This is a new feeling for me. If there is one thing I have always been confident about, it’s my intelligence. I’ve struggled with many things over the years: body image, feeling “cool” enough, etc, but my intelligence was the one thing I knew I could be proud of.

Recently, however, some tough classes and tough exams have really shaken my confidence in myself. I am finding myself going into tests thinking things like “I’m going to fail,” and “I’m so stupid.” Needless to say, these are NOT helpful thoughts! I think part of the reason I have always been able to succeed in academics is specifically because of my confidence I had in my abilities, and since this has been shaken, I find that I’m having a much harder time.

So I decided to use something I learned in treatment for my eating disorder and body image issues: affirmations.

An affirmation is “a carefully formatted statement that should be repeated to ones self and written down frequently. For an affirmation to be effective, it needs to be present tense, positive, personal and specific.” Affirmations are part of positive thinking, or “fostering a positive mental attitude.”

However, instead of making affirmations like “I am beautiful no matter what,” I made these:

This may seem silly, or even a bit conceited – but it’s really helped! Instead of going into my classes with negative thoughts like “I will never understand this,” I am thinking more positive things like “Alright, this is going to be a challenge, but it’s going to be one I can handle!” Just this change in attitude has made so much of a difference. So yes, when people walk into my room and open my closet doors, they may think I am silly – but if it’s helping me, who cares!

Affirmations about my body have never been extremely helpful for me, but I have to say that these affirmations are working! If you’re like me and think that affirmations will never be helpful to you, maybe you haven’t tried the right kind of affirmations – so keep trying!