Self-Affirmation as An Act of Self-Love

Just like other people in their boredom, I go to TikTok to escape from life’s hustling and bustling. I have been watching too many TikTok videos recently, and I found one audio that caught my attention. It’s from a song by an American new rising rapper, Yung Baby Tate, titled ‘I Am’. What I like from the song is that she is asking us to tell ourselves what we wanna hear about ourselves and what we want to become. In the song, Yung Baby Tate’s affirmation mantra is: I am healthy, I am wealthy, I am rich.

So, what is this self-affirmation, and why do we need to do it?

Self-affirmation is a psychological theory that focuses on the reflection of an individual’s values that are relevant to themselves to avoid pressure when confronted with statements that contradict them. In short, self-affirmation is an action to encourage our belief in our self-concept, values, and roles. Because as we grow older, we face many new experiences and obstacles that sometimes loosen our beliefs or principles. We are confused about our life, about our position, about our attitude of mind. Not to mention when we are questioning our self-worth and value.

Many times, I have found myself losing balance in life. I don’t know what I am doing; I don’t know what I want to be. Sometimes I am stuck in an infinite circle of vagueness where I just repeat my routine (re: sleeping-being sad all the time-repeat) without knowing what I aim to be. Another issue occurs to my self-confidence. I learned that to completely love ourselves is actually so hard, at least for me. I used to think that believing that ‘Okay, I’m pretty just the way I am’ is enough. Those campaigns about loving yourself remain vague for me.

I am fully aware that self-love is complex; everyone has their own interpretation and their own way of loving themselves. In my ‘searching for meaning’ phase, I’ve tried to love myself by not listening to what people say, but it turns out that even what they don’t say weakens my self-love process. I still get insecure when I compare myself to the people that I see on social media, and it’s not just about appearance. So then I am back to my ‘searching for meaning’ phase again until I found this self-affirmation theory that reassures me.

I have found my own way to love myself, and that is to believe in myself. I always try to be confident in myself because I know my value; I know that no one knows me better than I do, and the same goes for other people. I try to stop comparing myself to others because I know we’re different. And trust me, it feels so good to truly know yourself. I always think that it’s important to have a positive image of yourself that is manifested by yourself so that when people talk shit about you, you won’t question yourself. I find this suitable for self-affirmation behavior because according to the self-affirmation theory, our affirmations reflect our core personal values.

Many of us will think that having self-affirmation means that we are overconfident with ourselves. Well, who doesn’t want to be confident in themselves, though? If you are always surrounded by negative people and negative talk, having a positive self-affirmation can help you tackle that negativity away.

Positive self-affirmations can evoke positivity in ourselves so we can maintain our self-concept by telling ourselves those affirmations. Not only psychologically or mentally, but it can also help us to do something better physically because we believe that we can do it. But nothing comes instantly, so we need to practice self-affirmation daily and make it a habit in order to make a long-term change.

Having positive self-affirmations can build our confidence, encourage ourselves to do or pursue something, and manifest our goals. We can adjust the affirmation depending on what we are aiming for and our roles in the environment. The affirmation must be started by ‘I am’ to make it more powerful because our statements must affirm that something is true. It can give suggestions to your subconscious mind that you are going to be what you are saying; these beliefs will replace the negative thoughts and become true.

Practicing positive self-affirmations is simple. You just have to clear your mind, fill it with positive thoughts, look at yourself in the mirror, and state your affirmations confidently. Your affirmations can be anything! I am healthy, I am happy, I am smart, I am graduating with a perfect GPA, I am loved, I am forgiving myself, I am successful. Anything positive! You have to repeat it every day to make it a habit.

Positive self-affirmations will definitely benefit your mental and also physical health. It will make you a better and optimistic person, push away negativity, and eventually, you can love yourself completely! Remember to stay positive! <3