10 Affirmations for Everyday Life

How Affirmations Work

It is well known now how powerful thoughts can be. There are numerous studies about the placebo effect that show that we can heal and improve ourselves when we believe that change is taking place. In most of these studies, however, the subjects don’t get to choose which area of their life they want to change.

Affirmations allow us to take control of that process and train our minds to believe in whatever we wish. Not that we lie to ourselves, we just assert the highest truth rather than letting our minds dwell on the negatives in our lives.

For example, asserting that you are healthy when you have the flu is not a lie. Since you are truly a perfect soul, on the deepest level you are always well; only your body is ill.

By focusing on the wellness of your soul rather than the sickness of your body, you can actually start to feel much better. This may take some practice, but if you keep at it, you will see your life transformed.

How to Practice an Affirmation

When you do an affirmation, start by repeating it several times loudly with full concentration. This will help get the attention of your conscious mind.

Then speak it several times quietly, and then in a whisper, which helps the words absorb deeply into your subconscious.

Finally, repeat it silently, focusing on the spiritual eye (the point between the eyebrows) helping to draw your energy up to the superconscious, which will spiritualize the affirmation. It is good to end your practice with a prayer to God or the Higher Self to help you with your intention.

Sample Affirmations

These affirmations are from Affirmations for Self-Healing by Swami Kriyananda. The book contains 52 affirmations, one for each week of the year, as well as more information about affirmations.

For each of the affirmations below, I have included a brief explanation of the purpose of the affirmation, the affirmation itself, and a prayer that you can say after practicing the affirmation.

1. Concentration

This affirmation is to help you fully focus on whatever task is at hand, ignoring distractions. Concentration should not involve any strain, but a calm, focused attention.

Affirmation

Whatever I do in life, I give it my full attention. Like a laser beam, I burn from before me all problems, all obstructions!

Prayer

Help me to see Thee, Lord, as the Scriptures describe Thee: “the most Relishable”! Help me to concentrate on Thee my gaze, my love, my aspirations, my entire being.

2. Love

One finds love not by being loved, but by loving. Love is infinite; it is never ours to create. We can only channel it from its source in Infinity to all whom we meet. This affirmation will help you to feel love in your heart in every situation, and to love everyone, even strangers.

Affirmation

I will love others as extensions of my own Self, and of the love I feel from God.

Prayer

O Infinite One, make me a channel for Thy love! Through me, reach out to sow seeds of love in barren hearts everywhere.

3. Work

Work should be done with a creative attitude—never for the sake of selfish gain, but for the chance it gives us to help create a better world. If you only work with the thought of pay then you will always be living in the future and never happy with the present moment. This affirmation helps you have success and happiness at work.

Affirmation

I will do my work thinking of Thee, Lord. I offer to Thee the very best that is in me.

Prayer

Beloved Lord, who so wonderfully created the high, snowy mountains; the bounding rivers; the colorful, fragrant flowers; the vast, heaving oceans; and the distant, glittering stars: Manifest, through me, Thy perfect joy.

4. Will Power

Will power, and not the vague abstraction luck, is the secret of true achievement. Will power is developed by persevering to the conclusion of whatever one attempts. One should start first with little undertakings, then proceed to bigger ones.

Affirmation

My will is to do that which is right to do. Part, all you mountains that stand in my way! Nothing can stop my progress!

Prayer

O Infinite Power, I will use my will, but guide Thou my will in everything I do, that it reflect Thy will.

5. Health

Good health is more than the state of not being ill! It is a radiant state of inner well- being.

Physical illnesses may be cured by medicines. No medicine, however, can induce that state of boundless energy which comes when every cell in the body cooperates with the mind willingly, joyfully, in all that it seeks to do.

Such radiant well-being comes after the mind has been cleared of every shadow of unwillingness, of fear, and of doubt; when one has learned to say yes to life; and when one has learned to love.

Affirmation

My body cells obey my will: They dance with divine vitality! I am well! I am strong! I am a flowing river of boundless power and energy!

Prayer

O mighty Source of all that is right and good, help me to see my strength as an expression of Thy infinite power. Let me banish the darkness of disease: It is forever foreign to Thy light!

6. Perseverance

Most people are fickle. They change their jobs, their spouses, their friends, their beliefs, their ideas—not because of any new expansion of awareness, but because they lack the simple power of perseverance. One must be loyal to one’s principles, and not allow oneself to be ruled by sentiment.

Perseverance can be difficult, for in every undertaking there is a certain amount of dull routine. Don’t be ruled, therefore, by likes and dislikes, but do whatever has to be done. If it is right, let nothing intervene until the job is finished.

Affirmation

I will finish what I set my mind to do before leaving it for something else. My word is my bond. So also is my resolution.

Prayer

Though the sirens of distraction call me to turn aside and relax the sternness of my dedication, keep me steadfast on my path, Lord. My goal in life is Thee!

7. Kindness

Kindness is the recognition that all are truly our own. Kindness comes from not minding how others feel about us. It comes from the simple understanding that kindness is its own reward, worth giving out to others, because the source of so much sweetness in ourselves. For those of broad sympathies, the very universe is home!

Affirmation

The whole world is my home, and the human race, my family. With God’s kindness I embrace all men.

Prayer

Divine Mother, help me to see that by kindness to others I attract not only theirs in return, but Thy kindness as well. May I be kind to others always. May my kindness act as a channel of Thy unselfish love.

8. Self Confidence

Self-confidence on the spiritual path means confidence in the inner Self, not in the ego. It means living from within, living by truth rather than by opinions.

Affirmation

I live in the assurance of God’s truth within. In my inner Self, and not in the opinions of others, lies true victory.

Prayer

What matter, if people blame me? Of what importance is their applause? I live to please Thee, Lord, confident that when Thou art with me I am protected, though it be from an enemy horde.

9. Acceptance

Acceptance comes from knowing that reality lies within ourselves, and that all else is a dream. Acceptance of that one reality makes everything else acceptable. Instead of learning to come to grips with a thousand individual challenges, therefore, make the supreme effort to accept God unconditionally into your heart. Accept all that comes in life as coming from His hands. He will give you what is best for you, if you live for Him alone.

Affirmation

I accept with calm impartiality whatever comes my way. Free in my heart, I am not conditioned by any outward circumstance.

Prayer

Shine Thy delusion-cauterizing light into the hidden nooks of my heart’s feelings, lest somewhere, without my conscious knowledge, I have not accepted Thee. If ever I err, strengthen me to accept Thy discipline, for in Thy will alone lies the happiness I am seeking.

10. Gratitude

Gratitude is a way of returning energy for energy received. Only a thief takes without paying for what he gets. And one who accepts a kindness without returning gratitude, as though the kindness were his by right, demeans both the giver and himself. He demeans the giver, because by ingratitude he implies that the kindness was inspired by selfish motives. And he demeans himself, because by giving nothing in return he breaks the cycle of creativity, without which prosperity’s flow, both materially and spiritually, is blocked.

Affirmation

I give thanks to the giver behind each gift, and to the one Giver behind all that I receive. My gratitude rises with devotion’s incense to the throne of Omnipresence.

Prayer

I thank Thee, Lord, for all Thy blessings. But most of all, I thank Thee for Thy love.

Try This

Choose one of these affirmations and practice it every day morning and night for a week. On the first day, write down how you are feeling about that particular area of your life. On the last day, review what you wrote and see how you have changed.

Further Study

Affirmations for Self-Healing by Swami Kriyananda

Scientific Healing Affirmations by Paramhansa Yogananda