Autosuggestion Techniques and Examples to Reprogram Your Beliefs

In the last post, I talked about how autosuggestion works, and why it’s an important tool you can use to influence your subconscious mind.

In this post, I’m going to dive into more detail on specific autosuggestion techniques you can use to create lasting, positive change in your life, starting today.

Ready?

1. Use Positive Affirmations

The first, and probably the most obvious autosuggestion technique is to use positive affirmations. Affirmations are at the crux of how autosuggestion works, and, by themselves, can go a long way towards creating new beliefs.

Remember: autosuggestion works by creating repeated thought patterns in your brain. As you consciously choose to repeat your thoughts, you quite literally strengthen the connections that thought has in your brain. Over time, this forms a belief.

This means that affirmations, or simply repeating positive ideas to yourself, will, over time, instill a new belief within you. HOWEVER, you have to make sure you choose your affirmations carefully. Simply telling yourself you have a billion dollars in the bank won’t necessarily make you believe it.

To learn more about how to use positive affirmations properly, click here.

2. Write Your New Beliefs in a Journal

Speaking affirmations is important, but even more powerful is the act of writing them down. Harvard-trained psychologist Shawn Achor notes that when we write down positive qualities (whether that’s an affirmation or simply something we are grateful for) are brains are significantly more likely to remember that association, and act on it in the future.

Writing causes you to spend more time sitting into the energy of the phrase, so it has a more powerful impact. This means that your fastest route to a new belief may be as simple as keeping a daily affirmation journal.

3. Manage Your Mood

When you’re working with autosuggestion, remember that the most important factor to consider is how you feel when you are thinking the thought.

When you feel good, you are creating an empowering belief, but when you feel bad, any affirmation you use may just reinforce the limiting beliefs you already hold.

As Napoleon Hill writes in Think and Grow Rich: “Remember, therefore, when reading aloud the statement of your desire, that the mere reading of the words is of no consequence unless you mix emotion, or feeling, with your words.”

This means that you need to begin to prioritize how you feel, not only in the moment in which you are working with your affirmation or written statements of desire, but all day, every day. Begin to raise your vibration by constantly focusing on the good things in your life, and managing your mood.

For tips on how to do this, you can see our list of happiness hacks to help you feel better now.

4. Create a Personal Mantra

The next autosuggestion technique is to create a personal mantra. This is similar to an affirmation, but is generally shorter, and reflects a more defining element of who you are, and how you want to act.

For example, whereas you might have an affirmation that is a few sentences describing how you want to feel more abundant, or more peaceful, or more loving, the personal mantra would be a truncated version of that.

Often, a single word works best, as it is easy to invoke consistently throughout the day. So, your mantra may simply be: “peace,” “love,” or “abundance.”

Then, as you move through your day, repeating your personal mantra. You will begin to see evidence of it everywhere. You might see abundance in the overwhelming number of leaves on a tress, or feel peace in the softness of the morning breeze. The point is: you begin to embody the feeling you wish to create, which brings us to our next technique…

5. Act As If

Autosuggestion will not work for you until you fully believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that you already are the state you wish to create for yourself.

While thinking that something is “on its way to you” may be helpful when you’re starting out, ultimately you need to develop complete faith in your beliefs.

Faith always shows itself through your actions. This means that to embody the desire, you must act as if you already have it. Ask yourself how the “you” who has already achieved your goal would act, and then do your best (given the circumstances available to you) to make the same decisions and actions as that ‘you’ would.

6. Visualize Your Desired State

If you find it difficult to act as if something has already happened, then you can also use visualization to help you feel into the state of having already achieved it.

When you visualize, you close your eyes to the world around you and focus as clearly as possible on your goal. You imagine yourself living every single detail of it, and having a vivid, vibrant, and exciting experience.

To help you with this, you could make a vision board, or check out these easy visualization techniques.

7. Leverage The Momentum of Thought

If you understand how The Law of Attraction works, you know that the key to manifesting anything you want rests with your ability to manage the momentum of thought.

There are two primary things to consider. First, you must make sure you are “headed in the right direction,” and, second, you must stay with that energy for as long as you can.

The basic route is simple: when you feel negative, you want to think a more general thought. When you feel positive, you want to think a more specific thought.

As you do this, you will find you can gain control over your momentum. As you work your way into more specific, positive ideas about your goal, you increase the momentum you hold towards them, strengthening your beliefs and causing them to manifest more quickly.

8. Set Your Intention, Every Day

Lastly, remember that autosuggestion is a long-term process. You can’t expect to apply these techniques for a few days or a month and see dramatic changes in your life.

How long the process takes depends on how strong your limiting beliefs are. You can’t expect to overcome a belief you’ve held for decades in the span of just a few weeks. The key is to wake up every day and set your intention to recreate your beliefs, and begin each day by instilling your new, desired belief within yourself.

Persistence, more than any other quality, is the single most helpful trait you can develop.

If you can follow these simple techniques and autosuggestion examples, then you’ll find that you’ll be able to create any belief you want for yourself. As you create those beliefs, you will gradually release limiting ideas you hold, and place yourself on the path to be, do, or have anything you choose.