By Damien Rider
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. – Thomas Edison
Though Thomas Edison’s quote is true, my thought process of a positive affirmations shares the learning slightly differently. The quote, therefore, would read, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to do it one more time”
Before he invented the light bulb, Thomas Edison made over 1,000 attempts at his desired result. Each time, Edison told himself that he actually discovered another way not to make a lightbulb. Today we know him as a famous historical figure and successful businessman. He’s taught about in school and we’d never call him a failure, even though he had more documented unsuccessful attempts than most of us can imagine. We know him for continuing to do what he believed in until he reached his desired, successful outcome.
“Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or you stay afraid of taking them.” – Jim Carrey
As a child, Jim Carrey grew up living in a Volkswagen van. He spent his formative years living in poverty but always dreamed of being successful… As a young aspiring, but broke comic on his path to make it in Los Angeles, he wrote himself a check for an astounding $10,000,000 and put “for acting services rendered” in the memo line, dating it 5 years into the future. In 1995, he made $20,000,000 from his roles in Liar, Liar, Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, and The Mask. Carrey is a household name who teaches us relentless optimism.
“Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.” – Sarah Blakely
Growing up, Sarah Blakely’s father would sit his family around the dinner table and ask them all, “how did you fail this week?” and made a family tradition out of having the courage to keep going again and again. After college, Blakely was unsuccessful at the LSAT exam to get into law school twice. She then sold fax machines door-to-door for 7 years, surely a mundane and draining job, before becoming a living room entrepreneur. While getting ready for a party, she realized she didn’t have the right kind of underwear to flatter her outfit, so she made her own by cutting the feet off control top pantyhose. In 2012, she became the world’s youngest self- made female billionaire and owns a company that needs no introduction, Spanx, because of her resourceful invention and determined attitude.
Each of these wildly successful people had to be resilient to enormous amounts of stress and difficulty. They are also all boldly and bravely reassured themselves and chose to affirm their future success, even when their current situation looked dim.
Positive affirmations are a popular topic, but in this lesson, we’re going to take the mysticism out of them. There’s no magic about them– only practical application. Together, we’re going to learn about a sustainable results approach to positive affirmations and how to use them in your life in easy, authentic, yet powerful ways.
“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent van Gogh
The Approach to Sustainable Results Affirmations
This Approach to positive affirmations is less about having certain quotes you repeat a certain number of times, or quotes read on social media or in self-help books. These are borrowed words from someone else’s breath connection. Because we don’t have a strong ownership to these words, only a short term, relatable feeling of instant gratification is achieved. The positive feeling from these borrowed affirmations is short lived. This perspective is more about how you talk to yourself and how you put your beliefs into action through the deep, intuitive breath connection to the words and thoughts owned by you. — just like the success stories previously mentioned.
You’ve been practicing breathwork, mindfulness and mind- lessness throughout this level, so you’re already becoming more self-aware. Now it’s time to apply that knowledge and experience to your internal dialogue and positively affirm your beliefs, abilities, worth, and the goals you’re working on. Replace the inner critic of unproductive, purposeless and self- doubt with undeniable, clear results driven words and action plan:
Step One: Take Small Steps Towards A Great Mission
The perfect place to begin is by identifying a higher purpose and mission for your life. This needs to be a goal that is so important and transformative, it will not only take years to achieve, but it’s also something you can constantly keep working towards. An infinite goal projects an infinite life ahead, giving you a forever-forward purposed projection.
Everyone has a life mission– there is a purpose for your being born, being placed on this Earth, and it’s a purpose greater than just yourself. You don’t have to be a prodigy, be rich, be problem-free, have overcome major adversity or have an extraordinary talent to have a life mission. This is just something that is based on the belief that you’re here to serve and support that greater mission in some way. Your infinite goal may be to change the world in a positive manner. Many people share this goal and if your purpose aligns with the activities, daily tasks, career, subconscious thoughts, and how you choose to live, we are all contributing to that greater goal. It’s who you are without thought that works towards the infinite goal.
By looking through the lens of changing the world you can do many things, like utilizing these lessons in this book to empower people around the world, complete world-record athletic events to raise awareness about child abuse, train people one-on-one, and the list goes on… One after the other, you have a mission that will take a lifetime, never get boring, and will continue to carry deep forward thinking meaning in your life.
Each person’s mission can be completely different to one another. Some people may align with your purpose for a time to be able to learn from one another while you cross paths. Some powerful examples are to spread love, to promote human rights, to empower others, to unlock creativity everywhere, to help your community become healthier, or to promote freedom for all.
No matter what you choose, make sure it is personally meaningful and encompasses many different steps and keep your morals, intention and purpose in check and hold yourself to a high standard.
Once you identify your mission, write down several milestones that contribute to your greater purpose. Have some targets that are long-term, but make sure you have a few short-term marks as well, keep yourself accountable and begin to be consciously aware of your measurable results. Choose one that you can begin working on immediately, and without putting it off, just get started without over thinking it. Go for it now and see what happens!
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie
Step Two: Process & Appreciate Your Experience
Each one of us has an uncountable list of accomplishments, life experiences, and lessons we’ve already learned and acquired. Whether you’ve never won an award or have a wall full of plaques in your office, you have lived through enough to have stories to tell, and you’ve gained enough information from those experiences to know certain things that many others have yet to learn. Whether you’ve lived through abuse, war, domestic violence, a car accident, loss of a family member, or something else entirely, you’re a survivor. You have collected an abundance of skills and tools to strengthen you and build your resilience.
Take the time to think about what you’ve achieved and overcome. Give yourself praise and gratitude for your accomplishments. Whether you write down a list you can often read, talk to trusted friend about this, or think about it while you practice your breathwork. Ignite a sense of pride and deep gratitude for yourself.
Think about moments where you’ve been truly happy and immerse yourself in looking for the positive experiences in your life, rather than written words from another person’s experiences. Psychology says that we experience something called Observational Selection Bias, which is when we think about something and suddenly start seeing that object everywhere– this is why after you buy a car, you start seeing it everywhere, or you keep looking at the clock every day around the same time and thinking of synchronicities. We also have Confirmation Bias, or the idea that what we see, hear, and experience will most often confirm what we already believe.
Adversity, tests and challenges we face daily and throughout our lives have only a few variables to what tools we have or will learn, and how we will be able to keep moving forward. We all have the tools to be able to overcome and get past any challenge, without the overwhelming feeling of it being a new experience that we don’t know if we will get past. We’ve already done it, but didn’t take the time to stop and process the tools learnt to know which to use next time intuitively.
We can use psychology to our advantage by tuning in to our most positive thought patterns, eliminating words like “can’t,” “try,” “fail”, “impossible,” and other negative, self-defeating language, and letting all the good we’ve already done be proof that we’ll continue to succeed.
Moving forward, your inner dialogue will now recognize the words “can”, “do”, “learn,” and “possible” instead. For example, if the worst possible outcome in a situation is we learn from it, then we immediately remove the negative thoughts and self- doubtful walls in front of us. Instead of approaching a situation in fear, we now change the narrative to the excitement of discovery.
Step Three: Look at What You Have To Gain
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
As you looked back at your accomplishments, you probably noticed all the good that came out of difficult situations. Life is not always easy, but in every non-lethal situation, your worst- case scenario is a learning opportunity full of valuable information and experiences.
As you begin to work towards your goal, remind yourself that each step, each action, and conversation are all happening for you– not to you. Just like Thomas Edison, maybe you’ll learn many ways to not achieve your goal. Instead of giving up, though, you’ll become wiser, stronger, and have more information than you previously did, as well as more knowledge than everyone else in your field, who did give up. By stopping to process all you have learned from each experience, your self-confidence will grow. You will be able to maneuver new similar situations that arise in life quickly and confidently using the tools you have learned along the way. Your major challenges will become interesting life lessons, and your minor challenges will become your regular job tasks or nonexistent.
You have so many victories and success stories ahead of you. Some will be harder won than others, but if you continue to focus on the reward in all situations, you’ll become unstoppable in your mental resilience.
Putting These Steps Together
These three steps are not final, but cyclical. You can constantly apply them, one leading intuitively into another. Know your mission and break down your goals. Review your experiences and celebrate your accomplishments so far. Look at what you have to gain and make the most of every opportunity.
Combining this process with your breathwork for just a few minutes every day will help you feel mentally and physically aligned with these three steps, until your subconscious actions and reactions naturally tap into this calming, productive way of thinking. It’s far more effective and long-lasting than simply reciting inspirational quotes. Your mindset will improve and become aligned with the results you’re seeking. You will have a breath connection to your own positive experiences, thoughts and words.
Take a moment daily to share with yourself, to the space around you or to someone else something you are proud of, something you are grateful for, something you have achieved, and something you will achieve. Connect with your breath and write down your own positive affirmations to become more confident in yourself moving forward without the fear of needing someone to get you there.
