Afformations is a system of personal development devised by Noah St John in April 1997.
Affirmations, Incantations, Afformations???
Afformations are not to be confused with the better-known self-help term called affirmations – which people have been using for years. Let’s look at the difference in these two, along with a similar technique called incantations.
Affirmations
Affirmations are much used by thought leaders such as by Brain Tracy, in his classic program “The Psychology of Success”. In it, he suggests using “I like myself, I like myself” repeatedly.
Here are some other typical examples of affirmations :
- I am a master writer (okay we don’t use that one at Successful Personal Growth !!).
- I am a confident person.
- I am truly healthy.
- I am a money magnet.
Hay House publishing’s founder, Louise Hay (author of the best seller You Can Heal Your Life, also uses affirmations extensively in her book “The Present Moment (365 Daily Affirmations)“.
Affirmations don’t work though do they?
In the past, personal development gurus believed that you could beat your brain into submission merely by repeating positive phrases over and over again.
However, affirmations have a major flaw. If your brain really doesn’t believe what you are trying to affirm to it, than you are merely wasting your time.
In fact, there is a growing school of thought which says that, for most people, this just doesn’t work at all. People have been known to say affirmations for years and still not get what they desire. Put simply, if your subconscious won’t accept the statements then no amount of repetition is going to change anything.
You can boost the power of affirmations though: Pictures, statements, and sticky notes placed strategically around you home can ‘force’ the messages home (subliminally). But again, if you don’t feel the messages on these notes and pictures to be true then you are pretty much wasting your time.
This is probably a good thing though – imagine if we were influenced by EVERY picture, phrase and music track we hear throughout the day!!!!
A way round this is to use hypnosis and / or subliminal messaging (which by-passes your sub-conscious mind). However, for many people, these techniques take up too much time or are just too inconvenient.
Proponents of the Law of Attraction would also argue that another potential problem with affirmations is that you could be reinforcing the ‘lack’ in certain areas of your life. This is especially true with some people stating there affirmations in the following way:
- I want more xxxx, I want more xxxx, I want more xxxx.
- I don’t want to be late, I don’t want to be late, I don’t want to be late.
The flaw here is that the universe is just going to give you more “wanting” or “being late”. So positive phrasing is crucial.
Incantations
Another ‘booster’ method for affirmations is incantations.
These are used by Anthony Robbins, particularly in his Hour of Power from the brilliant program “Get the Edge“. Tony’s thought processes maintains that merely repeating words (the process used in affirmations) does not ‘fire up passion’ within you. However, incantations uses more of a ‘full body experience’ to force the words out of your mouth. This passion generates feelings and it’s these feelings that generate change within us.
But again, if you really don’t believe what you are saying then it’s going to be difficult to see positive change. So what is the answer then?
Noah St John’s Afformations
The answer is the question
Put simply, our brains are designed to search for answers. In fact, we can’t help ourselves. If we are asked a question we can not avoid trying to answer it. It’s the way our brains are programmed. Even if we have no chance of actually getting the answer, or no matter how ridiculous the question is, our brains will immediately start searching.
So, for example, if you ask yourself the questions:
- Why am I such a failure? Your brain will actually start searching for the reasons why you have become a failure.
- Why am I so fat? Your brain will try to give you a good reason as to why you’re so fat.
Your brain is so good that it will fire answers back at you immediately (try it and see).
So when it comes to affirmations, if you say to yourself “I am wealthy” your brain searches it’s data banks for information that’s going to confirm this to be true. Of course, in many cases, it won’t find anything there and so it will respond “No you’re not”. In this case, it is better to ask yourself the question “Why am I so wealthy?”
Because this is a question (and not a statement), your brain knows that there must be an answer. So instead of making a statement that you don’t believe, ask a question that your brain can search the answer for.
Rewiring the brain
Our brains have neurons & synapses. The neurons are the cells and the synapses are the connections in between the cells. Over the period of many years we have negative thoughts about ourselves and this reinforces the pathway across the synapses.
Once this pathway has dug in, it can be very difficult to change the thought patterns. So it doesn’t matter how many times we say traditional affirmations to ourselves, once the thought gets too ingrained any affirmation is just going to be rejected.
Instead of fighting with your brain, just ask yourself an empowering (positive) question such as : “Why am I able to be the perfect weight?” Or “Why have I got all the money I need?”
As Noah St John points out, this is actually a science. As such, we should expect to see results. Of course, he also points out that it is about taking action as well.
Afformations : Asking the right questions
The four steps that “cause” your life
In his book “The Book of Afformations”, St John talks about the four steps that cause your life. These are:
- Desire : you want something (i.e. more money, lose weight etc.).
- Belief : you understand that this can happen or is unlikely to happen. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of people will automatically believe that they can’t do / have something.
- Action : the actions we end up taking are in direct proportion to the belief we have within us.
- Results : if you don’t think you are going to achieve something, then you won’t take the appropriate action. Conversely, if you are certain something’s going to happen, then you will take massive action and…. Guess what?……… It will happen.
But I’ve already taken massive action in my life, I work 14 hours a day
Noah talks about the ‘inner game’ and ‘outer game’. The inner game is what is happening in between our ears, and the outer game is effectively the actions we take.
Whilst you might be taking massive action, are you taking the correct action? To put it another way, one step in the right direction is better than 1000 steps in the wrong direction.
Therefore, it is vital that we can work on our inner game to ensure that we produce (and take action on) the correct outer game.
Having a fulfilled lifestyle
If you are striving for a fulfilled or abundant lifestyle then there are four elements that need to be in place for you to tick the box – T.E.R.M.:
- Time: how many times during an average week do you say to yourself “I’d like to do xxx but I just don’t have the time”.
- Energy: how many times during an average week to say to yourself “I’d like to do xxx but I just don’t have the energy”.
- Relationships: how many times during an average week do you say to yourself “I’d like to do xxx but I just don’t know the right people”.
- Money: how many times during an average week do you say to yourself “I’d like to do xxx but I just don’t have the money”.
If you are doing well in each of these areas then you could be deemed to be having a fulfilled lifestyle. However, for most people they are lacking in one or more of these areas.
And remember, in each of the above examples the wrong statement is being posed. Ask the right question!!!
If you are lacking in any one, or two, of the above areas then ask yourself what are you doing in the successful areas that you’re not doing in those less successful areas. What is driving you to take action in the successful areas that, perhaps, is not driving you in the unsuccessful ones?
Another thing to ask yourself, with respect to each of the above areas, is what would you be doing if you had an unlimited amount of:
- Time
- Energy
- Relationships
- Money
When the question in put in this way, you will identify what is really important you, internally, and maybe it’s those areas that you should be focusing on?
Unfortunately, for many people, they actually struggle to identify what they would be doing if they had an unlimited amount of the above four items. And herein lies the problem. If you don’t really know what you want, then you will find a way to fill (waste) your: time, energy, relationships, and money.
Why is this called afformations?
The creator of this system explains this a lot better than we ever could. However, put simply, affirmations means to ‘make firm’ whereas afformations means to ‘form’ or to ‘give shape to’.
So you don’t want to be making something firm by getting the wrong form. This is forming a life you don’t want.
So do these Afformations work then?
In his book “The Book of Afformations” there are loads of examples of how people have changed their lives around using this system.
What is interesting to note is that many had previously used countless other ‘traditional’ personal development programs, with little or no success. Yet as soon as they used afformations, success seem to come almost instantly.
Noah St John’s Afformations
We hope you enjoyed this introduction into Noah St John’s Afformations and that it’s given you a taste of the system. Try out the method by asking yourself some empowering questions and see what you come up with.
Of course, we have only scratched at the surface of this system and there are two options if you want to take further action.
Depending on how much you want to invest in your success, you might want to investigate the full program. Alternatively, if you just want to ‘dip your toe in the water’, or you are on a budget, you might want to pick up the book.
- Noah St John’s Afformations (full program)
- Noah St John’s Afformations (Book : USA Customers)
- Noah St John’s Afformations (Book : UK Customers)
Either way, this is a promising system for those who have not had much success with either the traditional affirmations, or those who might want to try something a bit different.
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