Everyone has heard of affirmations before and many of us have even tried to use them in the past. The question is how many of us have stuck with it? How many people have integrated affirmations into their lives so completely that they are as important as eating and sleeping? Probably not very many. Why?

Affirmation is defined in the dictionary as a positive declaration, statement, or judgment; something declared to be true. We know that we are supposed to create positive words, a list of positive things about us, our jobs, our lives, our finances, and then we are supposed to say them out loud to ourselves every day, preferably in front of a mirror. Most people give up on affirmations probably because they don't really understand the "science" of how they work.

The key is to remain connected to HOW affirmations can and will create powerful changes in our lives IF we utilize them correctly. A great exercise for this is to picture the image of a clock. It may even be better to draw the clock. At the 3 O'clock position is the word "THOUGHTS", and the 6 O'clock position is the word "LANGUAGE", at the 9 O'clock position is the word "ACTIONS" and at the 12 O'clock position is the word "RESULTS". The image of the clock is useful in helping us realize that reaching our goals is very much like reaching a certain time in the day. We can't just skip to 12 O'clock noon and eat our lunch. We must allow time to pass in sequence. In the same way, we can't just skip to the RESULTS in our lives without first having thoughts, speaking language, and taking action. (For more on this, please visit AbundanceBound.com - Financial Education and Planning for Actors and Artists" )

Henry Ford once said, "Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right." In other words, your life is what you believe it to be. If your thoughts are negative so is your life and vice versa. It also means that you can only do what you believe you can do. If we have predominantly negative thoughts, the things we say, our speech, will also be negative. When our language is constantly negative, it is virtually impossible to take fruitful, positive action. Without positive action, obviously we will not have positive results.

Now, picture the word "AFFIRMATIONS" as the second hand of the clock, slowly and steadily moving its way around, touching and affecting each element. When we repeat positive statements over and over and over again, we are consciously shifting our mindset forcing a break in the negative THOUGHT patterns that have become habits. This will in turn translate into increasingly positive LANGUAGE, which will drastically increase the likelihood of taking powerful ACTION - leading, of course, to powerful RESULTS. Of course, affirmations will not work in a vacuum. In other words, if you just sit on the couch all day, say affirmations, but don't do take any action (a stuck second hand that stops the clock), you are not going to see results. Always use affirmations to consciously keep you in forward moving action because action leads to results and success. Consider it this way. Many of us know what it is like to feel depressed. It is hard to get out of bed and get moving. You feel like lying around all day, maybe just zoning in front of mindless television. You most likely want to be alone (which is good because you would probably drain the energy out of anyone in your presence). Now think about times when something great is happening in your life. You leap up in the morning (probably early), you have lots to do but you're excited by it rather than overwhelmed. You attack each task with an energy that anticipates the feeling of accomplishment you will experience when the jobs are complete. You are a pleasure to be with and people feed off of your high spirits as you make them feel motivated and positive as well.

Which one of these people is going to get the best results in their lives? If we have the choice, we all know which person we would prefer to be around. This is also true for the people out in the world that can help us to reach our dreams and accomplish our goals. They don't want to be around the depressed, energy sucking, spiritless person either.

Taking the time to understand how affirmations work and then having the discipline to utilize them on a daily basis will help make you the motivated, positive person that good things happen to. Once you start creating positive results, your thoughts, language, and actions will become even more positive and powerful, leading to even better results, which leads to bigger and better thoughts, language and actions, and so on, and so on, and so on...