Whether you’re dealing with stress, need a confidence boost, or simply want to give yourself a pep-talk, positive affirmations are a powerful tool for tapping into your subconscious and rewiring your thoughts. And since you can choose any affirmation(s) you want, they’re a great option for everyone—even kids!
Here, we unpack what makes positive affirmations so helpful, plus provide over 70 affirmation examples to get you started.
How positive affirmations work.
Positive affirmations are phrases that are meant to uplift and inspire you to be your best. As psychiatrist Anna Yusim, M.D. previously explained to mbg, affirmations involve repeating a self-selected phrase (or series of phrases) “that embody who we would like to become” (i.e. I am peaceful).
The more you work with your affirmation, the more the positive thinking can aid in self-improvement, as they help to transform negative thought loops and patterns. “[Affirmations] work primarily at the conscious level, whereas many of our conflicts about ourselves and our sense of adequacy are within our subconscious or unconscious mind,” Yusim explains.
“They work even better when accompanied by some honest internal reflection and some deeper internal work that gets to the subconscious or unconscious level,” she says, adding that it’s also important to take concrete steps to create the changes you’re affirming. “Together, with honest self-reflection and concrete action steps,” she notes, “positive affirmations can be a wonderful part of one’s behavioral change regimen.”
Ready to get started working with affirmations? Here are dozens of ideas, tailored to different situations.
Positive affirmations for stress:
Positive affirmations for self-care:
Positive affirmations to use in the morning
Positive affirmations for confidence
Positive affirmations for happiness
One of the beautiful things about affirmations is they’re super easy to work with, and you can choose ones that speak to you—whether you found them in a list or you made them up yourself. To that end, it’s important to opt for affirmations that really resonate with you and the person you want to be.
As spiritual author, Shannon Kaiser tells mbg, “there’s no need to overthink the affirmations, it’s more about the energy of how they feel when you speak them.”
For example, if you’re looking to find your soul mate, and the affirmation, “My soul mate is coming to me right now” isn’t exactly resonating, you could change it to, “I am full of and worthy of abundant love now.” “So you massage the affirmation into a vibration that feels good and can be true right now such as,” Kaiser explains.
And speaking of, well, speaking, it can be incredibly empowering to say your affirmations out loud to the universe whenever you think of them. Kaiser actually recommends writing them down on sticky notes and placing them where you’ll see them throughout the day (i.e. on your desk or mirror) as a helpful reminder.
From there, we’ll go back to Yusim’s previous point about pairing your affirmations with self-reflection and actionable steps. After all, you can say “I am wealthy” all you want, but without reflecting on your relationship with money or taking steps to improve your financial wellness, not much is going to change.
And the point of affirmations isn’t to magically cast a spell on your life, but rather to start shifting you into a more positive mindset, so you’re better able to take aligned steps toward what you’re seeking.
Repeating positive affirmations, mantras, and meditations are all great ways to prime the brain to make a change. It can be easy to get caught in negative thought loops, but with a few personalized and empowering affirmations (paired with some honest self-reflection), you can slowly but surely start to unlearn and reshape those patterns.