Affirmations: The Truth About Affirmations, Why They Are Not Stupid, and How to Use Them If you think of Stuart Smalley saying “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough…” when you hear the word “affirmations,” you are not alone. It’s a funny skit, but it has dominated our popular notion of what affirmations are, who uses them, and how they actually work. Affirmations are not stupid—like the title suggests—and this book sets the record straight. Organized into small chapters, which each illustrate the deeper meaning and purpose behind an affirmations practice, this book lays out a game-plan for how to start using your own thoughts to change your life. Put simply, affirmations are ideas, phrases, and words that we repeat to ourselves about the way things are. We do this consciously and unconsciously, internally and externally, all day long. These internal messages guide our decisions, our relationships, and our concepts of self, who we are, and who we can be. Whether these messages are true or not doesn’t matter nearly as much as whether we believe them or not. This is why someone who is intelligent can believe that they are stupid, or why someone who is very personable can believe that they are awkward—it’s not so much what “is” that counts, instead it’s what is believed. And, our beliefs create our perceptions. What we believe shapes our world. What we perceive matters because it tells us what to look for. And when we look for something in the world, we are more likely to find it. By changing the thoughts we think, we change our reality. Developing an affirmations practice is the first step. Written by Zach Carlsen, a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach who has helped countless people transform their lives from the inside out, this book guides the reader step-by-step through the process of opening up to these big ideas in ways that work.
