I used positive affirmations during labor with my fourth child, but I haven’t really thought about using affirmations for success in other contexts. Until recently. I started a creativity group that meets once a month. At our meetings we do a check-in, discuss what struck us as most interesting about the reading, and do creative projects together.
The book we’re using to guide us is called Walking in This World: The Practical Art of Creativity. Written by Julia Cameron, it is a sequel to The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity.
Like The Artist’s Way, Walking in This World includes insight into the creative process. It explores the roadblocks aspiring creatives encounter. In addition, it offers dozens of practical exercises to give you insight into your hopes, dreams, and creative endeavors.
Cameron recommends a powerful exercise. She suggests that you write yourself affirmations for success. She calls these affirmations for success an “affirmative prayer.”
What’s are affirmations for success?
In Cameron’s conception, an affirmation for success is “a prayer of recognition and acceptance of the divine help that is at hand.” She continues: “Very often the action of writing an affirmative prayer clears away fear from our lens of perception. We suddenly see that we are guided, that divine mind is answering our request for help and support.”
During my meeting we all wrote our affirmations for success. Then we read them out loud to each other. I found them so powerful and uplifting that I wanted to share.
N.B.: You don’t need to believe in god to do this exercise.
Here’s what I wrote for my affirmative prayer:
I am being guided along my creative path. My guides—and the divine forces in the universe—help me see clearly where I need to go, and what I need to do. Athena, the goddess of wisdom; David, the Jewish man who beat Goliath; and Ganesha, the multi-armed elephant god of the Hindu pantheon, are all by my side.
They believe in me and want me to succeed. They’re showing me where to go, how to move forward, and how to dynamite the boulders in my path. They believe in me and I believe in myself. In fact, I know exactly what to do and how to do it.
I gratefully accept this divine assistance. Recognizing that my guides love me and care about me and support my art, my writing, and my hopes and dreams.
When I experience trouble at the border between the metaphysical and the physical, they are there beside me, offering me their help, love, kindness, and guiding light.
My friend Angie is a conservative Christian. She wrote her affirmation for success from that perspective.
Angie’s affirmation for success:
Thank you, Lord, for helping me. You’re guiding me by your Holy Spirit to grow stronger and to be the bold woman you created me to be. You knit me together in my mother’s womb, and You gave me unique and beautiful gifts. You are helping me every day, every hour, every minute to use the voice within me. By your grace, Your light is shining out of me and You are using me to bring glory to yourself. Thank you for calling me to You and always being present in my life. I am blessed, I am powerful, I have a voice. Thank you, Jesus, for always helping me, in every way.
My friend Diane is also a very spiritual person but in a very different way. She teaches transcendental meditation and even reads the Akashic records. Right now Diane, at age 75, is working on building her first website.
Diane’s affirmation for success
I feel divine inspiration from my angels to write the copy for my website. I’m enjoying their powerful cooperation. My angels help me know that this is what I came here to do.
I can see them standing next to me whispering the most appropriate and moving words into my ears. I’m not alone in this. We can do this together to move this creative, divine energy from my second chakra up through my core and out to the page.
It is fun, effortless and engaging to be so free and flowing with this creative energy.
I know they will continue to put people in my path who will inspire me and keep me going. They are whispering, “We will help you. You are going to love this process.”
I feel the satisfaction, joy and energy from partaking in this new creative writing for my website. My heart and mind are on fire as I move forward with this project.
You’ve written your affirmations for success, now what?
After you write your affirmative prayer, Cameron suggests you pull out the most powerful sentence from it. Once you have that sentence, she recommends you memorize it and use it as a mantra. Then, next time you go for a walk or a jog, instead of listening to music on your smart phone, say your mantra to yourself. Repeat it over and over. Believe that it is true.
What do you think? Out there or inspiring? Is it time for you to write your own affirmations for success?
Related articles:
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Making Art Will Make You Healthier (For Real)
On Professional Editing, or, Why I Charge My Friends For Advice
catherine colson says
Really good and inspiring Jennifer. My brain tends to wander off and gets lost in a bad neighborhood, especially when I have a deadline or not in the mood for working. An affirmation for success would not only keep me and my thoughts on track, it would rack up the positive and productive brain connections that seem to peace out when I really need them.
Dirk jacobsz says
My Affirmation :
I am a healthy active vital happy and successful human being. I affirm this day that all tissues and organs in my body are functioning perfectly and that is the way it is supposed to be. I am more relaxed than ever before because I choose peaceful loving thoughts and release my fears worries and anxieties.
Tension is gone because I am creating an atmosphere of ease and confidence. My mind is uncluttered because I have set specific goals and planned action steps for their accomplishment. I feel better now. Nature uses the food that I eat, the air that I breath the water that I drink and the rest that I get, to rebuild repair and revitalise me for the future. Radiant energy flows through me.
On this day I give of myself unselfishly extending my hand to help others. Opportunities to serve come continually and unexpectedly. I use my money to benefit not only myself but others as well. I choose to see good, hear good and do good for myself and all humanity.
I feel confident, secure, appreciated and loved and therefore I am totally healthy happy and full of abundant life.Ngaire Cannon
Susan says
My technique is to breathe in positive affirmations. Breath out the negative. While I meditate.
So,
I can create beautiful artwork… in 123
I can’t even draw a stick man …out 123
Ricky Barnes says
Thanks Jennifer: Always helps me to read your notes. I get encouragement from your positivity. You are a gift to me.
Cathy Sturgeon says
Definitely inspiring! I am starting to shake off the Covid funk and feeling ready to get back to writing on a regular basis. I really struggle with setting goals and sticking to a schedule. I can really see how writing an affirmation for success could help with my boulders. I love the examples you shared, they are very inspiring! Thank you for sharing!
Kannon McAfee says
Great advice. Thanks for the mention of Julia Cameron’s latest book. I’m going to get it.