Designing your neural networks with leadership language

Affirmation literally means saying yes. The question is, “What are you saying yes to?” Are you reacting to the world around you, or are you mindfully designing your life based on your desires?

Every thought that we think about and repeat to ourselves, becomes a confirmed invitation to those experiences. All of your self-talk - both positive and negative, the inner dialogue in your head, is a running river of affirmations that carry messages to your brain. 

Here are 3 ways you can design your neural networks with leadership language:

Tailor your affirmations

The creativity of affirmations is limitless; you can find them pretty much everywhere - T-shirts, inspirational images on social media or internet articles, and whatnot.

But affirmations tend to have more benefits when they are specific. An affirmation that is specifically tailored to your feelings can work as a powerful thought-realigning tool. It can help you change and strengthen your inner dialogue whenever you choose. And a powerful inner dialogue helps you see your affirmations manifest into reality. 

Involve all your senses

Affirmations are most powerful when you practice them with all your senses. Listen to your true desires and write them down as though you are experiencing them right now, i.e., in the present continuous tense (I am …. ing). Read them out loud to yourself. As you do this, you can become aware of your resistance. You’ll realize, by realigning your inner dialogue, you can intentionally put a positive spin in your experience. 

Here are a few affirmations that may inspire you to design your own inner dialogue: 

• I am choosing to be patient
• I am encouraging myself to enjoy silence
• I am seeing opportunity everywhere I look

Forget perfection; seek consistency

Take every opportunity to realign all of your resistance and reframe it in a way that supports your goals as desires. For affirmations to work, you have to be able to identify with your own vulnerability and be kind to yourself for trying even when it may feel uncomfortable. 

The more you surround yourself with the affirmation, the more you will repeat it to yourself and the faster it will feel like your nature. Find ways to connect with it on a deeper level by applying your affirmation to a real-time situation in your life.

Star mindset

Fear can be a good thing if it protects you from harm. But we often hold onto our fears and anxiety for too long, giving the bogeyman an opportunity to get us when our guard is down.

Repeating optimistic affirmations can stop you from spiralling down the dark hole of self-doubt, anxiety, and assumptions, strengthening self-belief. That’s how you remind yourself that fear, anxiety, self-doubt - they’re all temporary. Maybe even optional. 

3 immediately applicable action steps

• Choose an area of your life that you want to see improvement in. Create an affirmation centred on that specific area. 
• Use statements that you truly believe in like, “I am feeling ready to look at every situation with a positive lens”. This might feel closer to reality.  
• Over the next two weeks, repeat your affirmation about 10 times every day. Even better, write it 10 times.

Summary: Affirmations are a tool to mindfully develop your leadership language. It is the shift from feeling like everything is happening to you to believing that you can choose to feel differently. Mindfully and affirmatively choosing your words and repeating them to yourself will allow you to show up for your interactions with comfort and ease.