Life has a habit of being unpredictable, just when everything seems to be going well, a curve ball is thrown your way, how we deal with the unexpected stresses and emotional trauma depends a lot on our emotional intelligence, strength and insight into our own capabilities.
By using positive affirmations daily we remind ourselves of those strengths, we can rewire our brains, they raise the level of feel good hormones and push our brains to form new clusters of 'positive thoughts'
Affirmations are positive statements that can help you to challenge and overcome self-sabotaging and negative thoughts. When you repeat them often, and believe in them, you can start to make positive changes.
You might consider affirmations to be unrealistic "wishful thinking." But try looking at positive affirmations this way: many of us do repetitive exercises to improve our physical health, and affirmations are like exercises for our mind and outlook. These positive mental repetitions can reprogram our thinking patterns so that, over time, we begin to think – and act – differently.
For example, evidence suggests that affirmations can help you to perform better at work. According to researchers, spending just a few minutes thinking about your best qualities before a high-pressure meeting – a performance review, for example – can calm your nerves, increase your confidence, and improve your chances of a successful outcome.
Self-affirmation may also help to mitigate the effects of stress. In one study, a short affirmation exercise boosted the problem-solving abilities of "chronically stressed" subjects to the same level as those with low stress.
What's more, affirmations have been used to successfully treat people with low self-esteem, depression, and other mental health conditions. And they have been shown to stimulate the areas in our brains that make us more likely to effect positive changes in regard to our health.
This latter study suggests that a stronger sense of self-worth makes you more likely to improve your own well-being. So, for example, if you're worried that you eat too much and don't get enough exercise , using affirmations to remind yourself of your values can spur you on to change your behaviour.
For many people Strength Cards have been life-changing, which is why the cards are used by thousands of family workers, teachers, counsellors, trainers and parents worldwide.
Strength Cards are used for a whole range of purposes that include helping people identify their strengths and skills, goal setting, exploring values, critical reflection, evaluation and creative writing.
Grounded in strengths-based theory, Strength cards are capable of opening up conversations about the hard stuff in life as well as nurturing new ways of thinking about life’s possibilities.
