5 Strange Facts Positive Affirmations Fail to Deliver

The truth about self-help tips like positive affirmations

When we try to replace a worry with some positive affirmation we usually want it to be true, but deep inside, we aren’t convinced.

These tactics often fail because they try to persuade us in believing something that doesn’t feel believable.

Why do they fail?

—First, unwanted thoughts are trickier than you think. They usually stay in our awareness and bug us even when we try to suppress them.

— Second, let’s face it: our brains are not simple. Evidence suggests we have two ways of thinking:

System #1 which is fast, automatic, and emotional.

and

System #2 which is slower, more deliberate, and logical.

Positive affirmations engage system #2 yet system #1 may overpower the thought since strong emotional reactions are rooted in the ‘reptilian brain’ responsible for fight or flight responses.

By substituting positive thoughts over negative ones we wish we could will them away but most times the unwanted thoughts persist.

Louise Hay’s book “You Can Heal Your Life” (1984)

Louise Hay was the most influential author and motivational speaker about positive affirmations.

Her book, “You Can Heal Your Life” set the stage for using positive affirmations to heal negative thought patterns.

Yet, Hay’s journey to health did not just use positive affirmations. She combined a number of other treatments that she believed lead to healing and health.

Her story deserves re-telling.

In the 1970s, Hay was diagnosed with cervical cancer and attributed her healing to a combination of forgiveness, therapy, nutrition, and positive affirmations.

In “You Can Heal Your Life” she expressed her philosophy that belief patterns contribute to physical disease and that positive thinking, self-love, and affirmations help a person overcome physical and mental illnesses.

The book was a groundbreaking classic in the field of self-help and personal transformation, selling millions of copies worldwide.

Even today it remains a cornerstone in the genre of self-help and personal development literature asserting positive affirmations help countless individuals improve their lives.

However, around the same time as Hay’s book hit the bookstores, Dan Wegner, a social psychologist from Harvard, published a study (1987) suggesting that every time you reactively reject an unwanted thought it has the potential to become even stronger.

In my own psychotherapy practice I’ve found that positive affirmations don’t work well for troubling anxiety, worry and overthinking.

At least not by themselves.

And, if you take a deep dive into the psychological literature, you’ll see there’s little evidence that positive affirmations work at all.

Here’s the evidence that positive affirmations are likely to fail at helping you overcome anxiety, negative thinking and/or depressed moodiness.

1. They are too generic and lack personal resonance

For instance, an affirmation such as “I choose to make the rest of my life the best of my life” has nothing to do with your particular life — in the moment.

There’s nothing specific about this affirmation to make it speak to you and to your circumstances.

2. They strengthen your willpower and overshadow deeper feelings

When we become determined to overcome an uncomfortable feeling, by willing ourselves “out of a bad mood”, we neglect critical emotions that are causing our bad mood in the first place. This is a band-aid approach glossing over complicated issues that may require therapy.

3. They are at odds with what’s really going on with you

When there’s a significant gap between the affirmation and your actual feelings, this causes cognitive dissonance and makes you feel more uncomfortable.

You’d like to see yourself in the positive scene but you know you are far from feeling that scene is real for you.

4. They are too superficial

Positive affirmations tend to address surface level thoughts — what’s at the forefront of your awareness. They don’t engage with underlying beliefs and deep emotions that are the fuel for our anxiety and negative thought looping.

They can feel insincere.

If you don’t truly believe in them, they lack effectiveness.

5. The paradox of thought suppression

Finally, the very act of trying to replace negative thoughts with positive ones inadvertently draws more attention to the negative thoughts.

This is called the “white bear” or “pink elephant” study. Daniel Wegner in the 1980s led a series of 5-minute experiments in which participants were instructed not to think of a white bear and to ring a bell it they did. Paradoxically, the harder participants tried not to think about a white bear, the more often they were ringing the bell because white bears were all they could think about!

Conclusion

If you’ve thought of using positive affirmations to get yourself out of a sad mood or overcome anxiety, I’d suggest thinking again.

They seem appealing; like quick fixes. But our minds are not that simple and direct.

We can’t turn our fears, on and off like a light switch.

In the case of making unwanted thoughts go away, we make them peskier and keep them at the top of our minds in an endless ‘thought loop.’

There’s a medley of information and relationships baked into each one of us. We each carry unique neural structures that demand custom treatment.

There are psychological tools to manage anxiety and negative thinking that offer genuine relief — not superficial relief.

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