You might wonder what the Oscars and your success have in common?

Oscar night always generates so much excitement–even for people like me who don’t see most of the movies nominated, it is still fun to watch the show or read the headlines of who won. Whether it is the glamour, the fantasy, or the fame, acting and those who do it well seem to grab our attention.

The skill of the best actresses (or actors) and their directors is to make us believe something is real, even when it isn’t, and–believe it or not–it is the same skill that determines whether affirmations work for you. Yep, the thing missing from your happiness is probably your inability to pretend things that haven’t come to fruition yet–are real!

You may have tried affirmations and given up on them because they didn’t work–writing them off as one more failed technique. But the harsh reality is affirmation do work, if you can convince yourself to believe they are true.

You probably deliver affirmations with an internal critic adding, “Yeah, right!” or “Here are all the facts that show this isn’t true.” The inner voice is more believable than the affirmation, and so it wins the Oscar award for your life.

A few years ago one of my mentors, Bob Proctor, gave me a book called The Art of Acting by Stella Adler. It seemed a strange book to give a businesswoman and spiritual seeker who had no interest in acting. Yet, a short way into the book I recognized it was my missing ingredient in making affirmations work for me. Stella taught her acting students, like Marlon Brando, how to make their characters come to life by having them study the intricate details that make up a scene and rarely focused on delivering lines. These are the same details that help you convince yourself that your affirmations are real, which is the key to affirmations working.

Based on Stella’s teachings, here are a four ways you can become the Best Actress in your own life and start to create the movie you choose to live rather than the one you don’t.

1. Acting is doing. Stella never let actors rely on the lines, she told them their actions should come before the lines and make the lines believable. What would someone do if your affirmation were true? How would they walk? Sit? What would they be carrying? Fill your imagination with action that would arise from your affirmation being real.
2. Imagine your affirmed circumstance in detail. Stella told students they couldn’t have dinner on a stage. They had to transform the stage into the circumstance of having dinner in their mind even if the props and circumstances were not on the stage. She would have her students first imagine the details of the dinner. Is it in a home or a restaurant? Notice the placement and type of silverware, plates, and water glasses. Is wine served? Are there candles? What food is being served? Be very specific. Only when you have filled in all the details of this dinner or anything else in your mind, including whom else is there, can you affirm it with conviction.
3. Study others who do or have what you want. Actors do not always have the life experience of the people they are portraying, so they study people who do to learn the nuances that make up that type of person. If you want to affirm you are wealthy, go where wealthy people are and watch them. Shop at stores they shop at and observe them while there. If you want to be in love, remember times you were in love and how it affected your body, your walk, your tone of voice and go watch couples interact. Then when you affirm these things you will be affirming them with the energy and details that make them feel real to your subconscious rather than as an idle wish. Stella said actors are undercover agents who must constantly spy on others!
4. Know your justification for what you are affirming. An interesting exercise Stella made students do was to justify their actions. If they were drinking a glass of water on stage they needed an internal reason for it, even if it is not stated outright to the audience–reasons like taking vitamins, getting a bad taste out of their mouth, or gargling. But she would not accept the justification of “I’m thirsty.” Why? Because it was too obvious. If you want to affirm being wealthy your justification needs to extend well beyond because you want to be able to buy things–what kind of things, what will wealth change in your life, specifically.

The best way to become an amazing actress is to practice and study and the same is true for your affirmations to become believable so that they manifest.

Many people who teach affirmations tell you to aim big, and I agree.

But to learn the technique of belief and faith you need to practice from where you are to quiet the internal critic. Stella told her students they could not play a part bigger than them and their experiences. She sent them out to increase their experiences so they could increase the size of the parts they could play.

That is what I recommend you do. Affirm something small and study the intricacies of what it would look like to realize it. Then affirm it to yourself, looking in the mirror, while driving, before bed. Pick small things until you grow you muscle of imagination and detailed observation.

If you are depressed, affirming you are joyful may be beyond your ability to imagine.

But you could imagine and affirm that today is going to be better than yesterday. And then start to create how that scene would look. What small improvements could you believe? Once you get these bit parts right, you will be on your way to the Oscars!

Amy