A good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it's personal, it's positive, it's present tense, it's visual, and it's emotional.
Stephen CoveyRemember that our reactions are a product of our perceptions, and our perceptions are a result of what is at the center of our life.
Stephen CoveyAll things are created twice, but not all first creations are by conscious design. In our personal lives, if we do not develop our own self-awareness and become responsible for first creations, we empower other people and circumstances outside our Circle of Influence to shape much of our lives by default. We reactively live the scripts handed to us by family, associates, other people's agendas, the pressures of circumstance - scripts from our earlier years, from our training, our conditioning.
Stephen Covey