Three Caveats

Your brain can only do what it thinks it can do—and you are the one who tells it what it can do.

Your brain believes what you tell it and then does everything it can to make what you are saying to and about yourself happen.

If you think you can or you think you can’t—you’re right.

Affirmations

Some are frightened by the term affirmations as they think it involves some type of self-fulfilling prophecy or is part of the law of attraction, so called, or are scarily powerful. Affirmations are powerful. You may have heard of the Pygmalion effect (named after the Greek myth of Pygmalion), the phenomenon whereby higher expectations lead to an increase in performance. It is also known as the Rosenthal effect (named for Dr. Robert Rosenthal, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at UC Riverside and arguably the expert on self-fulfilling prophecy. Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson believed a study they did supported the hypothesis that reality can be positively or negatively influenced by the expectations of others, called the observer-expectancy effect—arguing that biased expectancies could affect reality and create self-fulfilling prophecies. The corollary to the Pygmalion or Rosenthal effect is the Golon effect: the phenomenon whereby low expectations lead to a decrease in performance. [Rosenthal, Robert; Jacobson, Lenore (1992). Pygmalion in the classroom (Expanded ed.)] 

Flattery vs Affirmations

“When I try to be affirming,” one person told me, “my words come across as flattery and that’s embarrassing.” Understand that affirmations and flattery reside on different planets. Flattery can be described as insincere and excessive praise, compliments, or adulation—given to further one's own interests or advance one’s own goals or manipulate another into agreeing to something they might not otherwise do. It involves using complimentary words to obtain what one wants, as in an attempt to initiate a romantic or sexual encounter or to obtain a financial or social advantage. Think of flattery as Most associations with flattery are negative—even in history. Dante reportedly thought flattery was so offensive that he compared flattering words to human excrement. Now that’s quite a mental picture! 

Talking to Others, Cont’d

Visiting in a home recently, a couple 3-year olds (a girl and a boy) were playing with large blow-up balls about 18 inches in diameter. There were at least 4 balls, but the energetic and typically active little boy was trying to grab all the balls. Each time the little girl got one, he took it from her, which triggered her tears. “Don’t take her ball,” the mother kept saying. The little boy kept taking it. His mother’s voice rose in volume. No behavioral change. I suggested she say, “Give one ball to the little girl.” She looked at me like I was from another planet, rolled her eyes, and then said, “Give one ball to the little girl.” Immediately, the little boy walked over and handed the little girl a ball, and returned to playing with the other three. The mother looked like she actually might faint on the spot. Her son had followed the picture her words created in his brain.

Talking to Others

This new self-talk style applies not only to personal self-talk, it can also apply to addressing others, children especially. “Don’t forget your homework” is less effective than “Joan, remember your homework.” “Don’t be late to fencing class,” is less helpful than “Jay, be on time to your fencing class.” It this self-talk style a guarantee of 100% compliance? Of course not. However, it can rather dramatically increase the likelihood of success, because the new self-talk style is a 1-step process. What you say creates the picture you want your brain to follow. Some individuals were attempting to walk on a 2x4 raised a few inches off the ground. A group of friends started chanting “Don’t fall, don’t fall,” and about 85% of the time the individual stepped off the 2x4 from picturing ‘falling.’ The reverse was also true. Words such as, “Put your arms out. Balance. Stay on the 2x4,” resulted in success about 85% of the time.

Effective Self-Talk Styles

Used correctly, affirmations can be very effective. Telling yourself: “Don’t forget to go by the cleaners,” is less effective than “_____, remember to stop at the cleaners on your way home.” Instructing your brain: “Don’t be scared to make that presentation,” is less helpful than saying “_____, you are presenting in a way that the audience finds interesting.” Moaning to yourself: “I can’t do this. It’s too hard. I can’t be successful” is a recipe for disaster compared to saying: “_____, you are doing this project. You are successful. You are having fun.” Rehearsing, “I’m not pretty enough—or smart enough, or handsome enough, or loveable enough,” programs your brain for negativity. However, telling your brain you can jump off the Eiffel Tower in Paris and fly just by waving your arms and thinking you can is not genuine, realistic, or doable. If something is possible to do, however, affirmations can program your brain to put its best foot forward and its shoulder to the proverbial wheel—and help you accomplish it.

Benefits of New Self-Talk Style

The researchers and independent evaluators found that the participants who used their ‘first name’ and ‘you’ had less anxiety, were more confident (_____, you can do this), performed better, perceived less shame for making mistakes, and experienced less social anxiety not only before the event but also afterward in post-event processing, when people tend to chew over their performance and find themselves lacking. This self-talk style depersonalizes things slightly, more objectively directs your brain to accomplish what you want to do, and empowers you to view as a challenge what others see as a threat. According to Dr. Kross, the distance gained by using your ‘given name’ and the pronoun ‘you’ confers a type of wisdom and resolves what he dubs King Solomon’s paradox: people often reason more wisely about the social problems of others than they do about their own. First-name self-talk shifts the focus away from the self; it allows people to transcend their inherent egocentrism and fear—and that helps to make them as smart in thinking about themselves as they typically are about others.