30 day { affirmation } challenge

There's no doubt there's something in this. Some of the most amazing women in the world swear by it. So what better way to start off the year than with challenging myself to tap into a practice undertaken by people who have changed their own lives and those of people around them.

I'm talkin' about affirmations. 

Whether it's standing in front of the mirror and declaring your undying love for yourself or just stopping patterns of negative thoughts, affirmations are about putting positive energy out into the universe. Sounds a bit airy fairy, but if it's good enough for Oprah, one of the most successful and vocal proponents of affirmations, then it's good enough for me.

Whatever you think of her, Oprah has come from nothing to be a pretty amazing woman who inspires people everywhere to live their best life. What's not to love? I was recently sent a link to her online life classes, and by chance the first video I watched was an interview with Cheryl Richardson on the topic of  You Are What You Believe. Because I am a sucker for product placement, I immediately bought Cheryl's book, You Can Create An Exceptional Life, and devoured it in one sitting. The biggest wake up call for me was a line which makes sense: "We make ourselves right. Our beliefs become the rules we live by". Basically it all comes back to 'extreme self care', as Cheryl puts it. You'd never say to your best friend or your lover "you'll never be able to do that" or "you look terrible today" so why do we say it to ourselves?  And when you're constantly receiving positive affirmations about yourself and your abilities, while quashing those pesky negative thoughts, you can't help but react to situations more openly.

When you think about it, it actually makes a whole lotta sense. Regardless of whether or not it's completely realistic that you'll be earning a million dollars a year, putting the message out to the universe that you're ready to prosper and be rewarded for your hard work is guaranteed to make you more receptive to opportunities that may lead to this. 

So, we've decided to challenge ourselves and put the challenge out to all of you, lovely readers. Thirty days, just you and your mirror and some words that make you feel like you can achieve anything.

The Challenge
For the next month, we'll be using affirmations in our day to day lives. From the moment we get up in the morning, we'll be replacing negativity with positive words, focussing on a few key mantras to stimulate the laws of attraction. Personally, I'm going to be taking Jas's lead and starting a journal. The experts say spending just a few minutes journalling each morning, finishing with a few affirmations for the day, will set you up for positivity in every encounter.

A few of our lovely bloggy friends have written about how they bring positivity to their day to day lives (which is really how we see these affirmations):

• Sian from Twelve by One has some awesome tips on how to start off the day on the right side of the bed.
• Brooke from The Style Net talks about a negative reinforcement trick of wearing an elastic band on your wrist and giving it a ping every time a negative thought creeps into your head.
• Louise Hay, affirmations guru (can you believe how good she looks for a woman in her 80's??) believes self awareness is vital - when you catch yourself ruminating on a negative thought, simply send some positive energy to the person or issue.

How-to Affirmations

In order to make sure your affirmations resonate, here's a couple of hot tips:

1. They have to be present tense. Danielle La Porte calls them Done Deals and Cheryl calls it Acting As If. There's nothing more exciting than visualizing yourself already reaching those goals, none of this whimpy 'what if'.
2. Definitely throw an 'I love you' to yourself in there too. There's nothing nicer than hearing those three little words, now is there?
3. Get out a pen and paper - it's been proven that we're more likely to achieve our goals if we've got them scribbled down (and displayed in a prominent place) - what better excuse to break out the coloured pens or do what I've always wanted to do and scrawl yourself a love note in lippy on the bathroom mirror!

My final comment comes again from the notes I frantically scribbled when watching the Oprah life class. Affirmations plus action equal miracles. My skepticism immediately disappeared when I heard this line. There's no suggestion that sitting around eating lindt chocolate balls and affirming that you're going to be your healthiest self is going to work. We still have to show up.  But how awesome is it to have a little self love helping us along the way.

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And to make it even easier to start an affirmation habit this year, we've created some free affirmation cards (a few of which you can see in the image above) for you to download and print (low resolution affirmation cards can be downloaded here). They're business card sized so you can keep them in your purse, on the fridge or your mirror, even stuck to your computer screen at work!

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Are you already using affirmations in your daily life? Do you have any tips for Jas and I? What affirmations make you super duper excited to live life?