With the personal development industry exploding over the last few years, I’m sure you’ve heard the word “affirmations” before.

According to the English American Dictionary, to “affirm” is to state that something is true. 

Affirmations are a great tool to use when you feel yourself caught in a place of negativity, pessimism, drama, or judgement. They’re especially important for switching your mindset from being a “victim” of your circumstances, to a “creator” of them.

That’s why we thought it would be helpful to transform the funeral profession’s biggest challenges into affirmations to empower us. 

Keep reading below for 5 challenges we see the funeral profession facing now, into empowering affirmations for our transformation:

The Struggle: “I can’t keep up with all the changes happening in the funeral profession.” 

The Affirmation: “Change is the first step of evolution, and I’m so excited to witness the evolution of the funeral profession.”

Change is a constant in our profession, that’s an important, but harsh truth to remember. And why feel overwhelmed, when you can flip the perspective and get excited? Did you know that modern psychology says the energy of anxiety and excitement are the same? It’s true, you can read about it here. So buckle up and enjoy the ride!

The Struggle: “Families are just looking for the lowest priced services or no service at all.” 

The Affirmation: “Families want something different, and I am committed to finding out what it is that they’re looking for. ”

If your families aren’t choosing any of your services or opting for direct cremation, it’s not because they don’t want any services. They just don’t see enough value in your current offerings to invest it. This can be another harsh truth, yet easily flipped. What if you changed your offerings based on families needs? What if you kept testing offerings until families were knocking down your door for your services? Failure is just a nudge in another direction. So go forth and don’t be afraid to fail!

The Struggle: “The funeral industry is dying!” 

The Affirmation: “The funeral industry is having a rebirth!”

This one requires another simple switch in your mindset. Doesn’t this feel much more empowering than focusing on the struggle? It’s a revolution, my friends. Time to embrace it!

The Struggle: “I’m a funeral director… not a therapist.” 

The Affirmation: “As a funeral director I am here to support families on their grief journey, and I recognize that it takes building a relationship with my families in order to support them.”

With families seeking more experience-based support, and less product-based support, it can feel overwhelming for funeral directors to understand this switch. Many funeral pros on social media have shared that offering grief or aftercare support is beyond their scope. But the truth is, this kind of experience based support is becoming our scope. Time to get familiar with it.

The Struggle: “I’m just not able to educate families on the value of our services anymore.” 

The Affirmation: “I am becoming educated on the value of my services by listening to my families.”

One of our audience’s biggest struggles was educating families on the value of a funeral service (check out the other top struggles here). Educating families is important. However, what if we allowed our families to educate us? What if we used active listening skills, interviews and testimonials to hear what families are truly looking for from us? Now that would be a game changer!

How to use these affirmations

Since you’re reading this post, you’re probably part of the 10% of our profession is creating the future of funerals. Since you ARE the change we are looking for in our profession, it’s your responsibility to use these affirmations as much as possible! If you see anyone else getting caught on the struggle bus, help them switch their struggle to an affirmation! Try it and let us know how it goes in the comments below! 🙂

What are your favorite affirmations for the modern funeral director? Tell us in the comments below!

Krystal Penrose

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