Affirmations Work Better When You Stop Chasing

Affirmations work when you say them from a steady place and then go plant something. They stop working when you say them from panic, refresh the results, and get disappointed nothing moved yet. The sentence on its own doesn’t do much. It sets the tone you go at the day with, and the day still has to get worked.

Why don’t affirmations work for some people?

Usually because of the mood underneath them, not the wording. A sentence said in a spiral sounds fine out loud, and the panic goes out with it anyway.

I’ve used a lot of affirmations over the years. Two are the ones I’ve reached for most lately, and I didn’t write either of them. I don’t remember where I picked them up. I’m not consistent with any of them and I’m not a pro at this. I’ve just said them enough times to notice which mornings they do something for me and which mornings they don’t.

The mornings they do something, I’m calm and I go make something. The other mornings I say the words and then spend an hour refreshing my analytics and calling it work.

What does chasing actually look like?

For me, three things, and I recognize all of them faster on paper than in the moment.

• Checking data instead of doing growth items. I’ll open the stats on all my projects one more time instead of making the thing that would move the stats.
• Being disappointed when things don’t start happening immediately. Not a week in. A day in.
• Doing anything from an exasperated feeling. The lack feeling. The one where you’re working, but you’re working like someone whose rent is due.

The third one took me the longest to spot.

Is checking on something always chasing?

No. The same action can be planting or chasing depending on what you’re feeling when you do it.

Opening my analytics on a Monday to decide what to make this week is planting. Opening the same page for the fifth time on a Tuesday night because I want it to say something different is chasing.

So the test is what you’re feeling while you do it. If that’s lack, no affirmation is going to sit on top of it and hold. A lot of my exasperation turns out to be impatience about timing, and divine timing is the frame I use for that part.

The other thing that helped was taking the checking off my hands. I set up a report that pulls my blog numbers once a week so there’s nothing to refresh in between.

The two I reach for most

Neither of these is mine. They came from somewhere else and I’ve carried them around since.

I don’t chase, I attract. What is meant for me will simply find me.

And the other one:

I am open to receiving all the abundance the world has to offer.

The first one gets said the most. It doesn’t mean I stop working. On a day I say it, I still enter the sweepstakes, still list the item, still ship the post. I plant. I just don’t grab at it afterward.

The second one is for the days I catch myself flinching at good things instead of just taking them.

Neither has an action attached, which took me a minute to make sense of. The sentence handles the not-chasing. Something else has to handle the not-being-stagnant. That other half is the seed, and if starting the seed is the hard part, that’s a different problem with a different fix.

How do you write an affirmation that isn’t coming from lack?

Read it back and ask what you’d feel saying it out loud. If the answer is desperation, rewrite it. Wanting something is fine. Panicking about not having it is the part that gets in the way.

Here are ten in that register. Take them, change them, or use them as a shape to write your own.

1. What’s meant for me isn’t in a hurry, and neither am I.
2. I plant it, I don’t grab at it.
3. I’ve done my part today, and that’s enough for today.
4. I’m allowed to want this without gripping it.
5. The right thing knows where to find me.
6. I don’t need to watch it work to trust it’s working.
7. There’s plenty, and some of it has my name on it.
8. I’m already building it, so I don’t have to chase it.
9. This can take the time it takes.
10. Good things are on their way, and I’ll be busy when they get here.

None of them tell you to sit still. That’s on purpose. This blog runs on the idea that you plant on purpose, and a sentence about receiving works a lot better standing next to a habit you actually keep.

This week’s practice

• Pick one sentence. Just one, and say it out loud in the morning.
• Before you check any number this week, ask what you’re feeling. Curious, or exasperated.
• If the answer is exasperated, close the tab and go plant one seed instead.
• Friday night, look back at the week and mark which days were mostly planting and which were mostly checking.

What if you never catch yourself in the moment?

Then you notice later, and that still counts. I usually don’t catch it live. I catch it at the end of a day, or a week, when I look back and see I spent four evenings checking and zero evenings making anything.

The first time I noticed, it was a whole week gone. The next time it was three days. Now it’s usually the next morning. It keeps shrinking, and I never once caught it in real time.

You don’t have to catch it in the moment for it to count.

Frequently asked questions

Grab the printable cards

Twelve cards, two sheets, cut apart. Print them, keep one where you get ready in the morning, and stick the rest somewhere you’ll come across them. And if you’d rather have a deck you didn’t print yourself, I tried one with a 10-second meditation on the back of every card over on Jen Tried It.

The short version

Affirmations work better when they’re said from a calm place and followed by a seed. Chasing is checking instead of planting, getting disappointed nothing has moved yet, and working from a lack feeling. The test is what you’re feeling while you do it. You probably won’t catch it in the moment, and noticing it later still counts.

Say the sentence. Then go plant something and let it take the time it takes.

Related reading

• How to Manifest the Grounded Way (Energy Plus Action)
• Abundance Check: What Happens When You Write the Number Down
• Low-Vibration Habits: How to Catch Them Before They Spiral