Motivation Articles, Essays, Tips and Advice

In Part 1 of this series, I introduced you to my discovery of AFFORMATIONS – empowering questions (NOT “affirmations”) that immediately change your subconscious thought patterns from negative to positive.

The staggering realization I made in The Shower on that fateful morning was that you create your reality in two ways: by the statements you say to yourself and others, and by the questions you ask yourself and others.

Traditional success teachers have focused a great deal of energy telling you to change your statements. But until The Shower, no one had fully realized, or shown how to harness, the awesome power of what happens when you change the questions.

Your mind has an Automatic Search Function, which means that when you ask yourself a question, your mind automatically begins to Search for an answer. (Psychologists have referred to this function of the human brain as the “embedded presupposition factor.”)

Even as far back as Biblical times, we’ve been reminded, “You have not because you ask not,” and “Ask and you shall receive.” If you only change the statements you say without changing the questions you ask, you’re missing out on one of the easiest, yet most powerful ways to change your life that’s ever been discovered.

The 4 Steps to Create Afformations That Can Change Your Life

Step 1: Ask yourself what you want.

You’ve probably done this step before. In Step 1, you can use goals you’ve previously written, or start from scratch. You decide. Please note that traditional success literature stops right here! They told us to “set your goals”, and then say “affirmations” that attempt to convince your brain that you will have what you want… sometime.

For example, in Step 1, you might decide that your goal is to be happy, healthy and wealthy (hard to imagine anyone NOT wanting those things). So, you would write: “I want to be happy, healthy and wealthy.”

Now we go to the breakthrough step…

Step 2: Form a QUESTION that assumes that What You Want is already true.

In Step 2, you ask a question that assumes that what you want is already so, has already happened, or is already true. This is the key to creating Afformations that can change your life.

Your Life is a reflection of the unconscious assumptions you make about life and your relationship to it. If you could find a mechanism that could record your subconscious thought-seeds and play them back to you, they might sound something like this: “Why am I so broke? Why don’t I have enough? Why aren’t I more successful?”, and so forth.

Well, a mechanism does exist that records and reflects your subconscious thought-seeds – that mechanism is called Your Life!

Step 2 of The Afformations Method is to begin to change the quality of communication with the world inside yourself. This is the fastest, most effective way I’ve ever seen to immediately change the quality of your communication with the world inside of you the world outside of you.

Using our example above, you would ask yourself, “Why am I so happy, healthy and wealthy?”

Step 3: Give yourself to the question.

The point of Afformations does not lie in finding “the answer”, but in asking better questions. When you ask better questions, your mind will automatically focus on things you’ve probably never focused on before. When you do this, the results will amaze you.

Let’s say you want to find a new restaurant in your city. You go to Google and type “restaurants” and the city you’re in. What you’re really doing is asking a question you don’t know the answer to, yet.

It’s the same with Afformations. You do not need to know, for example, why you are rich. You do, however, need to ASK why you are rich. Why? Because asking that kind of empowering question automatically focuses your mind on what you HAVE vs. what you LACK.

Once you ask a question of your mind, whether you know it or not, your mind automatically starts to Search for the answer without your conscious volition.

Which brings us to the fourth essential step of The Afformations Method – the final one you MUST do if you want this method to work for you…

Step 4: Take new ACTIONS based on your new assumptions about life.

You are, right now, making hundreds, perhaps thousands of unconscious assumptions about life and your relationship to it. These assumptions form the basis of how you go through life – positively or negatively, with confidence or shyness, from lack or from enough, from Love or from Fear.

For instance, if you assume that life is for you, you will naturally take actions based on the belief that “things will work out for the best” – and your results will naturally follow. If you assume that life is against you, however, then your actions will be hesitant, based on fear and “why bother” – and your results will naturally follow.

The Afformation Method makes conscious and clear that which has, until now, been only subconscious and hidden.

For example, a confident person will have an easier time in life, whether building relationships or building a business. Traditional teachers told us that we should “be confident”. But where does the behavior of confidence really come from? It comes from your hidden, subconscious assumptions about how life is going to treat you.
The point of The Afformation Method is not to find “the answer” to your questions. The point is to change what your mind automatically FOCUSES ON. Since you are now going to FORM positive questions that assume that what you want is already true, your mind has no choice but to find a way to make it so.

Can you see how this process must, by definition, change your life? I know of no other method that can yield such dramatic results with so little effort. Using Afformations, you can take direct, conscious control of your subconscious thoughts – change the questions, change your results, and change your life.
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Noah St. John, Ph.D. is Founder and CEO of www.SuccessClinic.com and author of The Secret Code of Success: 7 Hidden Steps to More Wealth and Happiness (Collins). You can learn more about his book at www.SecretCodeBook.com.

*brought to you by GetMotivation.com

We all know that an “affirmation” is a statement of something you want to be true in your life. So an example of a traditional “affirmation” might be: “I am rich.”

All right, let’s try it. Say to yourself right now, “I am rich.” Did you hear what just happened in your mind? A voice… a voice that said:

“Yeah, right!”

The plain truth is that most of us don’t believe our own “affirmations”. Why? Because we’re trying to convince ourselves of something we don’t believe is true.

Now, traditional success teachers realized that you may not believe your “affirmations”. So they told us to repeat our “affirmations” a thousand…er, million…uh, kajillion times until you eventually, um, believe them.

Have you ever said positive “affirmations” (for example, “I am rich, I’m happy, I have enough”)… and then had… Absolutely nothing happen? Me too. And about a gazillion other people.

I was in the shower one morning, thinking about how the human mind is always in the process of asking and seeking the answers to questions. For example, if I asked you, “Why is the sky blue?” – instantly, your brain would start searching for the answer.

So I asked myself, “If the human mind is always asking and searching for the answers to questions, why are we going around making statements we don’t believe? Why don’t we cut out the middleman?” Then I asked, “What would that look like?”

I realized that if we make a statement (“affirmation”) that says, “I am rich” and our brain replies, “Yeah, right!” the question might look something like this: WHY AM I SO RICH?

Come again?

WHY AM I SO RICH?
Try it. Right now, ask yourself, “Why am I so rich?” What’s your brain doing right now? Searching for the answer!

Remember Universal Law – “As you sow, so shall you reap”. Most people are unconsciously asking lousy questions, like: “Why am I such a loser? Why can’t I do anything right? How come I’m so lonely? Why don’t I have enough money?” Guess what they reap? The fruits of what they’ve sown! And that’s how, on that fateful morning, I discovered and named the process of using AFFORMATIONS.

Afformations are my discovery of empowering questions (NOT “affirmations”) that cause your mind to focus on what you really want, and stop focusing on what you don’t want.

Here are some examples of Afformations that my students have used with amazing results:

• Why am I allowed to be, do and have all that I want in life?
Brandon, an insurance salesman in Salt Lake City who’d spent $30,000 on self-help programs with few results, started using this Afformation in May. In 30 days, his sales tripled – and by the end of the year, his revenues had increased more than 560% and he was named Agent of the Year.

• Why do I lose weight so easily?
Monee had tried every diet program out there, but couldn’t lose weight. She began using this Afformation – and lost 20 pounds in 60 days without stress or dieting.

And one of my favorite Afformation stories…

• Why am I so enchanting?
7-year-old Adrienne from Alabama came home crying to her mother, Joan, sobbing, “Why does everyone hate me?” Joan, who had read my books, told Adrienne, “Honey, you’re asking the wrong question!” She explained Afformations to her daughter, who started afforming, “Why am I so enchanting?”

Adrienne would repeat her Afformation over and over, out loud. Then one day, she came home from school with a picture one of her classmates had drawn – it was a heart with two little girls holding hands that read, “I’m so glad we’re friends!” When I asked Joan how long it had taken for Adrienne’s transformation to take place, she told me – less than one week!

Afformations are an incredibly powerful method I’ve taught people since 1997 to change your questions and change your life. In Part Two of this series, I’ll show you the simple 4-step Afformations Method to manifest anything you really want twice as fast with half the effort.

*Stay tuned for Part 2 of this article!
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Noah St. John, Ph.D. is Founder and CEO of www.SuccessClinic.com and author of The Secret Code of Success: 7 Hidden Steps to More Wealth and Happiness (Collins). You can learn more about his book at www.SecretCodeBook.com.
*brought to you by GetMotivation.com

Years ago one winter’s day I arrived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to speak at a major sales conference. Greeting me at the airport and serving as my host for the event was a retired offensive tackle for the famous “Steel Curtain” Pittsburgh Steelers (yep, back in the day when they dominated the football scene).

The freezing weather brought to mind a question I’d often had while watching football games such as the famous 1967 Green Bay/Dallas “Ice Bowl” and many similar games in which the Steelers participated.

First, understand that I’m a “cold-weather wimp.” While I grew up in Massachusetts, I got down to Florida just as fast as I could.

I asked, “How is that you guys can go out in sub-freezing, tortuous weather and play as though that’s not a problem at all?

He replied very simply and profoundly: “Well, when it comes right down to it, Bob, you can ‘gut out’ pretty much anything for a few hours.”

WOW.

Isn’t that the truth? (Of course, keep in mind the words, “pretty much” so please don’t write me about those few monstrous things that are not covered here. Please accept the great principle contained in his statement.)

Whether it’s a person with whom you cannot stand being in the same room for a meeting, a flat tire leaving you temporarily stranded, a report you must write, a flight, or even a football game in freezing weather (whether in the stands or on the field), you can pretty much gut it out for a few hours.

Or, even longer. There are times when the situation in which we are involved is going to take longer to work out. An excellent way of working past this is to “reframe it” by telling yourself you can “gut this out” for ________________ (then fill in the blank with as many hours, days, weeks, or whatever).

Another reframe is to break down the longer time into shorter increments, such as 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour or whatever helps you to be able to deal with what you need to deal with.

It’s with only the utmost respect, admiration and awe regarding the female of our species that I point out that those who have given birth know from experience that they have enormous reserves of willpower and endurance that can be tapped into when needed.

We all know that life is not always pleasant. Dare I say it can often times be downright unpleasant. And, while we want to stay positive and use positive language when dealing with any situation, sometimes the situation really, really stinks.

There is no-way that anyone but the most consciously developed people in the world (and I am certainly not one of them) can appreciate it “at the moment.”

At times like these, we need to accept the “yuckiness” and give ourselves the proper tools to work through it.

One of those ways is by simply telling us that we can “gut out anything” for (fill in the blank).
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Bob Burg speaks on “Endless Referrals” and “Positive Persuasion.” He is author of “Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales”, “Winning Without Intimidation: The Art of Positive Persuasion”, and co-author of “The Go-Giver.” Visit Bob at www.burg.com.

- Did you enjoy the article you just read? Do have any particularly hard experiences you’ve overcome that you’d like to share which others might find inspiring?

*brought to you by GetMotivation.com