(Advice from a girl who read one (1) self-help book and now thinks she can solve your (and her own) inner turmoil)
By Dana Armstrong
The blind optimism and goal-setting for the future still rang true for 2021’s televised New Year’s Eve celebrations—even if it fell on the earless, wobbly Planet Fitness tube men in an eerily empty Times Square. But what if we abandoned those idealized New Year’s resolutions for less expectation-laden phrases, such as affirmations, to help guide us through the year?
According to a Statista report from December 2020, the top five goals for Americans going into 2021 were…surprisingly normal. Many want to exercise more, eat healthier, spend more time with family/friends, lose weight, and live more economically. Now these resolutions are all well and good (and hopefully less vague for individuals in practice), but aren’t we missing the point? After a terrible year that wreaked havoc on our mental and emotional health, we deserve to give ourselves a pass on the illusion of pursuing a set of traditional goals we abandon by early February. Instead of setting us up for another potential disappointment in the form of a New Year’s resolution, we should adopt affirmations.
Affirmations are concise, declarative statements of self-empowerment and positivity. Some like to repeat the phrases aloud as mantras, others prefer writing them out as a form of scripting to aid manifestation, and still others use them to calm and focus their mind as they meditate. But if any of that seems too intense or abstract, you absolutely don’t have to view affirmations as part of that realm. At its core, affirmations help you identify and remind you of the values that are most important to you. Instead of financial, social, or fitness goals with definitive steps and (often) attempts to boost others’ perceptions of you, affirmations are solely for you by helping you focus on cultivating your unique inner fulfillment.
You may be familiar with the pressures of the New Year’s resolutions you announce on social media or any other overly-ambitious goal you once felt inspired to set in a moment of late-night clarity. The most successful goals are typically structured as a list of smaller, time-sensitive tasks or stages that lead to a larger, tangible outcome. If you fall behind on these smaller tasks, your end goal is pushed back further, and that can encourage a lot of unnecessary guilt and frustration.
With the continued unpredictability of the world in 2021, it can be hard to plan ahead for many goals. Uncontrollable circumstances shouldn’t make us feel guilty for not accomplishing as much as we “should” in a typical (read non-pandemic) year. Believe it or not, it’s okay not to have a clear path for yourself right now. In stressful times, it’s more important than ever to focus on your mental and emotional needs and health over superficial goals. Affirmations can help find the inner fulfillment and stability we’re all currently craving.
I’ll be upfront. Unlike what all the other click-bait articles will tell you, affirmations are not a miracle cure for improved mental health or self-confidence. In fact, repeating phrases such as “I am beautiful,” “I am confident,” “I am a money magnet,” etc. can actually do more harm than good if you don’t really believe them. So, what’s the point, you may ask. Here I’ll repeat, affirmations are a way to identify and remind yourself of your core values—ideally ones that are positive and promote self-love. Great, you think, now, how do I find my affirmations?
It takes a little soul-searching to find and/or create the affirmations that are right for you. Affirmations are meant to be timeless, reassuring, and adaptable. They are simple, concise sentences that reflect the real you and your values. In order to find them, ask yourself: What are the personality traits, talents, or morals that I genuinely value about myself? Think non-superficially, and really tap into what makes you tick. If you’re really struggling with this self-reflection and have honest and trustworthy friends or family members, reach out to them to see what they value in you. If it’s something you also believe to be true about yourself, that could be a start. The beauty of an affirmation is that it’s not supposed to be a super nuanced, literary-quality sentence with underlying expectations and checkpoints to cross. They’re straightforward, grounding, regularly revisited reminders of what really matters to you in your life.
If you’re looking online for inspiration, and find a phrase that speaks to something you want to be but also feels like an unrealistic expectation that fills you with dread, that affirmation isn’t yours, honey. Society sets so many expectations of what we “should” be, and we don’t need to bow down to them. In Amelia and Emily Nagoski’s book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, they describe “Human Giver Syndrome” or the idea that you’re supposed to be “pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others” (and I’d add conventionally productive) at all times (Nagoski xiii-xiv). As you can imagine, that mindset is unrealistic, unhelpful, and therefore shouldn’t be reified in your affirmations.
Your set of affirmations are for you and only you, and should make you feel good about yourself. Having two, ten, or twenty affirmations are all valid as long as they all speak to your unique self. Feel free to incorporate quotes or lyrics from others that speak to you. If time goes on and one or more of your affirmations no longer speak to you, get rid of them, change them, or replace them. No one, besides yourself, needs to know. Affirmations are completely up to you, and you have the power to evolve them any time throughout the year. Why let the changing calendar year or other people’s thoughts/opinions dictate when or how you reflect on what matters to you?
New Year’s resolutions tend to be goals you outwardly declare to hold yourself accountable to others. Affirmations are feel-good phrases for yourself to remind you of what you value in yourself. You simply cannot fail your affirmations (unlike your 2020 resolution to travel more). In 2021, a year of continued uncertainty, we could all use a few more assurances that no matter what the year or day brings, our affirmations are always fulfilled through our mere existence. Perhaps our only resolution should be to leave New Year’s resolutions—and Planet Fitness tube men—in the past.
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