I draw your attention to perhaps the single most important distinction that you can make in your quest for success in any endeavour.

Team huddles are marked by the repetition of strong affirmations. Clenched fists reinforce a conscious commitment to achieving some objective or goal.

Make no mistake! Affirmations are ingrained in our culture as a key to attaining high performance levels. And they work to some degree. They keep our goals in focus and motivate us at the conscious level.

The challenge with affirmations is that sustained results are really controlled at the subconscious level. The subconscious records all our actions and identifies patterns of behaviour that it uses to formulate an image of who we are. This image that is etched into our subconscious plays a significant role in determining our future actions.

We are all fitted with an internal “teleprompter”. Our teleprompter throws up thoughts, words and actions for us to use. Right now, a range of those are coming into your head. Your teleprompter is at work.

Now, you will notice that your teleprompter usually presents content that it thinks will be appealing to you. It does not want to waste energy producing material that you will not use. No point prompting me to investigate bungee jumping. Wasted prompt!

What happens in reality is that your teleprompter is directed by your subconscious which has a record of your every thought, word and deed. So the teleprompter is guided to motivate you to think thoughts, speak words and perform actions that are aligned to the image that your subconscious has of you.

That is why behavioural change is so difficult. While we are reciting affirmations at the conscious level the subconscious is funnelling invitations to our conscious mind that might be diametrically opposed to the affirmations.

Hypnosis guru Gerald Kein has developed a wonderful diagram to depict the gate-keeping role of the subconscious in blocking out new ideas and contrary actions that come from our conscious minds.

The Kein Mind Model in Transformation

That explains why so many weight loss projects fail all too soon. The same thing with fitness programmes. We march into those projects with affirmations in tow. However, the subconscious crowds out the affirmations with prompts that fit the image that is etched into it.

That is why the distinction between affirmations and Afformations is so vitally important in your quest for success. Afformations is a clever technique for bypassing the gate-keeper to the subconscious mind and getting ideas into your teleprompter that would normally be blocked.

The technique tricks the gate-keeper whose role is to stop new ideas that come from your conscious thoughts from interfering with what your subconscious has grown used to accepting as reality.

Afformations use the way our minds work to lead us to success, higher levels of performance, happiness, health and self-actualization.

The mind is trained is find answers to questions that are asked of it. It is in automatic research mode. Its job is to find answers. So, the secret to success then, is to ask our minds the right questions!

Have you ever misplaced something or had a name on the tip of your tongue for a while? You then give up in frustration and move to something else. Bingo: “I remember now…” You left your mind to find the answer and it did.

That is how Afformations work. Ask the right (empowering) questions and move on so that your mind gets the opportunity to find the answers. Do NOT interfere. That would be like storming around fuming in search of the misplaced item. Ask your empowering questions and move on!

I am a firm believer in the effectiveness of Afformations in support of believing prayer.

If the goal is to be a great spouse, you raise it in prayer and afform it in the form of this type of empowering question:  “Why am I such a thoughtful, caring spouse?”

Resist the urge to give up because of the flood of prompts from the subconscious that questions how you could even think that given the historical situation. Your job is to ask the empowering questions repeatedly and leave the answers to your mind.

This much is true. Show me the output of your teleprompter and I will tell you where you have been and where you are headed. Start re-programming your subconscious today with empowering Afformations!

We are grateful to Noah St. John, author of The Secret Code of Success, for developing the Afformations concept. The great news is that you can get the first three chapters of his #1 best-seller by clicking this special link or pasting it in your browser: http://www.successclinic.com/cmd.php?Clk=3967676

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