The only previous exposure I had to affirmations was through a
popular 1990s spoof
on the hit TV show Saturday Night Live, in
which Al Franken’s character Stuart Smalley used to stare into a
mirror and repeat to himself,
“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough,
and doggone it, people like me!” As a result, I always thought of
affirmations as a joke. Matt knew better. As a student of Tony
Robbins, Matt had been using affirmations and incantations for years
to create extraordinary levels of success.
Owning five homes, and one
of the top network engineers in the country (all by age 25), I should
have figured Matt knew what he was doing. After all, I was the one
renting a room in
his house. Unfortunately, it took me a few more
years to realize that affirmations were one of the most powerful tools
for transforming your life.
My first first-hand experience using affirmations came when I
read about them in Napoleon Hill’s legendary book,
Think and Grow
Rich (which I highly recommend, by the way). Although I was
skeptical that the repetition of affirmations was really going to make
any measurable impact on my life, I thought I would give it a shot. If
it worked for Matt, it might work for me. I chose to target the limiting
belief I had developed after suffering significant brain damage in my
car accident:
I have a horrible memory.
If you read my first book,
Taking Life Head On! , you know that
my short term memory was almost non-existent
following my car
accident. While this led to some pretty comical incidents, my
memory was so poor that friends and family would spend hours
visiting with me at the hospital, take a quick lunch break, and then
return to have me greet them as if I hadn’t seen them in years.
Facing such a real physical limitation due to a traumatic brain
injury caused me to constantly reinforce the belief that
I have a
horrible memory. Anytime someone asked me to remember or remind
them of something,
I would always respond, “I would, but I really
can’t—I have brain damage and a horrible short-term memory.”
It had been 7 years since my car accident, and while this belief
was based on my reality
then, it was time to let it go. Maybe my
memory was so
horrible, at least in part, because I had never made
the effort to believe it could improve. As Henry Ford said, “Whether
you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right either way.”
If affirmations
could change what was, to me, the most
justified
limiting belief that I had, then they could probably change anything.
So, I created my first affirmation which read:
I am letting go of the
limiting belief that I have a horrible memory. My brain is a
miraculous organism capable of healing itself, and my memory can
improve, but only in proportion to how much I believe it can improve.
So, from this moment on, I am maintaining the unwavering belief that
I have an excellent memory, and it’s continuing to get better every
day.
I read this short
affirmation every day, during my
Miracle
Morning. Still programmed with my past beliefs, I wasn’t sure it was
working. Then, two months after my first day reciting my affirmation,
something occurred that hadn’t occurred in over seven years. A friend
asked me to
remember to call her the next day, and I responded,
“Sure, no problem.” As soon as the words left my mouth, my eyes
widened and I got excited! My limiting
belief about my horrible
memory was losing its power. I had replaced it and reprogrammed my
subconscious mind with my new, empowering belief, using my
affirmations.
From that point on, having also added the belief that
affirmations
really work, not only did my memory continue to improve, but I
created affirmations for every area of my life that I wanted to
advance. I began using affirmations to improve my health,
finances,
relationships, overall happiness, confidence, as well as any and all
beliefs,
mindsets and
habits that needed an upgrade. Nothing was off
limits. There are no limits!
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