Why Affirmations Don’t Work… For You

In this episode of The Fuck It Shift, Adam Ross breaks down why so many people believe affirmations don’t work—and why that belief might be the exact thing holding them back.

Most people dismiss positive self-talk because they don’t see immediate results. But Adam challenges that thinking, explaining that the real issue isn’t affirmations themselves—it’s the years of negative self-talk that have been running in the background, shaping your beliefs, identity, and decisions.

He shares how your inner voice is often built over decades, starting in childhood, influenced by parents, environments, and experiences that slowly condition you to play it safe, think small, and doubt yourself.

The conversation explores how negative thinking becomes comfortable, why your brain is wired to protect you (even if it holds you back), and how most people unknowingly reinforce the very mindset they say they want to change.

Adam also explains that affirmations aren’t a quick fix—they’re a long-term process of reprogramming the way you speak to yourself. And before you can even begin to think positively, you have to get honest about the negative patterns that are already there.

He shares a simple but powerful exercise to expose your inner dialogue, and why identifying those thoughts is the first real step toward changing them.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Fuck It Shift Podcast. I'm Adam Ross, joined by Jay, the producer who always kicks it off with a question.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Adam, speak to the person who doesn't believe in the power of positive talk.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

You don't believe in positive talk because you think it's impossible to think yourself rich. You think it's impossible to think yourself successful. And when you're not, things are not going your way, it's real easy to say, well, that'll never work for me because of XYZ. But have you ever considered that you are the sum of all of your negative thinking and all of your belief system standing in front of me telling me that positive talk or changing your word track won't work? What you've invited in for years is what you've kind of allowed as a recipe to be who you are today. You're not who you think you are. You're who you have allowed to be created. You have made choices, beliefs, a lot of negative self-talk, more than likely. You have spent time telling yourself you're not good enough, smart enough. All that's bullshit. So when you say affirmations don't work, they won't work for me. You are not any different than anybody else. What you're doing is telling me you choose not to take the risk. You have instead discounted the entire process of getting yourself to 22, 32, 42. That's my experiences. No, it's how you've broken down those experiences and held on to them and created that baggage and that belief system with those experiences. They happen for you or they happen to you. It's your choice. So when you tell me that affirmations don't work, Jay, I would tell you you're literally the opposite of positive affirmation standing right in front of me. And you're not damaged. I'm just saying, like, you're not realizing that you've just accepted all the garbage in the world to create the version of who you are and what you believe right now. So why not fucking believe in something positive? What's the alternative? Are you happy where you are right now? Are you happy with your experiences and what you believe and what you uh have taken from those experiences to help create your own thought patterns, your own belief systems, your own I can't do it bullshit that you tell yourself? You're not willing to take a chance on you. You're the most important thing you got. And you're sitting there debunking, myth busting me on why positive affirmations won't work for just you. That's bullshit. You are the sum of all your parts right now. Do you like those parts? If not, you have an opportunity to change them. Because those parts right now are all part of the reasons why you talk negatively to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yes or no? Affirmations have worked for you in your life. 100%. How long did it take you to notice? Holy shit, this is real. This is actually working. Is is there was there a moment that you were like, oh man, I've been saying this for the past X amount of time and here it is?

SPEAKER_01 3:04

I do it now, every single day. It's 20 plus years of doing it. So if you think that you're gonna do this for a month, for three months, and expect suddenly everything to change for you, you're not understanding what affirmations are. You're not paying attention to the negative self-talk that you've been feeding yourself over and over again and not realizing the damage that it's doing because it's almost like this silent killer. You're driving in your car to work, you're never gonna be, you're never gonna make any more money. You're not gonna be successful. And you told yourself that in these little micro conversations inside your head in your quiet time. The shit you tell yourself in your quiet time is killing you, is killing your outlook on life, killing your fire inside. It's shutting down all of your receptors to see the good in the world, to see the positivity, to take a chance, to listen to the inner voice. It tells you to start your own knitting club. I don't care what it is. Listen to it and not the negative voice. So the power of the affirmations, it's a work in progress for me. There will never be a point. It's like the gym. I'll never be done. At my age, I need to train myself completely different than when I was 20. I need to make sure that I'm doing it for mobility, for athleticism, to be as mobile as possible. So it's a different kind of mindset. It's a different kind of project. You are a different kind of project every year. So affirmations are never over. They're never a moment where I'm like, holy shit, this is working. I see the positive changes going on with it, and it gives me enough fuel to continue to do it. But I went at least a year and a half to two years with nothing changing and just having to be 100% all in on changing how I speak to myself.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Why do you think positive talks that gets such a bad rap sometimes? Why do people hate on it?

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Well, first of all, it's different. You've been, oh, how, you know, let's just say you're 22. You have unknowingly been telling yourself subconsciously, we all have that voice in our head. We're standing there waiting to be picked for a sporting event. We're gonna play road hockey. We're gonna, I'm a Canadian, we're gonna do these, we're gonna try something. We're joining a dance club. We're uh you're not good enough. You can't dance the lead. Why? You can't. Don't put yourself out there. You're gonna make mistakes. And then you have parental pressure on top of that. That's a, that's trying to guide you and lead you in life, but doesn't realize that the negative talk is also in their protection mode. Well, you know, maybe you should do it for a year before you go for the lead in the play. Maybe you're not ready. Maybe you should take time. Don't put so much pressure on yourself. Fuck that. Go ahead, try. The best thing is the loss. But we're not programmed that way. So then negative self-talk is comfortable. Negative self-talk keeps us safe. And we love safety and comfort. Look at your diet. We don't like to be out there and put ourselves out there. And the times that we have have maybe not been received positively. We've been laughed at, we failed, and we've never been taught by our parents that losing is okay. Losing's the greatest thing ever. The failure part is the best lesson. How many parents try and save their kids? How many times have you been saved from failure? I love when you don't do a project. I would only, I would not help you do it if it wasn't for my wife. And like they, you know, and the kid that wants, man, fail. I failed grade four. I think I'm doing okay in life. It wasn't the end of the world. I actually learned a lot from failing in grade four. And when I say I failed grade four, people kind of look at me funny. Yeah, I didn't pass grade four. I have dyslexia. I have all these things that are uh you I'm left-handed. What does that have to do with it? They wanted me to be right-handed. There's lots of things that were like, you're not, you're different.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Good. I'm just gonna lead the witness a little bit here. We didn't come out of the womb with that negative voice in our head that you talk about, correct? Correct. So where when does it start? Where does it come from? How does it exist? What's the whole idea in the creation of that negative voice? I think I know you know where I'm kind of going with this.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

And um it happens to us as children right around the seven to eight-year-old mark, where your belief systems really start to get shaped by your outside world and your outside mental diet. So here's a great example that's there's lots of videos about it. I have a five-year-old right now. Uh, he can be and do whatever he wants to be. He believes that he is a superhero. He believes he has these skills. He flies around the living room, he does all these things and jumps off couches, sofas wet, right? It becomes that seven or eight where all of a sudden your parent, your that voice says, You can't, you're not Batman, bro. Stop jumping on the sofa. Stop doing that to your sister. Stop behaving like Batman. You're not Batman. Batman's a character. There's your first, there's your first moment that your belief system starts to be shaped and changed that you're not, because you know what? My five-year-old believes he can whoop my ass. And I don't tell him any different. Then you get to a certain point in life and you start getting a lot of negativity, even if it's in protection mode from your parents, from your inner circle. And then you start buying into it and you start paying attention to the negative voice inside your head that says, Oh, yeah, right, mom or dad said that. I can't do that. I will never forget my oldest son now who works with me, wanted to wear a Captain America costume to the supermarket at eight or nine. And I was like, Yeah, sure, I don't care. So what? You we spend so much time trying to shape them and change them and parent them for the future instead of in the moment that we don't realize that we're changing the belief system. So your belief system has been altered and changed around seven or eight. Here's the other thing: who gives a shit? You can unchange it. You don't have to live inside, you can change your belief system and reprogram your brain, but you have to first identify that the negativity, the negative voice inside your head is full of shit. You've told it from eight to 20 to 30 to 40, all of these things that's holding you back, stopping you from believing in positivity and the power of doing something different, that you're you feel incapable of being able to change. But can I tell you that your brain is 100% programmable? You will 100% be able to unfuck that part of your brain, throw back to Gary Bishop, and to program new thoughts and new ways to believe and behave. It's not impossible.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

So I'm sure there's a lot of parents that listen to the podcast. Do you have any advice for them on how they can, you know, maybe not program this negative voice into their kids around that age, or is this kind of on just a situational independent basis that's different?

SPEAKER_01 10:47

I don't have a playbook on how to be a parent. I've made plenty of mistakes, a bucket full of them. But what I have learned over time and having as many children and interactions and different personalities is that, and we said this in previous shows, I would encourage a parent to stop parenting 10, 15 years down the road. We make these decisions on homework, on a friends group, on a on like what they're gonna be 10 years from now. You have no idea. Instead, coach in the moment. Kids align with coaching and positive voices and encouragement way more than they're ever gonna be like, you can't do that. You shouldn't do that. Don't do that. You're never gonna be able to do X. Who knows if we're ever gonna want to be an accountant? No offense to the accountants. It doesn't matter if I'm gonna fail math. What matters is what I'm excited about. What can I be coached on? So I don't have the book on plate on parenting. I'm not the greatest parent, but I would tell you that coaching your parent and having that coach mindset and not the football yelling in your face coach, the positive coach that understands reinforcement. And I gotta remind myself all the time I got a coach. I don't, I shouldn't parent. I got a coach.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Do you agree with the phrase of uh trust your gut?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Yeah, uh, I think that here's one thing that I will say about it. Your gut is just as aligned sometimes with your brain. Your gut is also programmed to protect you. What I would teach you to be is to be open to listening to the messages and the things you receive, the dreams in your sleep, the the idea that suddenly pops in your head that you get excited about. Those you feel through your whole body, your head, your gut, those things are all connected. They are a message to get you to like try something different. It's your brain that intercepts your gut and tells you, hey man, based on all of our experiences, these are the reasons why that will never work. You know, when people say, I just had a gut feeling about so-and-so, really, you had a bunch of experiences and a bunch of data inside your head, proof that that's where you put that person in that box, and you looked for those signs for that person to make all your data back up. You looked for that reason for it not to not start it, to not try it, to back all the data up in your head. It's your head that's the problem.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Well, that was gonna be my question is is how do we differentiate between our gut, our intuition versus the negative voice? Because that's something that I struggle with as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

I think until you get really quiet with yourself and you really understand why and why you've allowed the negative voice to control your life and what it's really doing. I this exercise is an amazing exercise for you. Take a piece of paper, take 30 minutes of complete quiet time, nobody interrupting you, no social media, no nothing, and be alone in a room with a pad and a pen and write down every single thought that comes into your head completely unfiltered, and you'll be amazed that you are speaking to the negative voice 90% of the time. The positivity side will rarely show up. And then I want you to like look at that list, the 30-minute list, and be like, holy shit, and start grouping all the negative thoughts that you've spilled out. It's a really tough exercise to do because you know what you do in that first time you do it for 30 minutes? You filter it so that your piece of paper doesn't look bad because you heard some guy or watch some video telling you that it's going to be bad. So you force positive thoughts. You're not being honest with yourself. I know that when you are in your car and you don't remember how you got home, you just know the way and you subconsciously drive there. You have probably told yourself a bunch of shit that isn't true, but you believe it to be true because that's your belief system. And I'm no different. I'm not here preaching to you that I've got some secret. I had to learn how to unprogram that. And I had some really good data. I fucking blew up my life. I have a lot of reasons to not try anything anymore. But I was able to say to myself, that is real data. That's what happens when you do this and do that and do that, or don't do X, Y. So, how about now I have all the reasons? I built a book on how not to do it. What a great way. What a great lesson, what a great springboard to now take that and not make it my life and turn it into positivity and do the exact opposite. That whole don't do what Donnie does and he sticks a fork in the socket when you're, yeah, don't do that. If you have all that negative belief, that's a roadmap for you to get to the side of success. You just got to have the guts and the awareness to stop letting the negative side control you.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

So let's wrap this here with one question. Um, you're speak to the individual who shits on himself all day with that negative voice. What is the first thing that he or she should do or start saying to themselves?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

I want you to first pay attention and be intentional. Very difficult to do. If you know that you don't love where you are in life, and I'm speaking to you, you don't like the situation, your living situation, your partner, you don't like what's happening, and you don't like your job, and you don't like all of these things. Instead of bitching about it all the time and filling the negative bucket with it, I want you to start picking out the things that you say that are negative, forget your affirmations. If you really want to rebuild your life right now and you want to make a change, you have to first get real and document all the negative beliefs and all the negative shit you believe about yourself and the thoughts that come into your head. I don't care if you voice note it, you write it on a piece of paper, you carry a notebook around for 30 days, for 60 days, but you have to get real about the things you're telling yourself that are negative. That's the only way you can build a positive list. And so many of us will never face this. This is so sad. You will never sit down and come to terms with the negative baggage that you have because you don't even want to see it on a piece of paper. Because deep down inside you know it's bullshit. But you have this thing you hold on to it so tight. Yeah, I believe this. No, you don't. It's just comfortable. And you've held on to it for so long, you don't know what to do if you let go of this. This negative string of balloons. Think about a big giant string of balloons pictured in your head right now that are all black, negative. Well, but the fear alone, if you let go of all those, then you have nothing. You gotta have something. So I want you to learn how to identify what each negative black balloon in your hand is first. Because only then can you make your world colorful. Until next time. See you on the other side.