Why do visualization and affirmations do not work for us the way they are made out to be:
Our mind tends to be protective of ourselves, it shies away from trying something which it hasn't experienced before. Moreover our sub conscious mind is store house of our experiences in the past and present.
Our experiences become our belief system and once our belief systems are ready, it becomes habit knowingly or unknowingly. For example, initially you are cautious while learning car driving but once it becomes our experience and gets into a habit, driving becomes easy for us.
similarly if you are a right hander, every morning you pick up your tooth brush and start brushing your teeth with right hand as it has become your habit. Have u ever tried brushing with your left hand? no. Even if you have, you have definitely found out very hard to brush with your left hand as it is unusual experience for your brain and sub conscious mind. It is as if your brain does not have the wiring to accommodate that kind of experiment. Again we do not have to look at the computer mouse even once while using it, we can do it even in our dreams! isn't it! this is because we have become so habitual of using computer mouse day in and day out. Same thing goes for computer typing as well but having said that the situation was completely different a few years ago when we first learnt how to operate the computer.
Going by the same principle, if we have't tried affirmations and visualizations for any length of time before, it is unlikely to be accepted by our brain and sub conscious mind for some time.
AS it is not part of our belief system, you need to break into your already existing belief system and try to infuse the impression in the mind that it really works wonders!
For that to happen we must break through the belief patterns and try to do it consistently enough to convert it into a habit.
Once it becomes a habit, it shall become a new belief system to give us desired results.