115 Affirmations For Self Love With Worksheet Printout

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Affirmations for self love are a great way to improve self esteem. In this post I’ll show you how to create personalized affirmations that really work along with a list to help get you started.

Paper stuck to bathroom mirror with affirmations written on it with woman in the background of the mirror taking picture with phone

I do positive affirmations just about every day. To be perfectly honest I used to think affirmations were cheesy, but they totally work!

Over the years they have really helped to reframe my thought processes to allow for more automatic positive thoughts. They help me feel the positive things I’m saying…even if I feel ridiculous talking to myself in the mirror. I tape affirmations for self love to my bathroom mirror so I remember to say them to myself everyday.

A couple years ago, I lost 90 pounds. I’ve kept it off for a few years now. I know it sounds like a lot (and it is a lot!) but in reality it took a really long time (about 2 consistent years) of day-to-day work that was sustainable for me to stick with long-term in my life. What does this have to do with affirmations? Keep reading…

The #1 thing that helped me stick to my healthy lifestyle that led to my 90 pound weight loss…

It wasn’t a certain diet

It wasn’t a certain exercise plan

It was working on my mindset to improve emotionally and mentally. A big part of that for me was learning self-love through community support, journaling and you guessed it: AFFIRMATIONS!

Most people think that we just need the right diet plan or exercise regimen to stay motivated, but that wasn’t the issue for me. I was obese for pretty much my whole life. I tried a million different diet plans and exercise regimens over the years and none of it stuck.

It was only when I started working on myself emotionally and mentally to improve my self esteem, get support from others, and love myself no matter what that things started to change. It was the mindset shift that helped me want to take care of my health from a place of self-love rather than punishment for not looking a certain way.

After that it was easier for me to eat well because I was able to be gentle with myself and deal with my feelings rather than numbing my feelings with emotional eating. Exercising was easier because I wanted to do simple things that made me feel good rather than punishing myself through exercise or berating myself for not doing enough. I would take a 15 minute walk one day and instead of telling myself that’s not enough, I would tell myself good job! Then gradually I was able to enjoy exercise for me and increase the amount and intensity as my experience grew.

before photo on left side of overweight dark haired woman next to after photo on the right of slimmed down dark haired woman

How automatic negative thoughts affect our brains

If you’re like me, you’ve spent a long time with automatic negative thoughts being your go-to. Thoughts like “I’m not good enough” and “nobody likes me” used to be my automatic initial thoughts without even trying.

The therapist I worked with said that your negative thoughts are literally like a well worn path in your brain. The neurons in your brain are so used to taking that path because you’ve been doing it for so long. They even create actual grooves in your brain mass.

But don’t feel bad, it’s not your fault. Evolutionarily, our brains are designed to filter for the negative to keep us safe. If you imagine living as a caveman, it makes sense that your brain will pay a lot more attention to threats to our safety and heavily consider any small thing that may be a danger to us, so it makes us hyper focused on negative thoughts.

How to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts

To move past these automatic negative thoughts, we must replace them with positive thoughts. This is no easy task since our brains are so used to taking that negative path. It’s like having to forge a new walking path through overgrowth and thicket instead of taking the already formed path.

We can improve by practicing replacing negative thoughts with positive ones as they come up throughout the day as well as doing positive affirmations every day. The key is to keep doing it over and over again through daily repetition even though it’s hard and unnatural in order to wear in that new path. I always visualize forging that new path in my brain…it takes work, but it can be done little by little.

Another great tip is to not beat yourself up if you miss a day or two. Just keep doing it as much as you can and over time you will see progress.

Why self love affirmations work

Our brains sometimes can’t tell the difference between reality and fiction which makes it possible to hack your brain into believing something that you don’t automatically believe. This is also why visualization is such an effective tool as well.
One research study shows that affirmations can activate the reward system in your brain which further supports the idea that imagining or affirming positive things can trick your brain into believing it.
Because of the brain’s ability to change and adapt over time, which is called neuroplasticity, it is scientifically proven that our thoughts/beliefs are not set in stone, they are able to change and morph and quite literally change the neural pathways in our brains at any stage in life.

Start with affirmations that you can believe

When you’re starting out with affirmations, it’s helpful to do ones that you truly believe at first or can see yourself believing. Research shows that affirmations are more effective when you can accept them as being truthful.

For example, before I started doing mindset work I’d often have the automatic thought “nobody likes me”. Do I actually believe that? Of course not! At the very least, I KNOW my Mom and Dad like me and love me, so I know that negative statement is not true. I can think of at least a few people who like and love me, so swapping that thought with “I am loved” is true and is something I can believe.

However, if you’ve had really difficult relationship with loving your body for a long time it may be harder when starting out to believe an affirmation like “I love my body”. It may be better to start with something more neutral like “my body is strong” or “my body is amazing because it created my children”.

Dark haired woman with green shirt writing in a journal with a pen

How to create personalized affirmations for self love

The most effective way that I’ve found to come up with affirmations is to write down all the negative thoughts I’m currently struggling with then I write out the opposite positive thought (or at least neutral thought). Here’s a simple step-by-step process…

Write down a few of the negative thoughts that you have regularly. If you’re struggling to remember them, take a couple of days to notice what thoughts come up throughout the day. Maybe someone took all day to text you back and your first thought was “They must not like me”. Maybe your significant other forgot something you said and your first thought was “they don’t care about me”. Notice your negative thoughts and write them down.
With each negative thought, ask yourself if you really think this is true? For example, when your significant other forgot about something you said, do you really think this means they don’t care about you? Let’s say it’s a no and you know that your partner cares about you and loves you, but is just forgetful sometimes.
Write down an opposite positive thought to combat the negative thought. If you have trouble believing the positive thought, use a more neutral thought to replace it with. Maybe you can replace “My partner doesn’t care about me” with “I am loved and cared for”.
Write down a couple of the most meaningful positive affirmations and stick them to your bathroom mirror. Say them to yourself every day at least once a day.
Don’t overcomplicate it! It can be as simple as “I am loved” and that’s great! Don’t allow perfectionism or self-criticism to get in the way of baby steps and daily progress.

Here’s a few examples:

Nobody likes me —-> I’m am loved and accepted
I need to do XYZ to look better —-> My body is enough just the way it is
I will never find love —-> I am worthy and loveable
I can’t get through this —-> I am strong and capable
I hate my stomach —-> My body is worthy just the way it is
My body looks bad —-> My body is not my identity
I’m stupid —-> I am smart. I am capable of learning and growing.