By Todd Duncan

Our minds are powerful. They hear without bias and respond without reference to positive or negative input. If our language is negative, no matter how hard we may try to get rich, lose weight, stay off drugs, or thrive in a relationship, we won’t succeed.

Why? Because our language becomes a co-conspirator in the fine art of emotional sabotage. Since our self-image is stored in the subconscious mind, and since it believes the information it stores is true, whether true or not, it is imperative that we send our minds positive images and pictures, even when they do not represent current reality. All new behaviors start in the mind—the imagination—and then work their way outward into reality.

What You Think Is What You Get

Our self-image, that picture we hold of ourselves in our minds, is the platform from which all our actions flow. Each action, feeling, and behavior cannot help but be consistent with this image on our internal mirrors. To change our results, we must change the negative blueprint we have created over time.

Since repetition created the state of our current image, it will also take repetition to change our states of mind from unhealthy to healthy. This is where most of us break down. We simply don’t muster the stamina or the faith to repeat the right behaviors and actions long enough to create a healthy self-image that can lead us to become more than we think we are.

We must build and modify our self-image through encouraging self-talk—those words and pictures that trigger the positive images to give us the power to move in the right direction. Over time, these new directions lead us to feel better about ourselves, enhance our character, and release within us the power to be our best.

Self-Talk, Affirmations, and Dreamation

If we want different results, we must learn to speak to ourselves differently. This difference is best found in the power of affirmations.

When I was just beginning to understand the life-changing power of affirmations, it was my good fortune to purchase two of Denis Waitley’s books, The Winner’s Edge and Seeds of Greatness.

Here’s the powerful lesson I learned in their pages: Anything we want in life has to be seen before it can be attained. Then, equally important, I learned that we must feed our beliefs until they become reality. I call this process dreamation—the art of attaining maximum motivation by living as if our dreams have already come true.

Start Day Dreaming

I have learned that without dreams, we’re dead, or at least we’re in the process of dying. You and I can be, have, or do anything we want if we will dream it, see it before we have it, and pursue our goal with a never-say-die attitude.

The key element that keeps dreamation alive is the power of affirmations. I’m sure affirmations are not new to you, but since it’s so easy to forget their power, let’s look at them once again:

The Five Keys To Powerful Affirmations

1. Personal: They must begin with the personal pronoun I. (For example, “I am earning . . . I am having a relationship with . . . I am enjoying living in a three-thousand-square-foot home at . . .”)

2. Positive: They must be articulated as something you have already received, not something you are trying to get rid of. (The latter negative language goes immediately to your subconscious.)

3. Present tense: They must be stated as if they are already achieved.

4. Emotional and benefits driven: They must trigger your emotions.

5. Non-comparative: They must be what you want for you to be your best, not what you feel you must do to be better than someone else.

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