Better Alternatives to Words of Affirmation

Words of affirmation don’t work for me. They often make me feel worse. When trying to convince yourself of a somewhat objective statement — like “I am beautiful” — you are still assessing yourself under standards created against you.

For example, it is pointless trying to convince yourself that you are conventionally attractive when the standards of conventional beauty are created under Western patriarchal hegemonic conditions when you don’t happen to fit within those standards.

This fact is illustrated by trends of women in many countries harming themselves to lighten their skin tone, the increased trend of people of a healthy weight or even underweight using Ozempic, the popularity of cosmetic surgeries done to look more Western (double-eyelid surgery), and so on.

Insecurities about self-worth outside of beauty are also often addressed in pro-affirmation communities. Insecurity about our work, status, and productivity is based on what Byung-Chul Han calls an achievement society (Leistungsgesellschaft) where “everyone carries a work camp inside.”

He asserts:

“This labour camp is defined by the fact that one is simultaneously prisoner and guard, victim and perpetrator. One exploits oneself.”

Instead of convincing ourselves by self-indoctrinating repetition that we fit into conventional moulds and expectations of what we should be, we should consider questioning the validity of these expectations.

Insecurities stem from assumptions

We assume that we should be a specific type of person, achieve a sure thing, and generate a certain amount of wealth, among other subjective social construction standards, to be worthy of love, care, and respect.

The solution to insecurity, therefore, is to question these assumptions.

Here are some alternatives to affirmations:

“I am beautiful” → Men don’t get their value defined by beauty, nor should I.

“I constantly achieve great things” → My half-ass is other people’s whole ass.

“I am moving forward with my life” → Life is up and down for everyone, and moving forward is just a matter of learning from the past.

“I forgive myself for the mistakes I’ve made” → Mistakes mean you have tried. Mistakes build character; art comes from struggle and failure.

“I matter, and what I have to offer this world also matters” → I don’t matter, but neither does anyone else. Because nothing matters, you are free to do whatever you want.

“What I have to give to others is brilliant” → What I have to give to others is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but it can matter for each individual, which is meaningful.

. . .

As Byung-Chul Han wrote in The Burnout Society:

“The violence of positivity does not deprive, it saturates; it does not exclude, it exhausts.”

The reason why affirmations don’t work for many people is that it is a form of violent positivity. It is another attempt to mould ourselves into a functional unit of productive members of capitalist society.

Or, as Byung-Chul Han more eloquently put it:

“The complaint of the depressive individual, ‘Nothing is possible,’ can only occur in a society that thinks, ‘Nothing is impossible.’”

—

This post was previously published on An Injustice!

***

Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.

All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.

A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.