How to Write Affirmations You Can Believe

To write affirmations, start from a moment when you need one, write down what you usually tell yourself in that moment and answer it with a short sentence you can believe today. “I’ve prepared, and I can handle the first question” is easier to accept before a presentation than “I’m a brilliant speaker.” Below are six steps, examples of weak affirmations rewritten and the research behind each choice.

What makes a good affirmation?

A good affirmation is a short sentence about yourself that you can say without arguing back in your head. It talks about something you can do or choose, and it fits a situation you face often.

Ready-made positive affirmations are a good place to find ideas. A sentence you write yourself can name your own situation, in the words you’d use, which a list written for everyone can’t do.

How to write affirmations in six steps

1. Pick one situation. Choose a moment that repeats: Monday mornings, a meeting where you have to speak, scrolling through other people’s photos at night.
2. Write down what you tell yourself then. Be honest, even if it’s harsh: “I’ll make a fool of myself” or “Everyone is doing better than me.”
3. Answer it the way a fair friend would. A friend wouldn’t say “You’re perfect.” They’d say something true, like “You’ve done this before, and it went fine.”
4. Turn the answer into your own sentence. Write it in the first person, or with “you” if that feels more natural: “I’ve done this before, and it went fine.”
5. Test it out loud. If you hear “that’s not true” in your head, make the sentence smaller. “I’m calm” can become “I can take one slow breath before I start.”
6. Decide when you’ll say it. Tie it to something you already do: “When I sit down at my desk on Monday, I’ll say my sentence.”

The last step comes from research on plans in the form “when X happens, I’ll do Y.” A 2006 analysis of 94 studies by Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran found that people who made plans like these reached their goals more often than people who only set the goal.

Why your affirmations should feel true

Affirmations that feel far from the truth can make some people feel worse. In a 2009 study by Joanne Wood, Elaine Perunovic and John Lee, people with low self-esteem who repeated “I’m a lovable person” felt worse than people who didn’t repeat it. People with high self-esteem felt better, but only a little.

This is why step five matters. Words like “learning”, “can” and “today” make a sentence easier to accept: “I’m learning to trust myself” sounds more honest than “I trust myself completely.” In our article on whether affirmations work, you’ll find more on what the research does and doesn’t show.

Should you write affirmations with “I” or “you”?

Both are fine, and “you” or your own name can help before a stressful moment. In seven studies with 585 participants, Ethan Kross and colleagues looked at how people talk to themselves under stress. In the two studies about a speech and a first meeting, people who used “you” or their own name felt less distress than people who used “I.” Observers also rated their performance higher.

So “You’ve prepared for this, Anna” is as valid an affirmation as “I’ve prepared for this.” Try both and keep the one that sounds like you.

Should an affirmation describe the result or what you’ll do?

Write about what you’ll do more often than about the perfect result. In four experiments published in 2011, Heather Barry Kappes and Gabriele Oettingen found that people who imagined an idealized future had less energy afterwards than people who imagined other versions of it. They measured energy partly through blood pressure.

That study tested imagined futures, not affirmations. Still, it’s a reason to prefer “I’ll send two applications this week” over “My dream job is already mine.”

How to write an affirmation from your values

In psychology research, “self-affirmation” usually means writing about a value that matters to you, such as your family, honesty or humor. A 2014 review by Geoffrey Cohen and David Sherman describes how short exercises like this helped people at school, with their health and in relationships, sometimes for months or years.

You can turn a value into an affirmation. Ask yourself what matters to you in the situation you picked, then write it down:

• “I care about my friends, and I show up for them.”
• “Being honest matters to me, even when it’s awkward.”
• “I’m someone who keeps learning.”

Affirmation examples, before and after

These rewrites show the steps above in practice. The first column has sentences that are hard to believe, and the second has a version that’s easier to say on an ordinary day.

Before	After	What changed
I am rich.	I’m learning to manage my money better.	A skill you can work on instead of a result
I’m never anxious.	I can feel nervous and still do this.	It allows the feeling instead of denying it
Everyone likes me.	I can be kind, whatever others decide.	It’s about what you control
I’m the best at my job.	I’m good at parts of my job, and I’m getting better at the rest.	Believable on a bad day
I love my body.	I’m thankful my legs got me up the stairs today.	Specific and true today
I’ll never procrastinate again.	I’ll start with ten minutes.	A small action with a clear start
I’m completely confident.	I can act confident for the first five minutes.	Smaller, so you don’t argue with it

If you want more sentences about yourself to start from, see our self-love affirmations. For anxious moments, our affirmations for anxiety explain what to say and when.

What to avoid when you write affirmations

• Sentences built on “not”. “I’m not a failure” is still a sentence about failure. Write what you can do instead: “I can learn from this.”
• Comparisons. “I’m better than them” depends on other people. “I’m better at this than I was in spring” depends only on you.
• Promises about other people. You can’t decide whether someone texts back or offers you the job. You can decide what you’ll do next.
• Sentences copied without changes. If a sentence from a list almost fits, change the words until it sounds like you.

Affirmations don’t replace therapy. If harsh thoughts about yourself don’t stop or start to affect your sleep, work or relationships, talk to a doctor or a mental health professional.

We built Graceup as a gratitude journal, and it also has more than 2,500 affirmations in 19 categories. In the Affirmations tab, under Mine, you can write your own affirmations of up to 140 characters and pick a background for each one. Only you can see them. The free version keeps three of your own, and Premium keeps any number.

Photo: Kateryna Hliznitsova on Unsplash