The Problem With Positive Affirmations Is That We May Be Using the Wrong Kind

“I am confident.” “I am successful.” “I love my body.” Positive affirmations sound simple: repeat the right sentence often enough and perhaps you will start to believe it. But research suggests the more useful approach may be less about declaring who you want to be and more about reconnecting with what genuinely matters to you.

Originally published on September 6, 2024, this article has been substantially rewritten with current research distinguishing positive self-statements from values-based self-affirmation.

Try telling yourself, “I am completely confident in myself,” on the morning of a job interview when you slept badly, your hands are shaking and you are fairly certain everyone else applying is more qualified. Does the sentence calm you, or does another voice immediately answer, No, you’re not?

That little argument is where the subject of positive affirmations becomes much more interesting. I understand their appeal. A difficult thought arrives, we replace it with a better one, and if we repeat the better thought often enough perhaps it eventually wins. It is a wonderfully tidy idea.

The mind, unfortunately, is rarely that obedient.

When the Affirmation Starts an Argument

One of the most memorable studies on positive self-statements was published in Psychological Science in 2009. Researchers asked participants to repeat the statement “I’m a lovable person” and looked at how people with different levels of self-esteem responded.

Among participants with relatively high self-esteem, the statement produced a modest improvement in how they felt. Among people with low self-esteem, however, repeating it made them feel worse than comparable participants who had not been instructed to say it.

That finding has since been compressed into the much broader claim that “affirmations are bad for people with low self-esteem,” but that is not quite what the study showed. It tested a particular kind of affirmation: a broad, highly positive declaration about the self.

And you can see why that might create trouble. If I deeply believe I am unlovable, telling myself “I am lovable” does not necessarily replace the original belief. It may simply invite my mind to begin producing evidence for the prosecution.

The affirmation becomes a debate, and I am arguing both sides.

The Research Uses “Self-Affirmation” Differently

This is where much of the popular conversation about affirmations drifts away from the psychology research.

When researchers study self-affirmation, they often are not asking people to stand in front of a mirror and announce that they are beautiful, brilliant or destined for extraordinary success. Instead, participants may be asked to identify a value that genuinely matters to them and spend a few minutes thinking or writing about why it is important.

That value might be family, friendship, creativity, humour, faith, independence, learning or being dependable. The point is not necessarily to convince yourself that you are wonderful. It is closer to reminding yourself: This matters to me. This is part of who I am.

The difference sounds small until you think about what each exercise is asking the mind to do. A sweeping positive statement can require you to believe something you may currently reject. A values exercise begins with something you already accept as meaningful.

Self-affirmation theory proposes that this broader sense of identity can matter when one part of us feels threatened. A poor grade, criticism from a boss or frightening health information can make us defensive because the event begins to feel like evidence about our entire worth. Remembering another genuine source of value may give us enough psychological room to respond to the difficult information without treating it as a verdict on the whole person.

That is a far more interesting proposition than telling yourself you are unstoppable.

Eighty Students, One Difficult Test

A 2013 experiment offers a useful example. Researchers recruited 80 university students, assessed their chronic stress and randomly assigned them either to a self-affirmation exercise or to a control activity before a difficult problem-solving task performed under pressure.

The affirmation was not “I am brilliant at solving problems.” Participants reflected on values that were personally important to them.

Among chronically stressed participants, who tended otherwise to perform more poorly, the self-affirmation exercise improved problem-solving performance. The intervention did not remove the stressor or magically make the questions easier; it appeared to help some participants perform better while under pressure.

That, to me, is a much more credible promise. A useful psychological tool does not need to transform you into another person. Sometimes helping you function a little better in a difficult moment is enough.

The Effects Are Modest—and That Is Fine

This is also where I would put away the motivational poster.

When researchers combine many studies of values-based self-affirmation, benefits do emerge, but they tend to be relatively small. A large meta-analysis examining self-affirmation and health behaviour brought together 144 experimental tests and found positive effects on how people responded to health information, their intentions to change and subsequent behaviour.

A 2025 meta-analysis went further, combining 129 independent tests from 67 published articles. It found small but statistically significant benefits across self-perception, general well-being and social well-being, along with reductions in psychological barriers.

I find that more reassuring than disappointing. If a relatively brief psychological exercise produces a small benefit for some people, it can still be worthwhile. It simply deserves a proportionate sales pitch.

The trouble begins when a modest psychological technique gets repackaged as a law of attraction with stationery.

Maybe the Best Affirmation Is One You Can Believe

Once you separate grand positive declarations from values-based self-affirmation, the everyday use of affirmations starts to look different.

Compare “I am wildly successful” with “Doing good work matters to me, and today I can finish the thing I said I would finish.” The second statement may not look as good printed in gold lettering, but it contains something concrete and believable.

Or consider “I love my body.” For someone struggling deeply with body image, that may be such a large psychological leap that the sentence itself becomes another reminder of how far away they feel from it. “I can treat my body with care even on a day when I do not like how it looks” asks much less—and may be considerably easier to believe.

The same principle works elsewhere:

Instead of: “I am fearless.”
Try: “I can be nervous and still make the phone call.”

Instead of: “Everything is going to work out.”
Try: “I have handled uncertainty before, and I can decide what to do next.”

Instead of: “I am an incredibly confident person.”
Try: “I do not feel confident yet, but I can prepare.”

Those alternative statements have not each been individually validated as therapeutic formulas, nor should they be presented that way. What makes them useful is that they do not demand an immediate contradiction of your present experience. They leave room for doubt while still pointing toward action.

There is no requirement that an encouraging thought sound impressive.

Sometimes believable beats beautiful.

You Do Not Have to Talk Yourself Out of Every Difficult Feeling

This may be the part of affirmation culture I find most uncomfortable: the suggestion that every unwelcome emotion needs to be rapidly replaced with a pleasant one.

Some days are bad because something bad happened. You may be frightened, grieving, embarrassed, angry or disappointed in yourself. You may dislike your body. You may have failed at something important. Responding with “I am overflowing with joy, confidence and abundance” can feel less like encouragement and more like being told not to notice your own life.

A useful sentence can have considerably more room in it.

This is difficult, and I do not need to solve all of it today.

I made a mistake, but it is not the only thing that defines me.

I do not know what happens next, but I know what matters to me while I find out.

None of those statements denies the difficult part. They simply refuse to let the difficult part become the whole story.

What I Wish I’d Known Earlier: a useful affirmation does not have to contradict the way you feel. Sometimes the better sentence is the one your mind does not immediately try to prosecute for fraud.

Try Values Before Adjectives

If I wanted to experiment with the version of self-affirmation that has a stronger research foundation, I would skip the list of 50 inspirational declarations and give myself five quiet minutes instead.

Start by choosing one value that genuinely matters to you—not one that sounds admirable or looks good in a journal. Suppose the value is being dependable. Write down why it matters. Perhaps you remember a parent who always showed up when promised, or maybe keeping your word makes you feel most like yourself. Then ask one very practical question:

What would living that value look like today?

Perhaps it means returning the phone call you have been avoiding. Perhaps it means arriving when you said you would. Perhaps it means admitting that you cannot fulfil a commitment rather than disappearing from it.

Now the affirmation has somewhere to go.

That is much closer to the values reflection used across self-affirmation research than repeating “I am unstoppable” 20 times while brushing your teeth. Studies using this values-based approach have found benefits in areas including performance under stress, openness to difficult health information and subsequent behaviour, although the results vary by context and the average effects are not large.

When I Would Put the Affirmations Away

If a positive statement repeatedly leaves you feeling fraudulent, ashamed or worse about yourself, there is no prize for saying it with more enthusiasm. Change the sentence, try a values exercise, use more neutral self-talk—or simply decide that affirmations are not particularly useful for you.

They are a tool, not a moral obligation.

They are also not a substitute for treatment for depression, anxiety, trauma, an eating disorder or another mental-health condition. If distress is persistent, severe or interfering with daily life, carefully chosen sentences should not be expected to do the work of appropriate professional care.

And not every emotion requires intervention. Sometimes sadness is an understandable response to something sad. Sometimes anxiety arises because something matters deeply to us. Sometimes the useful thing is not to replace the feeling but to understand it, tolerate it and decide what to do next.