Affirm Yourself

As you know, I work for The Group Real Estate.  The company has its warts to be sure, as most if not all do, but there are a lot of positivity principles they really get right.  Years ago, our strongest company pillar, Larry Kendall, began teaching courses that are now offered across this country and in Canada.  Many of the concepts he teaches are not new but then again, neither are the "secrets" to most of life's challenges.  For instance, to loose weight, one must eat nutritiously and exercise.

Larry teaches the echo of what the scientific community has researched and verified many times over.  Some of the most impactful in my world are also quite Biblical:

• positive thinking yields miraculously positive results ("Seek and ye shall find" was Matthew's mindset in the New Testament era... along about chapter 7.)
• people with daily practices, routines and the discipline to employ them are happier, more successful and their pocketbooks usually fatter (No surprise to Solomon... his book of Proverbs testifies to this truth repetitively)
• training your brain to think in terms of specific successes sought, as already won, increases the likelihood of realizing those successes.  (Doesn't the book of James offer the same advice in Chapter 1?)

What I find intriguing, is not so much the concept but the implementation.  And, I delight in new ways to incorporate positivity into my world.

During the three day course Larry offers, he introduces what he terms "affirmations."  These are statements one should write out each day for a month or more until they take root in your subconscious.  Apparently we are wired in such a way that we can actually program ourselves to some degree.  Take a short mental journey down that road and it's undeniable that we all do program ourselves and/or we allow our lives and circumstances to program us.  So, spending some time writing  a little of our own brain "code" is a not a bad idea.

For the sake of further explaining the concept, let's assume we all struggle with dirt between our toes or earwax, and one of our greatest desires is to be free from these.  So, each morning, we commit to write, "I'm so grateful to have wax free ears and squeeky clean toes." Over a period of time, our brains consciously and then subconsciously put into practice the necessary motions that lead us to realize that goal.  And, once reprogrammed, we can now make our barber and beauty salon appointments with confidence knowing that indeed we are wax and grit free and thus, need not be embarrassed.

Naturally, the most common affirmations have more to do with money and weight loss but the notion is this... when we combine the discipline of writing daily with a mindset of positive assumptive affirmation... results out of the ordinary become prevalent in our lives.

Good stuff, huh?  Well, sort of.  In practice, I wrote (as suggested), "I am grateful to have 3 new listings in the next 90 days."  Guess what?  Ninety days passed and my name wasn't in front of anyone's home with a for sale sign in the yard.

Now, Larry's smart, he's successful, and the practice taps into that whole concept of "b e l i e v e" which is one of my favorite words.  But before I digress and share with you my dictionary of favorite letter combinations - let me take you to what I found to be the REAL power in "affirmations."

When I was at the hotel with the children over the holidays, I found myself on New Year's eve with little more to do than sip cider and watch Dick Clark's protege.  So, my mind got busy.  I got the notion to write down words I wanted to describe me.  It was, after all, New Year's... the traditional time of goal setting, resolutions and the like.  As I picked up a pen and hotel stationary, I thought I'd have about a half dozen words.  When the ink began to litter the page, however, I found one word would inspire another and before I was done, 64 words had leaped from my mind onto that page... and none were truly synonyms!  

These words, covering so many facets of personality, demeanor and action, became my "affirmations."  I don't write them every day... but often I do.  I've made them into a word cloud and they are posted on my office bulletin board.  I choose a few to focus on most days.  

I suppose you could be the judge as to whether you feel I'm becoming more of the person I want to be in word, thought, deed and action... but the perspective that's even more important is my Lord's.  "Delight yourself in the Lord (or perhaps what you believe he made you to be) and He will give you the desires of your heart."  Maybe the application of that verse is a stretch for you... but for me, this whole discipline towards my "affirmations" is powerfully positive and allows me to delight (on most days) in the Lord and the desire of my heart is truly to be more of what I believe He desires me to be.

Shalom and Amen.