Believe in Yourself

A popular scripture in Matthew 22:39 says “…Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”. When this scripture is discussed, the focal part of the discussion is usually about loving your neighbor. Some do not notice the implied commandment to love thyself. If you do not love yourself, then loving your neighbor as yourself would not be a charitable action. There is immense power in loving yourself, and I will illustrate an easy way to bring this power into your life.

This way to love yourself is not done by many people due to its simplicity. You simply must say nice things to yourself about yourself. I call them vocal positive affirmations. They always begin with “I am”, and then you say a positive adjective. That could sound like “I am smart”, or “I am brave”. Here try this for me now as you read this. Read the following five things out loud, and say them to yourself.

I am smart

I am kind

I am happy

I am healthy

I am attractive

Be honest, did you say the fifth one? Did you say it without laughing? Did you say it and believe it? If so, great job, you know that you are attractive. If not, you are like most people I have seen who do this exercise; they doubt they are attractive. The laughing is a sign of awkwardness you feel as you say it because you do not truly believe it.

I hope you can already start to see the positive impact positive affirmations can have. The first time that I got a girlfriend, I was twenty-four years old. I had gone on dates for years without being able to convince anyone to go steady with me. I joked a lot about my dating life. Those jokes led me to a point where I had convinced myself that I was not physically attractive. When I first thought to say a positive affirmation about myself, it was difficult to get the words out. I did not want to lie to myself. I realized that the most important affirmation I could tell myself was the one that was most difficult to say, so I began to say that I was attractive. Pretty soon, I had cured myself of my doubts of my physical looks which gave me the confidence that girls did want to date me. It was not too much of a coincidence that I got a girlfriend soon thereafter.

Why must the affirmation be said vocally? One of my favorite sayings that I made up is “Thoughts don’t change thoughts, actions change thoughts”. Say that you do not like changing diapers. Thinking “I like changing diapers” will not make you like changing diapers anymore. The best way to change your attitude about it is to act. In this case, you would change diapers. As you do it more, you will not mind it as much. That is why the affirmation must be vocalized. Saying something is an action, and actions have the power to change thoughts.

Does this only work with convincing yourself that you are attractive? I decided to test to see how far it can go. I was playing on an intramural basketball team at the time, so before my games, I would vocally tell myself that I was going to make every three-pointer. My shooting percentage skyrocketed. In one game, I hit five threes in a row which I had never before done.