I Am Affirmations: How to Use the Power of Your Words

Imagine if every word you spoke had the power to sculpt reality. What's good? It's Rob Cressy and welcome to Built For The Game where we talk about the systems for creating a better life. And today, we're going to dive into how language can be a tool for self-creation, unlocking the power of turning words into personal transformation and growth.

This is a concept that is definitely a mastery level concept because it starts from a foundation of how important your language is. Because your language has the ability to shape your life and your identity because the words you speak create a story. Your story creates your actions, your actions create your results. And for a lot of people, whatever language is, the words that come out of your mouth. But imagine being open to the possibility that, wait a second, the words I speak can actually help me grow and create everything that I want in my life.

Because personal growth is an active ongoing process. And I love to sort of transcend personal growth and move it to self-creation where I believe and live that I have the ability to create everything that I want in my life. And my language and yours is a powerful tool to help make that happen. And this is something that is very foundational when you understand language is just not communication, it is a tool in your creator tool belt.

And what really gets me thinking about this is when I'm working with someone and we're creating their declarations, the powerful truth and the identity of who they are. The I am statements. And we are creating this story for our self-talk. I am infinite love. I am abundantly generous. I am a force of attraction. And each one has power and meaning. And you feel into it and you visualize it and boom. You have the ability to create that into yourself so that your state of being and your identity, it becomes who you are.

And there's two declarations that I speak on a daily basis that I think is a great example of why I'm even recording this entire episode. And the first one is I am always in focus. And I created this because so often in our language, we will say, oh, I wasn't focused or I need to be more focused. And I'm someone who's dialed in from the second I wake up to the second that I go to bed. And that's more of my state of being because I understand I can create my world.

So while I understand the way that the majority of the world talks about focus and you go in and out of focus, I sat there and I was like, you know what? Focus to me is a state of being and this is an identity because I know the second that I wake up, I am dialed in. I'm immediately reading for 30 minutes and doing my boot sequence of my morning routine. So I transcended the word of focus where most people think it's coming and going, you're sort of activated, to I am always in focus.

And what I shifted is when I am not as dialed in on something, I see that as attention, not focus, because we've got a lot of distractions going on in our life. So instead of, oh man, I need to be more focused, it's like, hey, I want to put my attention on something or I'm not putting my intention on it because I am always in focus. And it's a slight edge that I create for myself, knowing that I am always focused.

The other example for this is I am in flow and I visualize myself riding the waves of life, the ups and the downs. And there's the emoji of the surfer that's in there when I speak to the declaration. And once again, as a creative so often we sit there and it's like, man, I would love to create more flow in my life. So there's those times when you are just lost in what you're working on. Maybe you're shooting a video or creating a program or you're going for a run or a workout where at the end of it, you're like, man, where did time go? It was like that was like three or four hours. That was unbelievable.

And for so many of us, flow is the thing that we are looking to create more of in our life. But once again, since I saw that a lot of us talk about it from we turn it on or we turn it off or we have it or we don't have it, I was like, well, wait a second, can't flow also be a state of being and an identity that I create where I see my entire life in flow?

And that's why I say riding the ups and downs of life because so often concepts feel good or make sense when we feel good or things are positive. But a lot of times when challenges and obstacles and adversity come in life, it can be very easy and quick to throw that in the trash and be like, you know what? I don't believe in this thing anymore, only when things are good.

So my simple reframe here of riding the waves of life, even on the downs. And as I started to play with that language even more and really visualize into it, the emoji of a surfer is amazing because a lot of them when they're catching the wave, they're actually on their way down. And that's the best part for them. So yeah, we can be on the upslope of things, but it's the downside of wave when things are actually the best for a surfer.

So now all of a sudden this gets me rethinking about the way that I see obstacles and adversity where it's like, wait a second, this can be like a surfer riding the down part of the wave. And with this, all this does is reframe my thinking and get me out of the negative mindset of the obstacle and adversity and instead open up the possibility to where there could be more power accessible for me.

So those are two examples that I live on a regular basis. And my encouragement for you is to one, audit your language because what you speak creates your reality. But number two, start to think about if there's any words in your life in which you can self create and have one word mean something else.

And this isn't a concept that is revolutionary from a foundational standpoint because we have the color orange or the fruit orange. We have the fruit lemon or when you buy a car that is a piece of crap, but you thought it was going to be good. It's called a lemon. So there's a lot of words that have double meanings. Well, if a lot of words can have double meanings, why don't we just take the opportunity to create whatever the meaning is that we want for ourselves? Because we get to create the reality of the world that we live in, a.k.a. self creation 101. Everything is a possibility for you.

And I'll even take this one step further. And this is like the highest level. And I'm still working and creating on this myself. So two weeks ago, I was out in Santa Monica at Creating Love and Power, an event put on by John Patrick Morgan, one of my coaches. And we did a lot of the inner work in excavating and being aware of the things that are not serving us and that are blocking me from creating more of what I want in my life.

And for me, what I was really creating around was my not enough. This I am not enough and where that shows up in my life and where I can feel it because I'm sure you relate to this. A lot of us, our self chatter is just chirping all the time. And even when you do the work and you've got positive inputs and you're about this life, that doesn't mean that negative self talk doesn't appear because by design, as an entrepreneur or a creator or someone with a growth mindset, we're always doing something that we have never done before.

Therefore, our self chatter is going to chime in being like, do you know what you're doing? Are you afraid? There's self limiting voices. Everything. And this is where the not enoughness can pop up and then it can manifest itself in various areas of our life. Sometimes we can even feel the anxiety on our chest of we're so all in on something and it's just not happening maybe as quickly as we would like or maybe the outcome wasn't what we wanted.

And then we create a story about ourselves where I wasn't enough. I did not do enough to create the expectation that I had in my head of what I thought was going to happen. And this is something that has been a part of me pretty much my entire life, is this not enough.

So when I went to the event, I legitimately wanted to self create a new reality for myself where I removed that story or at least became more aware of where there was more power accessible for me and through the practice of forgiveness and seeing my innocence in all of this. Of this is just a story that I've self created for myself and it's not served me. So I have the ability to drop it and create a more powerful story for myself. Boom.

I got through the entire process and it came now to the point where the Phoenix is rising and I'm now going to self create the powerful version of myself. And what popped into my head, just I'm someone who follows my intuition, was I am nothing. And it felt really good to say I am nothing.

And for a large majority of the world, if I went around being like, I'm so excited, I am nothing, people would be like, whoa, Rob, are you OK? Don't talk about yourself like that, that you're nothing. No, this is the next level of the game. This is the mastery level. So what in the world does I am nothing mean? And this is my self creation of it.

Well, the framing that I have with this, which is a very simple framework that I use, is plus one, zero or negative one. And that's how we can think about oftentimes our self talk or what we are creating in our life or the way that we view any situation.

And so often a lot of the messaging out there is when you're going through a tough time, AKA a negative one, that what you should just do is be like, you know what? It's OK that I'm going through this tough time because it's going to teach me a lot of things and I'm amazing, while you have egg and crap all over your face. So they want you to jump from a negative one straight up to a plus one.

And oftentimes that just isn't realistic, especially when we are dealing with massive traumatic things going on in our life or these challenges that are very raw and real for us. Maybe it's an emotional hotness that you're feeling there. So jumping from the negative one of I'm not enough to the plus one of, oh, my God, I'm the most amazing thing in the world, for this specifically doesn't always work right there.

But there's a great book by Trevor Moawad all around getting to neutral and neutral thinking. And this is where sort of the plus one, zero, negative one comes in because it is a lot more effective when you are living in lack, the negative one, just to move to zero instead of the plus one. And what does that mean? Well, really, it just means that you're no longer thinking about or living in the negative story or the self-limiting belief that you're telling yourself.

So for me, immediately this clicked and I saw the power on, wait a second. If I am not living as I am not enough, the negative one, and I just get myself to zero, I am nothing, what that does is it creates everything. This becomes a blank canvas with infinite possibilities because when you're sitting there at nothing, man, I'm free. I can do anything. And this becomes the bridge for how I go from zero to plus one and create so much in my life and you can too.

And the beauty in all of this is when you can create this for yourself. And this was actually probably the biggest challenge for me, is I have a concept that I use, a very simple framework: know, K-N-O-W, believe, live. What do I know to be true? What do I believe to be true? And what am I actually living? And you can use this auditing framework because so often we know something to be true, we even believe it to be true. But are we living it?

And in this instance, since it was a brand new declaration for me, I am nothing. We're at the group circle and there's 25 of us all sharing about this. I raised my hand and I'm like, listen, I'm a master at this. I'm about this life. I teach and coach this to others. And here's the experience. I just share the story that I just did with you.

And I said, you know what? It's still not clicking for me. Like I'm not feeling it in my body like when I say I am always in focus or I am in flow. Boom, I got it. I live it. It's who I am. But when it came to the I am nothing, it really, it felt incongruent for me. Like intellectually I wanted it to be the thing, but I wasn't quite there for the thing. And that's OK because I've only been creating with this for two weeks. But I wanted to share you the good, good as it's happening.

And one of the things that actually helped me was when other people would come to me, and just a few of them, and say something like, Rob, that was so beautiful of I am nothing. Immediately I'm sitting there and I'm like, wow, there can be beauty in I am nothing. So like there's a few people who saw what I was seeing. And I started to see the beauty and create the beauty in I am nothing.

And then when I attached and everything, I am nothing and everything, it really helped deepen the connection to the story for myself because I can feel the weight of anxiety being lifted off myself and off my chest when I'm feeling that not enoughness. And now I'm like, man, because when I'm at nothing, that door opens to the blank canvas being like, come on, dog, everything's on the other side. Just drop that story. That's not serving you. Let's get to zero and start cooking with this.

And I wanted to share this with you because one, it's real time. Two, the power of language is something that changed my life. Once I went all in on this where I legitimately see my ability to self create everything that I want in my life by my ability to use my language as a tool, complete game changer. It's like my word went from black and white to color.

And I wanted to share this with you because in creating a path to a better life, we get to create tools on our creator tool belt of the things that help us do more of what we love or serve us. And for me, this is one of the foundational tools, the power of language. And there's levels to the game within the power of language. And this is one where you have the ability to live your language where you take a word, have it create something in yourself where you now live it. And this is something I'm super passionate about.

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