Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
Kleiser's Morning-and-Night Character Self-Suggestion
To deliberately impress chosen character traits (courage, calmness, confidence, kindness) on the mind by addressing specific self-suggestions to yourself first thing each morning and last thing each night, until they are absorbed into personality and conduct.
Kleiser’s character self-suggestion in 5 lines: Pick the specific traits you want to own (calm, courage, confidence). Phrase each as a believable present-tense self-address. First thing each morning and last thing each night, suggest them to yourself, silently or aloud, in the drowsy state. Repeat day after day until deeply impressed. Then live them out in the day’s speech and action.
What it is
Grenville Kleiser — a Yale-trained instructor in public speaking turned prolific self-development author — taught a deliberate, trait-specific form of auto-suggestion aimed squarely at character.
Where Coué’s famous formula is intentionally general (“in every way. better and better”), Kleiser’s instruction is to name the precise qualities you want to embody — courage, self-control, cheerfulness, poise — and address those suggestions to yourself at the two threshold moments of the day, on waking and on falling asleep, repeating them “until they are deeply impressed upon your mind.” His premise: just as outside advertisement and appeal unconsciously shape us, we can consciously shape ourselves from within.
The Method
Kleiser’s counsel is compact and concrete:
- Choose the specific qualities you wish to build. Not a vague wish to “improve,” but named traits you want to make part of your character and personality — e.g. calmness, courage, confidence, patience, kindness, decisiveness. Kleiser’s whole self-culture programme is about deliberately selecting the self you intend to become.
- Phrase each as a direct, present-tense self-address. Speak to yourself about the quality as a present possession or settled intention — for example, “I am calm and self-possessed,” “I am steadily growing in courage.” (Kleiser fills his books with model affirmations of exactly this kind.)
- Do it first thing each morning and last thing each night. In his words: “The first thing each morning, and the last thing each night, suggest to yourself specific ideas that you wish to embody in your character and personality.” These drowsy bookends of the day are when suggestion lands most readily.
- Address the suggestion silently or aloud. Kleiser explicitly allows either — “Address such suggestions to yourself, silently or aloud.” Aloud (even a low murmur) engages the speaking voice he prized; silent works when circumstances require.
- Repeat until deeply impressed. Continue the suggestion “until they are deeply impressed upon your mind.” This is conditioning by repetition over days and weeks, not a one-time recital — the trait is built, not declared once.
- Let conduct follow. For Kleiser this is never armchair affirmation: the impressed idea is meant to express itself in the day’s speech and action. He pairs inner suggestion with outward self-discipline (“by constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character”). (Sourcing note: the bracketed quotations are Kleiser’s documented auto-suggestion counsel, attributed to his self-development writing. Model affirmations and the morning/night timing are his; step phrasing is faithful paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Grenville Kleiser (1868-1953), a Canadian-American author and former instructor in public speaking at Yale Divinity School, wrote a long shelf of self-culture and oratory books — How to Build Mental Power (1917), Inspiration and Ideals (1918), How to Develop Self-Confidence in Speech and Manner, and others. → (New Thought / self-culture authors).
His auto-suggestion teaching sits directly in the lineage of Émile Coué and the wider New Thought affirmation tradition, but is distinguished by its emphasis on named character traits and on spoken delivery, reflecting his life’s work on voice and personality.
It feeds forward into the trait-affirmation style later popularized by Napoleon Hill and mid-century self-help.
The Traditions' versions
Coué’s conscious autosuggestion — the structural parent: morning/night, repetition, threshold-of-sleep timing — but Coué keeps the formula deliberately general; Kleiser makes it trait-specific.
- New Thought affirmations — present-tense statements of a desired quality or condition.
- Neville’s SATS — impressing a desired state in the borderland before sleep; same receptive window.
- Stoic prosochē / self-address — Marcus Aurelius writing trait-reminders to himself morning and night is a close ancient cousin.
- Mantra/japa — repetition until the phrase saturates the mind.
Common refinements
Staying vague. “I want to be better” gives the mind nothing to embody. Kleiser’s point is specific named traits.
- Reciting once and quitting. The instruction is until deeply impressed — daily, sustained conditioning, not a single morning’s affirmation.
- Wrong timing. Said wide-awake and rushed, it loses the threshold-state advantage; use the just-waking and just-sleeping windows.
- Affirming what you flatly disbelieve. Choose phrasing you can entertain (e.g. “I am steadily growing in courage” rather than a claim that feels like a lie) to avoid the backfire effect.
- All words, no action. Kleiser pairs suggestion with self-discipline; without conduct following, the trait stays notional.
- Forcing it. Like Coué, let the suggestion settle in a relaxed, drowsy state rather than straining to believe.