Your Positive Affirmations Won’t Work — So Do This Instead
I was talking one day to a therapist about my plummeting self-esteem.
It had reached a new low. I was feeling insecure, unattractive, and immeasurably unlovable — and in hopes of relieving myself of this inner pain, I had resorted to the practice of positive affirmations. Time had passed, but nothing had changed.
Despite my daily affirmations, I was feeling more low than ever.
Upon this confession, my therapist smirked smartly and said, “And why do you think that is?”
Practicing positive affirmations is meant to induce positive change.
The idea is simple. By repeating certain statements to yourself, you will eventually be able to convince that insecure part of your brain to see your own worth, beauty, success, and excellence. You can essentially reframe and teach your mindset to love yourself, let go of the past, and reach your dreams.
All this by saying a few words.
Now, admittedly, the common saying does claim that “you believe that which you tell yourself.” Moreover, continuous acts of self-compassion and self-acceptance does improve your mental health.
But positive affirmations often do the opposite. In fact, they might make things worse for you.
Here is why.
Your mind knows.
Your brain is designed to be aware of the things that affect you.
It is in constant surveillance and survival mode. Although you might not notice it, your brain is constantly seeking to identify and avoid potential dangers to the things you hold dear — like your health, happiness, and peace of mind.
This is why, when you’re insecure about your appearance, you feel sad. Your mind is directing its attention to that insecurity in hopes of finding a solution. And its attention — your attention — will stay there until it knows the danger has passed.
Like author Brianna Wiest writes in The Mountain Is You, trying to convince your brain that your deeply-rooted insecurity doesn’t exist, is an act of self-sabotage. Your mind knows when there is a problem — and by using positive affirmations, you’re ignoring that fact. You’re pretending like you’re satisfied with an aspect of your life that your inner self actually wants to change.
Your mind is dissatisfied with something — your lifestyle, appearance, or health — and dealing with surface-level remarks of positivity doesn’t change its awareness of the issue. It will only register those positive affirmations as wishful thinking, or poor attempts at changing the status quo.
Because, in the end, words don’t change anything on their own.
Feelings don’t respond to logic.
Fear, sadness, and distress are not fixed by logical assertions.
Your feelings operate primitively. They identify a problem and react to it. They find something that hinders you from reaching a specific goal, and they signal a need for intervention (for instance, “I feel threatened by this situation, so I need to protect myself”).
Therefore, like my therapists often repeat, you can’t actually convince yourself that your negative reaction to something is irrational. If you feel unattractive, you will see yourself as such, regardless of your objective understanding of the situation. It is impossible to entirely manipulate your emotions through logic.
Your mind knows that there is an issue and feels a particular way, and you can’t change that state of mind by merely distracting yourself with more logical remarks.
It’s not going to change your underlying awareness of the issue, nor is it going to change the thing that incited the negative emotion in the first place (for instance, your rational conviction that you are better off single can’t change the fact that you might feel deeply lonely, or that you were rejected or broken up with).
Positive affirmations cause emotional numbness and denial.
Your emotions signal an underlying problem.
Sadness refers to a loss or want of something precious. Jealousy refers to a perception of inadequacy in yourself. Shame refers to something you did or didn’t do that laid your innermost flaws bare.
Sadly, using positive affirmations numbs and invalidates these feelings. Wiest writes that instead of experiencing increased love and acceptance, you foster denial. You ignore your reality in favor of one you want to affirm, when what you should do is understand what your emotions are telling you — what exact valid insecurity or concern they are carrying, that needs to be actually worked on.
When you use these affirmations, you implicitly tell yourself that your problems will go away if you simply pretend that they don’t exist. Instead of treating the actual source of your discomfort (aka the problem itself) you try to modify the symptoms of the problem (aka your emotional reactions) in vain.
Positive affirmations are just verbal shortcuts to a goal that needs to be reached by other means. If you feel unattractive, you might need to work on reframing your thoughts with a therapist, or in some cases, work out and eat healthier. The solution is not to simply hide away your problem and pretend that your negative emotions have sprung forth without roots.
Positive affirmations neglect the importance of action.
Finally, there is one component that affirmations lack — and desperately need, should they be somewhat effective.
See, as long as you remain silent and stand alone in corners, you will never be able to verbally convince yourself that you are a confident person. Instead, as Elizabeth Filips wisely claims, you must act in accordance with your ideal self. You can’t depend on your emotions to change to make you more confident or healthy or accomplished — they are too busy reacting to the action steps you are taking (and the ones you are not taking) toward your goals.
Confidence, then, is not claimed through words. It is claimed through action. And the same goes for health, discipline, acceptance, and so on.
So, if you want to love yourself, love yourself. Be kind to your soul and body and prove that self-compassion through action — and do not speak those words of affection without committing to behavior that actually improves your career, relationships, or physical and mental health.
Be honest about who you are and who you want to be, and affirm your ideal self through continuous correct behavior. Only then will your mind believe that things have truly changed.
The Solution
Your positive affirmations worsen your problems by making you walk around them. They are quick fix band aids to wounds that keep bleeding.
The solution? You must meet your problems head-on.
True self-compassion means listening to your emotions and feeling them. It means staying in the present and acknowledging the burdens weighing you down — not burying them in shame and hoping that they will disappear.
It also means moving from mere words to action — becoming the person you claim to be instead of waiting for your head and heart to believe you.
This is what Brianna Wiest calls having an accountability mindset as opposed to having a denial mindset. It means taking responsibility for your actions and the very valid emotional reactions these behaviors might elicit — and work in constructive ways to achieve true self-compassion.
In a way, this mindset and its accompanying actions provide a greater sense of control and self-acceptance than positive affirmations ever will.
