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Affirmations for social skills/being a charmer/friendship?
Hello,
On top of reading "people skills" and doing "Power university", I am using visualizations and affirmations. I am looking for good ones, would you have some to recommend?
Here are mine:
- I am the type of person who's an excellent conversationalist
- I am the type of person who's a charmer
- I am the type of person who's making people feel good about themselves
- I am the type of person who's more charming than George Clooney
- I am the type of person who goes to speak to people spontaneously
- I am the type of person who's making new encounters every week
- I am the type of person who's developing his social skills every day
Thanks!
Hey John! Really cool to see you using affirmations to improve yourself. I do something similar. Focusing more on inner game/Monk Mode stuff myself, but I found something that looks like it'd be right up your alley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrvowFVLf7g These guys have a lot of really cool affirmations. Good luck on your journey!
I'm not a big fan of affirmations -or "incantations as they are sometimes called-.
It's not just a personal thing, it's that much of what I read in the research doesn't seem to back-up their utility.
You will read more on it in "Ultimate Power".
But for a quick reference:
But I'm not against them, either.
But instead of repeating sentences, I prefer to remind myself of my values and what I stand for. To challenge negative thoughts, ask more empowering questions.
I totally agree with you. When I tried to use affirmations, it was like I need "magical words" to change my condition. And after some time, I started to use them without feeling it which makes me not believe in myself. I needed those words to be good and I invested too much in being good. While I was feeling it, I thought I was good. And other times I escaped social situations to protect my beliefs about being good. I think I wasted a lot of time with them.
Of course, it may be my biased point of view.
However, now I believe in my capacity, my effort, my ideal antifragile ego, and my ideal growth mindset to be better. Maybe I am a bad conversationalist because of stress or anxiety, so I need self-compassion and some work, not the fragile belief that I am good at it. I am only good at making myself better in whichever path I want to walk by using the best resources possible and by working hard.
I am just paraphrasing the Ultimate Power book and reminding myself of it.
Sorry for language mistakes :)
I don't have anymore the access to the article above. However, in my own experience, affirmations work. Empowering questions and reminding yourself of one's values are good, it is complimentary, I do it as well. These are affirmations as well in my opinion. The principle is the following: whatever you repeat in your mind, you will become better at it. Affirmations are nothing else than CBT, it's the "cognitive" part: they're not magical.
I'll give a better example. There are "good" and "bad" affirmations, measuring good and bad to the extend it helps you think differently and effectively.
Bad: "I am a millionaire": it creates immediately a cognitive dissonance and doesn't give the mind material to work on.
Good: "I can become a millionnaire": it focuses on potential. So it gives your mind something to grasp on, it's empowering.
Good: "I'm the type of person that.." it gives your mind an image of the kind of person you can become, it's empowering.
Hi John!
Interesting thread here, I was just thinking about using affirmations myself.
When I first got into Power University, I learned about dominant body language and began my work on avoiding displacement signals until it becomes natural. I thought that a good way to break those bad habits would be to adopt an identity that supports my end goal. (Ex: If you want to stop smoking, instead of only working on your outward behaviors, adopt the identity of a non-smoker.)
Since high-quality men know power dynamics and power dynamics encourages the avoidance of displacement signals to appear more dominant, I used the affirmation "I am a high-quality man" to experiment with adopting that identity so I could break the habit easier.
Unluckily, that affirmation only triggered self-doubt in my subconscious, bringing up all the reasons that I am not yet actually a high-quality man.
Instead, what I do is I trick my subconscious by assuming the truth. My affirmation became, "Why am I a dominant high-quality man?"
By switching up the word pattern a bit to frame the affirmation as a question, my self-doubt doesn't pop out because my brain is busy looking for answers to the question, looking for all the reasons that I am in fact a dominant high-quality man.
I learned this concept from a teacher at Mindvalley named Christie Marie Sheldon who named this technique "Identity Statements" or "Lofty Questions".
If affirmations work for you, definitely stick with what will help you on your self-development journey, but this is what works for me.
What are your thoughts on this concept I've shared?
Ali
P.S. I noticed that one of your affirmations is, "I am the type of person who's more charming than George Clooney." People tend to view George Clooney as the epitome of charm. If you decide to become more charming than him, that might end up putting an Achilles heel on your charisma. What inspired you to decide to become more charming than Clooney?
Hello Ali,Quote from Ali Scarlett on June 15, 2020, 6:50 pm
- Unluckily, that affirmation only triggered self-doubt in my subconscious, bringing up all the reasons that I am not yet actually a high-quality man.
2. Instead, what I do is I trick my subconscious by assuming the truth. My affirmation became, "Why am I a dominant high-quality man?"
- That is to be expected. See 2. below. I agree with using identity-based affirmations, that is the purpose of: "I'm the type of person that.."
- I used to do that, I don't anymore. I think there are better ways of doing affirmatinos.
This boils down 2 concepts:
- The way of doing affirmations, there are levels to it in my opinion.
- Fragile vs anti-fragile identity. That is why the identity that I'm most concerned with is being the learner. Because it is anti-fragile. The learner adapts and learn from everything. You cannot beat the learner, given enough time, the learner figures out everything. I think the "high-quality man" is a fragile identity because it is defined from the outside and the standards are very high.
Regarding affirmations in general, I can only say that in my experience the statement "Affirmations work" is true.
Regarding George Clooney, the goal is to paint an image in my mind of what it looks like, so I know when I'm getting there and when I'm not. It's giving my mind my objectives. It's a blueprint. Now, as I said above in 1, this is not the best affirmation ever.
If I would give you advice on good affirmations I would make sure that they have these properties:
- Present, positive and personal: you already know that.
- Be empowering: meaning that your affirmations have to be anti-fragile as well. That they are always true. That is why Tom Bilyeu's advice is so good: focus on potential, on who you can become, rather than on what you are now or not. When I'm using affirmations, it's not to make me believe something that is wrong. It's to give instructions to my mind. Our minds listen to what we say and think to build a context of what is possible and what is not: our "reality", the bubble of awareness we carry around all the time. Even now. It's our concept of reality. So when I use affirmations it is to tell my mind: "forget about what was real before, now THIS is the new reality". And so it becomes this new reality. It's a programming language.
Example: so if you think you are not a high quality man YET, then what values, behaviors, habits, thought patterns has this man you envision? Then you write it down and then you repeat it, easy. I think in 20-50 years time, it will be so standard that people will wonder why we were programming our minds with so much shit and negativity in these days and age. So the concrete way is the following:
A quality man is somebody who is respected, and this respect comes from respecting others. So, the affirmation would be: "I'm the type of person who respects everyone and anyone". That's the idea, I would say this is a "good" affirmation. So, when you repeat this sentence "I'm the type of person who respects everyone and anyone" BECAUSE you really want to become such a person, then it will enter your subconscious. So, when the moment comes, your default action will become to respect other people.
Another example is focusing on potentiel: "I CAN BECOME a high-quality man" (you still have to define it, though). Once more, just focus on the "Become". That is it.
Example (at 2:20), same principle and 15:52 (you're going to like this):
By "real" and "reality", I mean: "the concept of what is possible". This is all more about changing what we think is possible (beliefs) and then change our action accordingly to reach the new desired state through our actions.
