days?

So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.

And of course the classic:

There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

It’s worth fighting for.

You are worth fighting for.

I am worth fighting for.

See how that can build up? Try the affirmations again. Do you feel a little less silly speaking them now? Good.

Happy journaling—