GUIDE · SELF-ESTEEM

Positive affirmations: why they can backfire, and what to say to yourself instead

You stick "I am confident and worthy of love" on the bathroom mirror and read it out loud every morning, and by Friday a quieter voice is answering back with every reason it isn't true. In two 2009 experiments, people with low self-esteem who repeated a line like that felt worse than people who didn't. Lines you can actually believe, and a research technique also called self-affirmation, in which you write about what you value, are worth trying instead.

Do positive affirmations work?

In a 2009 paper in Psychological Science, Wood, Perunovic and Lee started with a survey and found that people often use positive self-statements and believe they work. Then they ran two experiments. Among participants with low self-esteem, those who repeated "I'm a lovable person" felt worse than those who didn't repeat it. People with high self-esteem felt better after repeating it, though the authors describe that boost as limited.

The second experiment holds a clue for anyone writing their own lines. People with low self-esteem who were asked to focus only on how the statement was true felt worse than those asked to think about how it was both true and not true. The authors conclude that positive self-statements may help some people and backfire for the very people who "need" them most.

This was one research team testing mood in the lab, and we read only the abstract. Still, if a line clashes with what you believe about yourself, you may catch your mind arguing with it. A slogan on the mirror is unlikely to shift a deep belief like "I'm unlovable," so work on the belief itself with core beliefs and see how to build self-esteem for the wider picture.

What "self-affirmation" means in research

Psychologists use the word for something quite different. In a 2014 review, Cohen and Sherman describe self-affirmation interventions that usually ask people to write about their core personal values. You might write about why family, honesty or humor matters to you. Nothing in the exercise asks you to claim you're wonderful.

According to the review, writing about values gives people a broader view of themselves and their resources, so a single threat, like a harsh comment, says less about their worth as a person. The authors report benefits for school, health and relationships, sometimes lasting months or years. In a 2005 lab study by Creswell and colleagues, 85 people did a values task or a control task before a stress challenge, and the values group had lower cortisol responses. Self-reported stress was lowest in people who affirmed their values and already had high self-esteem and optimism.

The effects are modest and don't always repeat. A 2015 meta-analysis by Epton and colleagues pooled 144 experimental tests in which affirmation came alongside health information and found small but reliable effects on accepting the message, planning to change and changing behavior. School results are shakier: a large 2017 replication by Hanselman and colleagues found no effect in a setting where an earlier study had worked, and a 2020 reanalysis by Serra-Garcia and colleagues found that a well-known classroom study showed no improvement for the women it targeted. Values writing is worth a try with realistic expectations, and ACT values exercises can help you name what you care about.

Affirmations for anxiety: coping statements

When your heart is pounding, a line like "I am calm and at peace" can feel like a denial of what your body is doing. A 2007 study by Kendall and Treadwell points somewhere else. In children aged 9 to 13, some with anxiety disorders and some without, anxious self-talk predicted anxiety while positive self-talk didn't. Among the kids treated for anxiety disorders, improvement went along with a drop in anxious self-statements, and positive self-statements didn't explain the gains. It's one study in children, but it suggests that turning down the alarm may matter more than adding cheerful lines.

A coping statement doesn't argue with how you feel. It names what's happening and points to what you can do next, as in "This is hard, and I can get through the next ten minutes." Other versions might be "I'm scared of this call, and I can make it anyway" or "I've felt this before, and it passed." You can pair them with cognitive restructuring, where you check an anxious prediction against the evidence before settling on a more balanced one.

How you address yourself may matter as well. In 2014, Kross and colleagues reported seven studies with 585 people in total. Those who thought through a stressful task using "you" or their own name, instead of "I," showed less distress and did better, as judged by outside raters, at making a first impression and giving a speech. They also saw upcoming stressors as more of a challenge and less of a threat, and these results held regardless of how socially anxious people were. "You can get through this call" may sit better than the same line with "I."

Try it now: three lines you can believe

Set aside ten minutes with paper or a notes app. You'll write a short values paragraph, one believable affirmation and one coping statement for something coming up this week.

1. Pick the situation. Choose one thing this week that you're dreading, like a review, a hard phone call or a party where you'll barely know anyone.
2. Rate your current line. If you already use an affirmation, write it down and rate how much you believe it from 0 to 100. If it's under 60, plan to rewrite it.
3. Write about a value. Pick one value that matters to you, such as fairness, family or humor. Spend five minutes writing about why it matters and a recent time you acted on it.
4. Draft a believable line. Write one sentence that admits the hard part and names something true about you, joined with "and." Rate it, and keep editing until it reaches about 60.
5. Add a coping statement. Write one line for the moment itself that names the feeling and what you'll do next, like "This is hard, and I can get through the next ten minutes."
6. Try it with "you." Read the coping statement again with "you" or your first name in place of "I," and keep whichever version feels steadier.
7. Use it, then check. Say the lines before and during the situation. Afterward, note what you did and how you felt, and change any line you found yourself arguing with.

Do the values writing again before the next stressful event you can see coming. If a line still feels false after several tries, take that as a sign that the belief underneath needs work of its own.

How to write an affirmation you can believe

Rate a line before you use it. If you'd give "I love myself" a 5 out of 100 for believability, it's the wrong line for now, so look for one you'd rate at 60 or higher, even if it sounds modest. Specific statements are easier to accept than sweeping ones: "I showed up for my sister last month" asks less of you than "I'm a wonderful person."

Leave room for the other side. The 2009 experiment did this by asking people how a statement was both true and not true. A line like "I make mistakes at work, and I'm also the person people ask when something breaks" holds both. Tie your lines to actions and values you can check against last week, rather than to fixed traits: "I keep trying in hard conversations" can be backed by Tuesday, while "I'm brave" invites an argument about your whole character.

Watch the tone, too. If the voice reading your affirmation sounds like a drill sergeant, borrow the words you'd use with a friend. The self-compassion break gives you a three-line script for that, and quieting the inner critic has more on answering a harsh inner voice.

Illustrative example: rewriting one affirmation

Jenna, a made-up example, keeps "I am confident and successful" on a sticky note by her laptop. Before her performance review, she reads it and feels a jolt of dread, because she missed two deadlines last quarter. She rates the line at 10 out of 100 and decides to rewrite it.

First she writes about a value. She picks fairness, since she's the one on her team who makes sure new hires get credit for their work, and spends five minutes on a time when that mattered. Then she drafts a line she rates at 70: "I missed two deadlines this quarter, and I'm still someone who looks out for the people around me." For the walk to the meeting she adds a coping statement in the second person: "You're nervous, and you can sit through half an hour of feedback."

The review is still uncomfortable. She leaves with two notes on what to fix, and the sticky note now says something she can read without flinching.

Rewrite your affirmation with Helpy

The chat below runs with Helpy, the site's AI assistant. Paste the affirmation you've been using and describe what you're facing, and it can help you turn it into a line you believe and a coping statement for the hard moment.

Evidence and sources

• Wood, Perunovic and Lee, Psychological Science, 2009 (PubMed): a survey and two experiments; people with low self-esteem who repeated "I'm a lovable person," or focused on how it was true, felt worse than comparison groups, and people with high self-esteem felt better to a limited degree. Lab experiments from one team; we read only the abstract.
• Cohen and Sherman, Annual Review of Psychology, 2014 (PubMed): a review of self-affirmation interventions, which typically have people write about core personal values, with reported benefits for education, health and relationships that sometimes last months or years. A review by researchers who study the method, not a new trial; we read only the abstract.
• Creswell et al., Psychological Science, 2005 (PubMed): 85 participants did a values task or a control task before a lab stress challenge; the values group had lower cortisol responses, and self-reported stress was lowest in affirmed participants with high self-esteem and optimism. One lab study; we read only the abstract.
• Epton et al., Health Psychology, 2015 (PubMed): a meta-analysis of 144 experimental tests; self-affirmation had small but reliable effects on accepting health messages (d = .17), intentions to change (d = .14) and behavior (d = .32). It covers responses to health information, not mood or self-esteem; we read only the abstract.
• Hanselman et al., Journal of Educational Psychology, 2017 (PubMed): a large replication of a school self-affirmation study, using the same procedures in a setting where it had worked before, found no effect and ruled out benefits larger than an effect size of 0.10. It measured school outcomes, not mood; we read only the abstract.
• Serra-Garcia, Hansen and Gneezy, Psychological Science, 2020 (PubMed): a reanalysis of a 2010 classroom self-affirmation study found no improvement for women, the group it targeted, and few analysis choices produced the original result. A reanalysis of one study; we read only the abstract.
• Kendall and Treadwell, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 2007 (PubMed): in children aged 9 to 13 with and without anxiety disorders, anxious self-statements, not positive ones, predicted anxiety, and drops in anxious self-statements went along with treatment gains. Children only, and the design shows links rather than proof of cause; we read only the abstract.
• Kross et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2014 (PubMed): seven studies with 585 people; thinking about yourself as "you" or by name instead of "I" led to less distress, better performance rated by observers and more challenge-focused appraisals, regardless of social anxiety. Short lab tasks; we read only the abstract.

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