AFFORMATIONS ON LIFE AND HAPPINESS
“Don’t spend your precious time asking ‘Why isn’t the world a better place?’ It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is, ‘How can I make it better?’ To that question, there is an answer.”
— LEO BUSCAGLIA
Debbye, a client from Texas, sent me the following story:
Dear Noah,
Last Sunday felt like the children’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day! I had spent all day on Saturday helping cut tons of dead wood out of two trees at my dad’s house, so, needless to say, on Sunday I was not only tired but sore!
Late Sunday evening I began looking for my misplaced cell phone. I combed the house, rang the phone, called Dad to see if I’d left it at his house, went through both houses and all laundry, and still no phone.
On the way home from looking all over Dad’s yard, I decided to drive by my stepfather’s house (which I own) to see if any of his neighbors were having new roofs installed due to damage from our recent hailstorm.
The only evidence of a new roof anywhere on the street was a roofing contractor’s sign in my stepfather’s yard! I panicked, thinking he had negotiated for a new roof without consulting me first.
Ready for an ulcer, I got home, and still no sign of my phone. My phone service said it was probably lost or destroyed because it was ringing straight to voicemail, so I prepared to file a claim on my cell-phone insurance. They had closed 13 minutes prior, so I couldn’t call it in.
As I continued searching for the phone, I then realized I had lost two separate checks, for nearly $10,000 each, that had arrived several days earlier and that I had not yet had time to take care of. I searched the desk, piles of papers, and bank bags, but no checks!
By now I am nearly going crazy!
Ready to drown myself in my hot tub, I called my friend for some “mental garbage removal.” Her usual techniques, which normally work, failed this time. Since we’d both read your books, she and I decided to try using Afformations.
We created one for her, and then I decided mine would be, Why am I so happy? I jokingly decided that taking a sleeping pill and sleeping until Tuesday, when all the offices would reopen, might be my best option!
Off to bed I went, sarcastically muttering, Why am I soooo happy? Just as I turned the corner to my bedroom, what do I see looking right at me from a bookcase? My cell phone!
The battery was dead (hence the no ringing). I had come home from tree trimming, in a very big rush to shower before my dinner guests arrived, and in my hurry had tossed my phone in an unusual place.
Thankfully, because the insurance office was closed when I tried to reach them, I had not been able to file a claim for a new phone.
Early Monday morning (July 4, no less), I decided to call the roofing company on the very long shot that their office would be open at 7:10.
Much to my surprise, someone answered the phone! After a short search, they were able to tell me that the roof in question was not being replaced or even in need of replacement. (Yeah!) The sign had been placed in the yard as advertisement for the roofing man. Whew!
Next, I looked in the tote bag where I keep my bank bags and, lo and behold, there in plain sight was the envelope with the two $10,000 checks!
I couldn’t believe how quickly all three biggies were resolved, and on a holiday to boot! Afformations really did the trick!
Thank you, Noah!
As I teach my coaching clients, mastermind students, and seminar audiences, there are two sentences that describe all human emotion. I discovered them while meditating one morning.
Once I saw them in my mind, I realized that these two sentences not only describe our current emotions, but they also reveal how to immediately turn around any negative emotion into a positive.
Ready? Here are the sentences:
When your opinion of your past, present, and future tends to be positive, you will be happy.
When your opinion of your past, present, or future tends to be negative, you will be unhappy.
Those two sentences describe all human emotion. What is the key word in both of those sentences? Opinion. Why? Because it’s not what happens to us, it’s our opinion of what happens to us that determines our thoughts, feelings, actions, and responses—and all of those together create our very lives.
Are you carrying around a negative opinion of something that happened to you 10, 20, or 30 years in the past and allowing it to determine your life today?
Are you not appreciating all the abundance you have in the present, right under your nose?
And are you afraid of what’s going to happen to you in the future?
If you’re holding on to any of these negative opinions—about your past, present, or future—you will tend to be unhappy about that portion of your life. (Many people have a negative opinion about all three!)
Conversely, I’ll bet you know individuals who have positive opinions about their past, their present, and their future even though they’ve been through tremendous pain, unbelievable loss, struggle, and hardship. Let’s be honest: how many people do you know who haven’t gone through these things?
What is it about the people who’ve been through pain and struggle and choose to be happy anyway? They’ve made a conscious choice to have a positive opinion about what happened to them in the past, what’s happening to them in the present, and what’s going to happen to them in the future. They are—whether they know it or not—asking the right questions.
Your life is nothing more than your opinion of your past, your present, and your future.
There’s one more thing I’d like to point out here: your life is nothing more than your opinion of your past, your present, and your future.
Where does your past exist? Only in your mind.
Where does your present exist? Only in your mind.
And where does the future exist? Only in your mind.
Nowhere else in the universe do these three things exist than inside that brilliant brain you’ve been given.
Therefore, if you get nothing else from this book, I really hope you get this—because it’s a simple thought that may very well be the greatest gift of this entire teaching:
If you want to live the life of your dreams, change your opinion of your past, your present, and your future.
Right now, I want you to take out your Afformations Journal and write down the opinions you’ve been holding about your past, your present, and your future. You may be unknowingly asking questions that keep forming a life you don’t want—because they’ve kept you focused on what you’ve lost, what you don’t have, and what you think you’ll never have.
Well, those are lousy opinions—and the wrong questions.
Guess what? Who is the only person holding them?
You.
Who is the only person who can change them?
You.
And who is the only person who needs to change them, in order for your life to change?
That would be, ah, you.
Now that you’re near the end of this book, realize in the depths of your soul that you have the power to change your life by changing your questions, and then take new actions that support your new opinions/assumptions/beliefs/questions.
Use these new, empowering Afformations to challenge your assumptions, change your opinions, improve your beliefs, and shift what you focus on . . . and let yourself live the life you’ve always imagined!
Beliefs about Life and Happiness