We affirm other people all the time. “You’re doing such a great job!” or “I love it when you do X.” Affirmations toward others happen in many social conversations with friends, often trying to be encouraging, validating, and gracious toward them. We learn throughout our lives that this helps both to increase the bond with that person, but also to help them with their self-esteem. However, when was the last time you did this for yourself?

In a therapy setting, I’ll often ask people about how they talk to themselves. Depending on the situation, they will often say things like “Why can’t I do this?” or “I’m such a failure.” These types of statements hurt — and they matter. While getting support from others in our lives is helpful, we often distance ourselves from others’ feedback, brushing it off with a “they just don’t get it.” By working on rewiring our own thought processes, we have the potential for so much positive change.

We spend more time with ourselves and in our own thoughts than we do with anyone else, making self-affirmation an incredible opportunity and tool to be able to inject some positivity into our days/lives (and read on for other benefits). 

Call to audience
I have put together a short list of affirmations that are broken down by content area — one each day for five days including fitness, food/eating, body image, work, and general wellbeing. However, I think you all are so creative and will be able to help one another identify some incredibly useful affirmations. Let’s crowdsource some affirmations! Each day, I want you to share the affirmations that tend to help you most within each domain.