POSITIVE ADDICTION #5: RELENTLESS AFFIRMATION AND VISUALIZATION

Positive affirmations are used to bring positive change to your thinking. The idea is to change your subconscious thought patterns from negative to positive. This is accomplished by repeating positive self-statements out loud, as if they are factual and have already happened.

If repeated daily and with passion and conviction, it is believed that positive affirmations can alter your thought patterns and belief in yourself and your ability to achieve success. The key is that you start to believe deep down in your subconscious that these statements are true, thereby changing how you feel about yourself and how you see yourself. Suddenly you walk with more confidence, you feel great when you wake up, you believe it’s not only possible to live the life of your dreams, in your mind it has already happened.

The power of affirmations begins with believing. If you believe, all things are possible. Therefore the biggest obstacle you need to overcome is yourself. To overcome the negative conditioning most of us have developed over the years, we must first get rid of all the negative self-talk.

As the international best-selling book The Secret pointed out, an affirmation needs to be said out loud in the past tense as if it has already happened. If you do this regularly, you can convince your own subconscious to accept the affirmation as true and to block out the doubt and negativity.

Again, this is confirmed by scientific studies.1 Research from a team led by Carnegie Mellon University’s David Creswell found that college students can boost their ability to solve problems under pressure and boost academic grade point averages by using self-affirmation.²

Scientific research supports the importance of positive self-talk. The psychologist Martin Seligman studied insurance agents at MetLife and found that optimistic salespeople outsold their pessimistic peers by an average of 37 percent. When these salespeople were turned down by clients, they reacted differently. The ones who thought of themselves in the most positive light didn’t sit around and mope, instead they made more phone calls and never took it personally.³

“That all sounds reasonable,” you might say. “But give me specific examples on the right way to do affirmation, so I know how to do it.”

The following is the best advice I can give and a few examples that you can follow. It is important to remember that vague affirmations are useless. The more detailed, specific, and goal-oriented the affirmation, the more likely it is to be effective.

Here are four examples:

WEIGHT LOSS

The simple affirmation, “I will lose weight” is no good and not worth your time saying it. Why? First, it is not in the past tense. And second, it does not have any specific actions and reinforcements in it. Much better is the affirmation:

“I have been losing weight each and every day because I am eating a salad at lunch every day. It tastes great. I feel great.”

Now, repeat that—out loud—several times a day and you will soon find yourself eating a healthy, great-tasting salad for lunch, losing weight, and feeling great.

MAKING MONEY

The affirmation “I will make $1,000,000 this year” will not get you far. Why? Again, it is not in the past tense and lacks specifics. Much better is the affirmation:

“I made $1,000,000 this year by selling my unique software to Apple.”

Now, repeat that—out loud–several times a day. It will keep you focused, and you may just make it come true—assuming you have software to sell Apple. Obviously fill in those same spaces with whatever your product or talent is . . . and the company you want to sell it to.

PROFESSIONAL GOAL

The affirmation “I will be the #1 salesman at my firm this year” will not take you far. Again, for the same reasons—it’s not in the past tense and lacks specifics. Much better is the affirmation:

“I became the #1 salesman at my firm because of my amazing follow-up skills. I followed up every call a hundred times to make the sale. I never accepted NO for an answer. No one can compete with me. I am a machine!”

THE POWER OF RELENTLESS

The affirmation “I will be a success because I will be relentless” does not make the grade. It’s not in the past tense and it’s not detailed or specific enough. Try this one:

“It’s been a great year because I am relentless, full of energy and enthusiasm, and have attracted many new clients. I have dramatically improved my income because I relentlessly applied Wayne Root’s Seven Principles of Relentless and Twelve Positive Addictions to my life every day, in every way.”

If you repeat that affirmation out loud several times a day your subconscious will soon ensure you act on it and you will be amazed at how quickly you can turn your dreams into reality.

Past tense. Specific. Detailed. Goal-oriented.

Now here’s my knock on affirmations.

Affirmations aren’t magic. I believe “God helps those who help themselves.” You have to put in the time to succeed. Words alone will never do the trick. Otherwise everyone would simply avoid hard work and talk or pray about success. If that was all that was needed, who would actually put in the effort?

Affirmations won’t work unless they are realistic. They won’t work unless they fit your purpose (passion) in life. They won’t work unless you are doing the homework. They won’t work unless you are taking action. They won’t work unless you have already harnessed the power of RELENTLESS.

The problem with affirmations is you can get the impression you can say, “I am the world’s greatest concert pianist” and it will happen. Well, it will . . . if you’re practicing on the piano eight to twelve hours per day . . . and if you have the finest piano teacher in the world who has a proven track record of coaching many students to the top of your profession . . . if you already have the talent . . . and if you’ve already won hundreds of piano competitions.

What I’m saying is, if you’re on your way to greatness, or already at a level that puts you in competition with the best pianists in the world, then affirmations or visualizations may very well be your “winning edge.” They might put you over the top.

But if you haven’t even taken a serious lesson yet, or you hate playing piano, or you have a third-rate teacher, or you refuse to practice even a few minutes per day . . . well, then all the affirmations in the world won’t help (even if they are in the past tense). Affirmations are activated and super-charged by action. Not just any action—although even a few steps in the right direction is always a great start. Then add in the power of RELENTLESS.

No one tells you this. This is the real world. It’s brutal. No amount of affirmations will give you an edge without motion, AGGRESSIVE ACTION, and a commitment to do the homework. If you’re not outworking and out-hustling your competition, you will fail (affirmations or not).

If you repeat affirmations out loud (in the past tense) designed to make you into the #1 racecar driver in Formula One or NASCAR, great! I love hunger, drive, and ambition. But affirmations will only work if you are already driving racecars and within striking distance of winning major races. Then affirmations or visualizations can provide the winning edge.

But if you’re riding a bike around town and have never driven a car, that affirmation is a waste of time. You have to be on the path . . . headed in the right direction . . . have the talent . . . have the passion . . . and be willing to do the homework. There are no shortcuts. But all things being equal, if you have the talent . . . have already put in a decade of hard work . . . and you’re right at the precipice of winning the Indy 500, then affirmations may very well put you over the top.

If you repeat affirmations out loud designed to make you into the CEO of the company you work for, great! I love hunger, drive, and ambition. But they’ll only work if you already have a college degree and MBA, you have put in fifteen years in executive management, your division led the company in sales, and you are already in contention for the CEO job.

But if you’re a janitor earning minimum wage, with no college degree, and don’t know a single soul in the executive management ranks, all the affirmations in the world won’t help you become CEO.

Affirmations do work. They can provide that slight edge you need to beat the competition. But they have to be applied correctly. Otherwise you are doomed to fail and then lose faith in affirmations—when it isn’t the affirmations that failed, it’s you.

If your heart isn’t in the goal, if you aren’t willing to do the homework, if you don’t already have the qualifications, if you aren’t willing to follow up your goals relentlessly . . . nothing can help you. Don’t blame the affirmations. The problem is you.

Affirmations work—if applied to the correct, reasonable, do-able goal . . . not to a pie-in-the-sky Pollyanna dream that is impossible to achieve, given your resume and experience. But I have seen affirmations inspire students of mine to go get the right education, experience, and resume. I’ve seen affirmations inspire people to achieve great things they always dreamed about. Affirmations are a winning edge. They are an important part of your “tool box.”

Still . . .

The hard and raw truth is you must put in the hard work and have the talent in the first place, plus a love and passion for what you’re doing, in order for affirmations to work their magic.

Visualization is an adjunct and extension to affirmation. “Seeing is believing.” Every great athlete uses visualization. Think of champion golfers Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Before they hit a great shot, they’ve been taught by swing coaches and sports psychologists to see it, feel it, taste it, and touch it. It must seem real . . . you must believe it . . . in order to achieve it. The same belief in success holds true for every great athlete-whether he’s hitting a homerun, swooshing a three-point jump shot, racing a Ferrari in Formula One, or racing in the hundred-yard dash at the Olympics.

Practice your Affirmations and Visualizations for five to ten minutes every day . . . to convince your own subconscious.

Does visualization work?

In 1979 my high school classmates were asked to include our favorite saying on our personal page in our high school graduation yearbook. My page says:

“Anything the mind can conceive, you can achieve.”

My belief in a positive and relentless mindset obviously started early.

My first fancy business brochure, created in 1985 said, “Meet the Next Jimmy The Greek.” Only four years later I would become Jimmy The Greek’s partner on national TV. What are the odds?

When I created that powerful video at a sports anchor desk and played the part of a TV sportscaster, I had never been a TV sportscaster one day in my life. But it led to interviews with CNN and Fox Television, then to my landing the job at Financial News Network (now CNBC) as a host of five shows.

My business card in late 1986 read:

Wayne Allyn Root

Author—Speaker—TV personality

When I created that business card, I was only three years out of college. I had never given a paid speech in my life, I had never written a book in my life (my first book deal would come three years later in 1989) . . . and I had never been on TV.

Today those titles accurately describe my life. Visualization clearly helped to turn my dream into a reality. I had to see my future clearly on that business card in order to make it happen.

Many of the successes in my life came directly from my “future vision.” In a 1997 radio interview on the Connecting Point radio show in Los Angeles, I talked about my then five-year old daughter Dakota going to Stanford or Harvard in thirteen years.4

I continued to talk about it and write about it in several of my books. In 2010 she was accepted to both Harvard and Stanford.

You must see it and feel it before you can achieve it.

But again, you can’t be lazy with visualizations and expect results. Just like affirmations, your visualizations must be specific, detailed, and goal-oriented.

And they must be the right kind of visualizations. Studies prove that just visualizing the end result does not work. You must visualize the entire journey—starting with the hard work, the college admissions interview, studying for SATs, you must clearly see the entire process necessary to get accepted by Stanford. Just seeing yourself sitting in a classroom at Stanford isn’t enough.5

The purpose of this type of specific visualization is to constantly remind you of the hard work required and obstacles you must overcome to reach the goal you are visualizing. By clearly seeing the hard work, you’ll be more likely to actually do it. And by also seeing the obstacles and roadblocks in your visualizations, you’ll be ready for them, less stressed, more prepared, calm, and have solutions in mind when they happen. And trust me—they will happen.

So don’t visualize yourself sitting in the CEO chair. It will do you no good. Have a plan on how you are going to get there and clearly visualize the specific, detailed steps you’ll take along the way. Then also see yourself overcoming the obstacles along the way.

That’s how you turn visualization into a Positive Addiction!