A couple of weeks ago I posted a audioblog (transcript now up) about how I was reconsidering the value of affirmations after listening to a mental toughness/sports psychology audiotape.
A reader sent me a link to a chapter on affirmations in the book God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment by Scott Adams, Dilbert cartoonist.
I read the whole book last Sunday (hey, second Sunday in a row I’ve done no work other than to wallow in reading — Bring Back the Sabbath!) and a couple of his points about affirmations made sense. Especially:
A person who does affirmations takes mental tuning to a higher level. The process of concentrating on the goal every day greatly increases the likelihood of noticing an opportunity in the environment. The coincidence will create the illusion that writing down the goal causes the environment to produce opportunities. But in reality the only thing that changes is the person’s ability to notice the opportunities. I don’t mean to minimize that advantage because the ability to recognize opportunities is essential to success.
So this week I added three of them to my morning routine and intended to take a short break at lunch and dinnertime to repeat them… but I never remembered to do them. So yesterday, I cued up a couple of reminders via AOL’s IM Alerts and Reminders feature and had them sent at noon and 6 pm via IM and my cell phone.
The one affirmation I’m most eager to take hold is “I am mentally tough… and I love tense situations.” That’s a crock of shit, of course, but since the state racquetball tournament is this weekend, it would be great to have my whole brain and its 53-year pattern of choking overhauled by then.