Affirmations Journal: Should You Start One? (Plus Ideas and Examples)

Are you interested in starting an affirmations journal? Should you even get started? Short answer: absolutely! Journaling is a beautiful outlet to express your creativity and process your emotions while affirmations can help grow your confidence and self-esteem.

If you don’t know which affirmations to use in your journal, I have a whole index of affirmations to get started including gratitude ones, short positive statements and more.

This post contains affiliate links.

Do affirmations work?

Affirmations can lower stress responses

You have your own unique collection of attributes, values, beliefs, roles, goals and identity. Your mind works on protecting and preserving all of them. But, when you feel threatened, your mind becomes defensive and works as your protector.

But, when you are able to write and repeat positive, meaningful statements reinforcing your collection of attributes, values, etc, you can move past the threat and your mind’s defensiveness.

This 2017 study explains this concept and shows that self-affirmations are known to be effective in changing health behaviors. The study also linked listening to affirmations with reduced pain, tiredness, depression, and anxiety in cancer patients.

Here’s a look at the affirmations the study used:

An earlier study from 2005 showed that affirmations of personal values caused participants to have lower cortisol responses to low-level stress.

There are many other studies that explore self-affirmations and their ability to improve motivation even during difficulty. Some also show affirmations reduce anxiety and discomfort, even among surgery patients according to this 2023 study.

They may not work for high stress and pressure

There are also studies that would suggest affirmations are not effective in highly stressful situations.

This 2018 study involved women completing a self-affirmation task before being exposed to a documented stressful birth. The women were also asked to imagine themselves in the place of the birthing mom. The results showed the self-affirmed women had higher anxiety and less positive mood.

Another study from 2019 found affirmations didn’t help to reduce peer pressure and social conformity to harmful behaviors like alcohol use or consuming unhealthy food.

An earlier 2010 study also found that self affirmation exercises may only be effective when done BEFORE negative feedback and defensiveness.

So, do affirmations work or not? For me personally, it’s all an experiment. There may be some days where you need to remember your own capabilities, worthiness, desirability and resilience. Or when you are in a safe space, it’s important to remind your mind and body that you are loved, cared for, safe and supported. And, on those days especially, affirmations have worked for me!

What’s an affirmations journal?

An affirmations journal is essentially a notebook or journal that you can write down which positive, meaningful statements about your attributes, values, beliefs, roles, goals, and identity that you want to recognize. By self affirming these statements, you can better position your mind to handle criticism, negative feedback and minor threats.

Get creative

You can start small and simple with a notebook and a list of affirmations that speak to you. Or you can take it a step further and channel your creativity. Use the journal as an artsy, creative outlet for your inner child to play, feel nurtured and supported.

Affirmations alone or affirmations with exploration

Your journal can also be a place to explore what you feel are threats, how you defend yourself when you feel threatened and what you would want to do differently to feel safer and more secure. It’s a great place to process situations, look for patterns and trends, and figure out the next best step that will serve your best interests.

As with all journaling, this should be done from a mindset of openness, self-compassion, love and empathy. Self shaming, judgement and sabotage should be avoided or reprocessed into something positive.

Affirmation journal examples and ideas

For inspiration, here are some affirmation journal examples and ideas to get started.

Here’s a look at a sketch I did a couple years ago. I did doodles and affirmations together.

Here are several ideas from Instagram. You can use cut outs, calligraphy, stickers, stencils and so much more to create your very own beautiful affirmations journal.

Swipe to find printed affirmations with adorable numbered stickers.

This one is creative and colorful with trendy hexagon shapes.

I love the use of paints, writing and gorgeous flower and leaf patterns.

You can always keep it simple with cloud blurbs.

Get started making your affirmations journal

To get started, here are a couple supplies you can get:

A journal

Journals with thicker paper would be great for drawing, doodling, coloring and painting. There are lots of options on Amazon including these:

Affirmation cards and stickers

You can use pre-made affirmation cards in your journal. Use a little washi tape to spark joy and child-like wonder and delve into the meaningfulness of the affirmation.

Remember this is all about you, your creativity and how you want to approach affirmation journaling. There’s no wrong way to start.

That’s it! I hope you enjoy the process of starting an affirmations journal. For more affirmations check out these:

• new week affirmations: start the week right!
• Tuesday affirmations: for extra motivation.
• Wednesday affirmations: for positivity.
• Thursday affirmations: for a happy day.
• Friday affirmations: or rather Fri-yay affirmations.
• Saturday affirmations: to have an easy, gentle day.
• Weekend affirmations: for honoring your time and motivating you to get out more.