Sticking with it!

“It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” ~ Albert Einstein

I recently suggested trying the power of positive thinking and affirmations to a client of mine. She said “Oh, I tried that. It doesn’t work.”

I asked her what she did. She confessed that one morning she’d done some affirmations, and still had a terrible day.

Affirmations, or positive thinking, take commitment and perseverance. Some of those old beliefs are 10, 20, 30 years old (or older!). Doing affirmations for 20 minutes will not undue 20 years of fear based programming.

If you were going to change something else in your life, you’d commit to that, right? If you were moving, you’d move more than your couch before you gave up. If you planned on running in a marathon, you’d train, right? Not just buy a pair of running shoes! If you wanted to feel the benefits of a healthy diet, you wouldn’t eat an orange for breakfast one morning, and then have fast food for the rest of the week!

Our inner life deserves as much planning and commitment as our outer life does. Make the plan, and commit to it for at least three months (yes, it’s now been discovered that a mere 21 days won’t necessarily help us create a new habit!).

Stick with the positive thinking, and commit to those affirmations, and feel that change is happening, even though the changes may not be visible yet. And remember that the little acorn doesn’t grow into the mighty oak in 20 minutes.