Royane Real

Author of  “ “How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative”

You have probably heard or read many times that if you want to successfully achieve your goals, you should be writing down your goals every day.

People who write down their goals and who take the time to explore their desired goals in writing have a much higher rate of achieving the goals they want than the people who never write down their goals.

What is it about writing down your goals that makes this technique so successful?

Writing down your goals is a way of using written affirmations.  Writing down these affirmations many times gets your brain to participate more completely in creating this new vision for yourself.

However, if you use the wrong technique when you write down your desired goals, you may actually drive your goals farther away.  If you express your affirmations incorrectly, you may end up not achieving them.

If you phrase your affirmations the wrong way, you can reinforce the sense that your goals are impossible.  I’m sure that’s not something you want to do.

Here is the problem.  Where many people go wrong in writing down their goals is that they have very strong wishes, yearnings and desires for a desired outcome. 

When they create their affirmations, they focus a lot on expressing what they don’t want.  They affirm their desired goal as something they would like to have in the future, and not as something they have right now.

By phrasing your affirmation in the future tense, you can stay stuck in the current undesired situation.  It’s quite important to phrase your affirmations in the present when you are making them.

For example, when you are consciously creating an affirmation for yourself, don’t use affirmations such as these:

“Someday I will have a lot of money.”  Or:  “I want to lose 20 pounds.”

Statements such as these are not affirmations.  These statements are just expressions of your wishes, empty wishes.  There is no power behind them.

When you express your wishes this strongly, you are affirming how badly you feel right now.  The deeper part of your mind will only notice how badly you feel right now, and will assume that is what you are supposed to have in the future as well.

When you repeat these kinds of statements to yourself, you can end up reinforcing your sense of being powerless and hopeless.  You reinforce to yourself that your desired goals are far away and that you feel terrible about it.

You have to learn to reprogram your mind using some different techniques.

You have to use your affirmations in a different way.  You have to use your affirmations to make you feel solid within yourself that you will achieve this goal.  To do that, you need to get your mind used to being in a situation where you have achieved the goal you want.

To do this, you have to use your imagination, your emotions and your affirmations all together.

When you use affirmations, you are getting your mind to accept and dwell in a different reality than the one you currently inhabit.  You want your brain to get comfortable with the idea that you have money, or that you have the weight you want.  Or whatever other goal you have in mind for yourself.

So, using your imagination, your emotions, and an affirmation worded in the present, say to yourself,  “I feel very happy right now that I have enough money in the bank to do what I want to do.”  Back that up with the emotional sensations of feeling secure financially.  Really feel it.  Put some pictures in your mind of you being happy that you can afford what you want.

Or, here’s another example.  Affirm to yourself, “I am enjoying my healthy and fit body of 130 pounds.  I enjoy wearing attractive clothes that fit me.”  Let yourself actually feel the sensations physically and mentally that you would feel if you had actually achieved this goal.

Let yourself mentally step into a new world where your goals are already achieved.  Spend some happy time enjoying the sensations of this new world.

Focus on what you want, and not on what you don’t want.  And keep your affirmations in the present.

This article was written by Royane Real, author of f How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative” 

This book will teach you how to get the maximum use out of the brain you have.  It is available at http://www.lulu.com/real