Afformations®: The Miracle of Positive Self-Talk

by Noah St. John, John Assaraf

Did you know that asking a new kind of question can immediately change your life? One morning in 1997, college student Noah St. John was in the shower when he asked himself a question that changed his life: “Why are we trying to change our lives saying statements we don't believe . . . when the human mind responds automatically to something even more powerful?” That's when he invented the stunningly simple yet amazingly effective method he named Afformations—a method that's since helped tens of thousands of people around the world to attract more money, lose hundreds of pounds, find their soul mates, grow their business, and dramatically improve their lives. THE BOOK OF AFFORMATIONS® isn’t just another book on abundance. It’s a proven step-by-step guidebook to living the life of your dreams. Inside this book, you’ll discover… The 4 simple steps to reach your goals faster than you ever thought possible (page 35) How an unhappy employee went from penniless to a six-figure income in less than 6 months using this method (page 94) The 5-word phrase that will attract your desires to you while you’re not even paying attention (page 53) The 10 words that will help you lose 10 pounds—and keep it off! (page 51) How to quit smoking and overcome depression without drugs or therapy (page 154) How to think like a millionaire in less than 5 minutes a day (page 197) Following the same method, you’ll also learn… What The Belief Gap is and why it’s keeping you stuck (page 10) How a struggling insurance salesman increased his income by 560% in less than a year—and found the love of his life—using Noah’s system (page 26) How to quit smoking and overcome depression without drugs or therapy (page 154) What they told you about The Law of Attraction that’s just flat out wrong (page 20) The 2 most effective questions of all time, and the 1 question you should never ask (page 152) How to create instant superstar performance in yourself and everyone in your organization (page 203) And that’s just the beginning… Are you ready to join The Afformations Revolution?

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Psychology, Personal Growth, Personal Development, Spirituality

264 pages, Paperback

First published August 19, 2013

About the author

Noah St. John is famous for inventing Afformations® and helping busy people achieve financial freedom.

His sought-after advice is known as the “secret sauce” in business and personal growth.

Noah’s engaging and down-to-earth speaking style always gets high marks from audiences. As the leading authority on how to eliminate limiting beliefs, Noah delivers programs that have been called “The only training that FIXES every other training!”

He also appears frequently in the news worldwide, including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, National Public Radio, Parade, Woman’s Day, Los Angeles Business Journal, The Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Selling Power, Forbes.com, and The Huffington Post.

Founder of the international coaching and training corporation SuccessClinic.com, Noah is known for producing products and programs that have helped to improve tens of thousands of lives and businesses around the world.

Fun fact: Noah once won an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii on the game show Concentration, where he missed winning a new car by three seconds. (Note: He had not yet discovered Power Habits or Afformations.)

Get Noah's new book FREE at NoahStJohn.com

Reviews

[Heidi Wiechert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads. FTC guidelines: check!

The Book of Afformations isn't just another self help book putting forth the same old ideas of positive thinking, visualizations, and affirmations. Noah St. John has created a four part system to literally change the way you think, then act, and as a result, your life.

Step One: Ask yourself what you want, in all areas of your life. (A part of this stage is writing down all of the negative questions that you ask yourself like "Why am I never enough?". That section was difficult to get through but eye opening.)

Step Two: Form empowering questions to help you achieve the priorities that you wrote down in Step One.

Step Three: Accept. Accept these new ways of looking at your life situation. Repeat the afformations. Create new beliefs and internal dialogue. Repetition is key here.

Step Four: Act. Here is where St. John steps away from other New Agers that I've read. He suggests writing down three actions to take for each Afformation that you want to incorporate into your life. Do one a day. Keep going.

It seems really simple and the author peppers the text with success stories of people who have created amazing change in their life with this system. Another part of his book is a short biographical section about the author, how he came up with the system, and the extraordinary changes that he has made in his own life using it. The last couple pages are ads selling St. John's other books, success workshops, online audio programs, and applications. They all seem to be quite popular, so it seems that at least some folks are having success with this.

I enjoyed the read and the author gave me some really interesting new techniques to try in my own life. I'd suggest this book to anyone who has tried affirmations and failed or is just looking to try something new for their negative thought patterns.

[Andrea H. · Rating 1 out of 5]

It used the same techniques as many other 'solve all your problems with this one proven method' -style books. It continued to bait the reader with hints that it was about to unveil an amazing new concept, only to recycle the same old positive affirmation approach. I am happy if it helped some people, that is the goal after all. I have to admit it was a horrible fit for me.

[Celia Conrad · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across this book when I was looking for something else and I thought the title was rather intriguing and having read the blurb decided to buy a copy.

Noah St John takes positive thinking and affirmations to a whole new level with his book of afformations. The book is not a magic bullet. You do have to take action, having decided what you really want to achieve of course, and change your perception.

The book is certainly an easy read and definitely worth reading.

[Chris Torretta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mostly enjoyed this book because the idea of positive thinking is one that I've been working on for years. When I started I noticed that I really didn't have ONE positive thought going through my head about my self, about my life, about everything. It is very difficult to live like that!

This starts by saying how are we supposed to just be happy with thoughts that are negating what we really think and feel? The examples for how to actually believe the afformations were easy to put into my life and pretty easy to start believing.

This goes into why we do the things we do and really delves deep into making you ask yourself this hard questions. Then helping you to figure out how to get what you really want. This is different from other positive affirming books that I've read and was easy to follow along and even easier to put his ideas into practice.

The down side was that I felt like I wanted a bit more. Once I understood the concept I wanted to go into something deeper. I noticed I was starting to get bored with the book instead of being really engaged like I was in the beginning.

In short: The ideas are good and the message is extremely positive and if you are someone that has trouble figuring out why they can't actively make a change in their life, this might be for you!

 

 This review was originally posted on Creating Serenity

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book from Goodreads. This book is about training your mind to think positively about things you want to achieve. It is similar to the book "The Power of Believing". Basically it is ways to state and believe things to make your subconscious work toward achieving the goal.

The writing was simple to understand and was an easy read. I liked the concepts and will probably try them out. However I felt the book was rather pushy in trying to get you to teach his method and pass his book on others. This seems like he wants the reader to be his PR staff. Also, later in the book the author really pushes going to his website so that you could get his other products to help you afformate. It came across somewhat like an infomercial.

The book gives you statements for you to use as well as a guide on creating your own. This is very helpful. Especially for someone who wants to make sure they are doing it just right so that it will work. I get that way at times. The whole concept the book presents is nice and I like his approach to better yourself, just not his pushy sales persona.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this in a Goodreads giveaway and thought I'd give it a shot. It was not what I expected. A little too similar to all the other "think positive", "if you build it, he will come" books. Too preachy, religious for my tastes. But I can see how this could be helpful to some people, so I will pass it along to others that may benefit. To each his own....

[Maira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Afformations are a great first step to change your thoughts. I like how he gives examples of afformations & sentence frames for different areas of life. I highlighted all of my favorite afformations & they’ve have already helped me to positively improve my life!

[Meagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boiled down- for those that use affirmations or have thought about starting- This concept takes affirmations to the next level. Instead of using the affirmation “ I am loved and appreciated by family” you would ask “why and I loved and appreciated by my family. Instead of saying “ I make healthy eating choices everyday” you would ask “why do I make healthy eating choices everyday?” Instead if “I choose not to compare myself to others online” you would ask “why do I no longer compare myself?” The point is sometimes your brain will say ‘yeah right’ to what you are trying to tell it. But if you pose it in question format- the the subconscious searches for the question. Ask positive questions, get positive answers. Ask negative questions , “ why am I so awkward?” “Why can’t I loose weight?” Ect, get negative answers.

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit that this book that turns positive affirmations in questions, is actually something different from the usual self-help manual based on positive psychology. Clear, with examples and exercises, it might be worth trying to read it seriously and see if it works.

Devo ammettere che questo libro che rigira le affermazioni positive in domande é effettivamente qualcosa di diverso dal solito manuale di auto aiuto basato sulla psicologia positiva. Chiaro, con esempi ed esercizi, potrebbe valere la pena provare a leggerlo seriamente e vedere se funziona.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND HAY HOUSE FOR THE PREVIEW!

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

It runs a little long for a self-help book. The premise is interesting, that one can change one's circumstances by merely rephrasing and reshaping one's thoughts, and I can see the appeal. It will probably help those who follow the advice within the book.

[Katie Laird · Rating 3 out of 5]

I basically got everything I needed from the book in the first 80 pages. The rest of it annoyed me to no end. Like seriously I already bought your book why are you trying to sell me more crap? I think afformations can work but it didn't need to be sold over and over again the way he did it.

[Marietta · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author's personal narrative is stilted and simplistic. However, the exercises have been very helpful to me. Positive self-talk is not my strong suit, but I find myself using the phrasing and mental imagery suggested in the book on a regular basis now.

[Gianmichael Salvato · Rating 5 out of 5]

This week's book was an incredibly engaging and insightful book by Noah St. John, who is a highly sought after international business performance coach, who is probably best known for his frequent guest spots on such media outlets as CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, National Public Radio, Parade, Woman’s Day, Los Angeles Business Journal, The Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Selling Power, Bottom Line Publications, and The Huffington Post.

As a published author, I love knowing how and why a book was written, so I found the anecdotal account of how The Book of Afformations was conceived very intriguing as well. While Noah St. John was still in college, he asked himself a question in the shower one morning, which he tells changed his life.

That question: Why are we trying to change our lives saying statements we don't believe . . . when the human mind responds automatically to something even more powerful?”

His book is based on science of mind principle, which he calls "afformations." This isn't just positive thinking. It's positive thinking with a difference -- a difference that could radically change your life, through a simple process, which immediately empowers you with questions that immediately change your subconscious thought patterns form negative to positive. St. John calls this process "triggering the brain into search engine mode", and goes on to explain why this method is the REAL key to mastering the Universal Law of Attraction, and movig beyond the hokey commericialised book and pop-culture video.

St. John shows why traditional affirmations generally fail to produce meaningful results, and explains the Belief Gap, and how to overcome it, by asking the right questions, to combine the brain's powerful search function with clear, focused desires and the willingness to take consistent and massive action.

It's a longer read -- 223 pages -- but such an engaging read that even if it takes you two weeks to read it, I promise it will have been worth it.

It took me a full week, but even with a couple short hospital stays and ER visits, I was able to read 30-40 pages a day, so it's very doable.

The simplicity and humour with which Noah St. John teaches the afformations approach -- which really have me excited -- along with his emphasis on afformations requiring immediate and consistent action, instead of the approach most law of attraction followers seem to engage, which is more passive, and expects miraculous manifestation of their desires, just because they thought about it -- makes this a book I highly recommend.

[Bree · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with the basic ideas in this book:

- Stop telling yourself, or rather asking yourself, things that are negative. “Why am I such a loser?” “Why don’t I have any friends?” “Why do I always have such bad luck?”

- Start asking yourself positive things that will get you closer to where you want to be. “Why am I so loving?” “Why do I see the best in myself and others?” “Why does success find me wherever I go?”

This lines up with what we understand about psychology, and is something I think everyone can benefit from. If you tell yourself you’re nothing, you will find it hard to become something because you won’t believe you can. If you tell yourself that you’re good enough and smart enough, you won’t get in your own way when opportunities arise.
You see this concept in other works such as “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. He actually goes so far as to say that if you tell OTHER people things about themselves (“I know you’re such a forgiving person”), they will rise to the occasion and tend to act the way you are labeling them. It makes sense that it would work on ourselves as well.

The biggest problem I had with this book was the writing style. It read like an infomercial, and really got under my skin. It does a little bit of explaining, but not much; it‘s mostly a bunch of testimonials and an admonition to “try it, it really works!” Like some miracle pill or cure-all.

It is an introduction to an idea - a teaser or an appetizer, but for me there wasn’t a lot of substance.
I’m glad that a lot of people have found it beneficial, and maybe that’s all that some people need: a simple direction in their life that will help them think positively about themselves. Good for them!

However, if you want to dive more deeply into the subject of WHY the concepts in “Afformations” work for some people, there are other books out there that will dive much deeper into the subject.
“Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz is a fantastic book that digs deeply into the idea of self-image, why and how it can change us so drastically, and how to actually alter our self-image to line up with who we want to be.
A lighter read but still with a lot of valuable insight is “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor, which has a lot of case studies and scientific reasons as to why and how choosing to be happy will change you.

TL;DR

Afformations is a decent introduction to a concept that may be helpful for some, but if you want something with more substance and science to back up claims, I believe there are better books out there.

[Ken Lenoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

really great book. I loved the simplicity of it.

At its heart, it is goal setting, with the addition of developing *belief* that you'll achieve it. Tony Robbins talks about "references" in regard to beliefs, like you have "references" for things you believe, evidence almost. And it's with the use of targeted questions (afformations) that you develop the belief.

another great takeaway with the DBAR cycle - desire, belief, actions, results. you want something, desire, and your beliefs determine what kind of action you'll take, whether it's tentative and weak, or whether its purposeful and strong, and the kind of actions you take determine what kind of results you get.

so afformations are empowering or presumptive questions, or presupposition questions. you ask "why do I get my goal?" or "why did I get my goal?" and your brain has to think in a new way to process that question, and you start seeing from the perceived reality of you already having the goal.

the (super simple) process for goal achievement, afformation style is:
1) decide what you want (set your goals)
2) develop an empowering/presupposition question assuming you already have it
3) "give yourself to the question/accept the question"
4) take intention action toward it

for example, if you had a goal/desire that you wanted to earn a certain amount of money, you'd "afform" "why did I earn x amount of money by x date?" and your brain would/will think "well because I took xyz action" or "I took xyz course and implemented it" or whatever it would be, you'd find out the reasons you will achieve it, and you'll discover some actions to take, and then you'll be inspired to take those actions.

the difference in the quality of your thinking when you implement the "afformations" , presupposition questions is pretty profound. they are definitely *empowering* questions

[Sherry · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the idea of Afformations. It’s a solid 4 star concept though it felt clunky and unnatural, but having tried implementing it during meditation I was pleasantly surprised at its effectiveness. Though I can’t envision using this concept in the manner the author has proscribed, partly because of its clunkiness and partly because I’m not particularly driven to achieve in the manner the author supposes which is in areas such as financial wealth, weight loss and many other common issues that tend to plague individuals. And I can’t see using it in a repetitive manner as is suggested as it would become terribly boring.

While the concept was interesting the book was terrible. In fact, there’s not enough material to actually make a book. So what the author has done is put in a lot of ‘testimonials’ from supposedly happy successful clients, usually around the issue of money and financial success. In between the testimonials are a number of self promotions involving access to his formats allowing more access to his patented concept. Thankfully, this cost me very little and I got an interesting meditation from it. However, I really don’t recommend this.

[Jyll Hoyrup · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always loved Affirmations, however, this book blows them out of the water. Noah nailed it -- what has been missing from typical affirmations. I really resonated with the WHY questions - I'm a big, deep, analytical thinker so my brain loves it! I've noticed a difference in how I feel when I use Afformations and it's exciting (I make it a game) to turn my self-talk into WHY questions. Highly recommend this book!

[Vishy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Noah explains that what reasons why affirmations fail most of the times and how your subconscious mind behaves as soon as you listen to affirmations. This book is just read it you are trying or want to try affirmations that really work for you. I just loved it the way Noah explains the gap.... "Why.."

[Mary McDowell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good info badly formatted at least on my kindle device

I choose the rating mostly due to the fact that the book did not load correctly and kept going back to the beginning so technical issues detracted from the experience. Additionally the last section of the book was on programs the author wanted to sell the reader and that turned me off as there were too many things offered.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guy’s style is corny, and although the book is short, it’s still at least twice as long as it needed to be. However, I’ve been practicing asking myself afformation questions whenever I don’t like how I feel or how things are going, and it does seem to help a lot.

Why is it so easy to have everything I want now?

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where has this book been all this time? I enjoyed this read. Simple, clear instructions on how to think positively using questions. Simple. I repeat, simple. I loved it. Planning on reading more from the author.

[Jim Flores · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book of hashtags regarding positive thinking so nothing new . Lacks reference to any science for it to be believable and credible. And the sales pitch to his books, audio, seminars, etc is a big turn off.

[Brenda Ortega · Rating 4 out of 5]

En tan pocas páginas, es un libro qué vale la pena llevar a práctica para vivir sin tantos pensamientos negativos que nos rodean.

[carolina bolanos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelent book

I’ll practice afformations, truly believe that we have the power of creation!, also I will share this wonderful book. Thank you Noah

[Raymond · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the book to be a very good read.

I would recommend this book to anybody, I found it to be a very good read. Do yourself a favor and take the time and read it.

[Kewannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Little Book of Afformations got to the point better. Lots of testimonials and other fluff in here

[AtDanceCamp... · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really excellent concept that isn’t hard to implement. This was a fairly quick book to read. I borrowed it from my library I don’t know if I would purchase this book and reread or not we shall see.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but reads like an incredibly long sales page

[Donna DuSell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a great help to retrain my brain to be more positive.

[Babel III · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honest questions overcome false beliefs.