The Book of Afformations was one of the more unique self-help books I've read in a while.
The author, Noah St. John, invented an inverted form of affirmations he calls "afformations".
What makes them different?
In regular affirmations, you tell yourself positive statements like "I am rich", "I am healthy", or "I no longer smoke".
The problem with these, Noah says, is that they do nothing to address what he calls the belief gap. You can tell yourself you are rich, but it may not convince yourself at the subconscious level. Noah recalls the mixed results he got from doing affirmations because to have them work effectively there has to be belief behind it. Could there be an alternative way that doesn't rely on belief and instead helps form it?
What if you made it into a question? Instead of "I am rich", what if you asked "Why am I rich?".
Noah explains the human brain is hardwired to act like Google. If you pose questions to it, it will start automatically looking for the answers, including at the subconscious level. It will start looking for patterns to make the question come true.
But we have to be careful what questions we ask.
Most people ask themselves disempowering questions and don't even realize it. “Why am I so fat?”, "Why am I broke all the time?", "Why do I suck at my job?". To turn this around, start consciously asking yourself positive empowering questions like “Why am I losing weight?”, “Why does money come to me?”, or “Why do I love my job?”.
Noah describes a cycle called D.B.A.R. Your desires influence your beliefs, which in turn influence the actions you take and produce results. The results may or may not match with what you desired, and the process repeats from there.
In the context of afformations, you first figure out what you truly want. This is your "Ask". Then you create a unique afformation and practice it repeatedly to create your belief. You consistently read, write, say them out loud, or listen to a recording. As you start to train your mind, you will naturally start to make decisions and actions that lead to your desired result.
Ok, so how do you make these afformations? The process is easy.
Let's say your desire is to get in better shape. Now turn that into an empowering question for yourself. There are infinite different ways you can do it. Use what feels right to you. Some examples include "Why do I lose weight so easily?", "Why do I eat a healthy, balanced diet?", "Why am I getting in great shape?"
The key is the questions should always start with "Why". You do not want to think or worry about the "How". Noah explains that once the right motivation and belief is in place (the “why”), the mind will automatically steer you to the right direction and solutions (the “method”).
Noah reminds the readers at this point they are still responsible for their own actions. You still have to act in a positive direction that matches with your afformations. Watching TV and eating bags of chips while aspiring for weight loss isn’t going to help much, obviously. As Noah says, “You can’t break the laws of the universe and expect to get what you want.” Afformations are not magic, it’s about motivation and mindset.
Why are these called afformations? Noah explains affirmation comes from the Latin affirm, which means to make firm, whereas "form" comes from the Latin formare meaning to give shape or form to. You need to form something before you can make it firm. Asking yourself empowering questions does more to give shape and belief than making a statement.
If you're struggling to think of your own afformations, the second half of his book lists hundreds of them from different categories you could use.
Noah includes a lot of anecdotes of his clients' success stories. The ones I thought best were from people who have never read his books or taken the courses, but had a friend teach them the concept.
One story involved a man who asked an acquaintance if she ever tried to stop smoking. She replied that she tried everything under the sun to no avail. He suggested he put a note on her fridge, "Why is it so easy for me to quit smoking this time?" and look at it a few times a day. Some time later, the man met the woman again at her home and noticed there were no cigarette packs or smoking trays anywhere. He asked her what happened, and she said she didn't know why, but she felt it was finally was easy to quit.
What I most liked about this book was the little to no metaphysical woo, unlike the prior books I have been reading by Andersen, Goddard, Dodson, and Haanel. At the same time, I feel this technique is more powerful than using statement affirmations or intention lists as recommended by Dodson, Blake, and RHJ.
I wrote my own list of afformations on my phone and set up reminders for myself to look at them multiple times a day. Time will tell what happens.