You use positive affirmations to help you to achieve your goals. And fundamentally, positive affirmations are just words but it is the way in which you combine those words and the actual words that you use in creating your affirmations that mean the difference between succeeding in achieving your goals or failing.

The words you use, both spoken and unspoken, literally control the results you achieve in your life. As Bill Bartmann said:

“The words that we use to describe the thing we want predicates more often than not our own success or own failure.”

Yet, far too many people do not pay attention to the words they use to describe themselves far less the words they use to describe what they desire. In many cases the words that people use to describe themselves are often negative and erode their self-esteem making it even more challenging to achieve the results that they desire. As Gloria Steinem said:

“Self-esteem isn’t everything; it’s just that there’s nothing without it.”

They then compound matters by describing what they want as a goal. Now some individuals are very clear about what a goal is and what the term goal means to them. They are also very confident about achieving the goals that they set. However, there are others to whom the word goal actually has negative connotations.

To this group of individuals a goal is something which is generally beyond their reach. It’s something they aspire to but deep down inside they do not expect to achieve it. So they set a goal and they fulfil their prophecy that they will not achieve it. In other words they self-sabotage their attempts to accomplish their goal. It then becomes one more on a long list of goals set but not achieved.

So the next time they set a goal their sub-conscious mind checks their personal history of goal setting and goal achievement, sees that the norm is that majority of goals set are not achieved and so again sabotages the individual’s effort to achieve this new goal as well. A pattern is established and failing to achieve your goals becomes a habit because the sub-conscious mind resists change. It doesn’t like to upset the status quo.

Maybe this has happened to you and if not to you personally, you can probably think of someone to whom this happens time and time again. They set goals and are very enthusiastic for a while but before long the goal is abandoned. They don’t even go the distance in their attempt to achieve their goal. Or they repeatedly lament about the number of projects they start but don’t finish.

If you do fall into this category and you’re using positive affirmations with respect to “goals” you’re aiming to achieve, then it’s likely that you will be disappointed.

There are several different ways to overcome this problem. Bill Bartmann suggests that instead of setting goals you make a promise. Now, admittedly, some people are just as bad at keeping their promises but, generally, when someone makes a promise it is a serious commitment. To some individuals a promise is almost sacred. They would rather die than break a promise.

If you fall into this latter category then you know that when you make a promise that:

1. You don’t do so lightly, and

2. You do everything in your power to fulfil your promise.

As a result, you know and those close to you know that even if you don’t fulfil your promise that you would have done all that you could to carry out your promise and that nothing more could realistically be asked of you. However, because you pull the stops out when you do make a promise your track record for fulfilling your promises is high.

Thus, when your sub-conscious mind learns that you’ve made a new promise. It sends out the red alert. And it starts to work flat out, working with you rather than against you, to help you achieve your goal and manifest your promise or positive affirmation.

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