For me, affirmations took about three weeks to start working, and the first change was small. Here is what my first month of seeing my own phrases on my screen every day with SOMOTE was like, week by week.
Week one
In week one, I mostly noticed the phrases. I couldn’t stop looking at them. I read each one on purpose, judged it and wondered whether it was working. That is exactly what SOMOTE is designed to make unnecessary.
Week two
In week two, the novelty wore off, and I almost quit. Nothing was wrong, but nothing dramatic was happening either, and I had expected something dramatic. I turned the opacity down and left the phrases alone. That turned out to be the right move, though I did it by accident.
Week three
The first real change came in week three, and it was small. I was stuck on an email and arguing with myself about it when one of my phrases came to mind on its own: “One thing at a time.” It wasn’t a voice or a revelation. The sentence was simply there when I needed it, the way a song you’ve heard many times comes to mind. I used it, and I wrote the email.
Week four
After that, I stopped checking the phrases, and they faded into the background of my day, which is where they work best. By week four, two of them were showing up before their opposites could. My old thought, “I’m behind,” would start and then get cut off by one of my new phrases. I didn’t become a new person in thirty days. But the way I talked to myself changed, and that changed my mood more than I expected.
What I would tell myself on day one
If I could give my week-one self three pieces of advice, they would be these. Expect the first change around week three, and write that down so you don’t quit in week two. Choose one phrase you can almost believe already, because it will make the others easier. And when you catch yourself checking whether it’s working, remember that you never checked whether your anxious thoughts were working. They were, because they repeated all day. Now your own phrases repeat all day instead.