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The Law of Attraction Process

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What is the "Law of Attraction" Process?

The "Law of Attraction" has recently been popularized and packaged as a simple exercise in visualization. Simply visualize your desired goal, believe it to be a reality, then wait for it to become "manifest" in your life. Then, the "Universal Intelligence" acts on your request to bring it into your life.

In reality, the Law of Attraction, as originally proposed by authors such as Charles Haanel and Napoleon Hill, consists of a PROCESS, a process which includes the critical and integral component of ACTION directed toward your goal. The key component of ACTION has been de-emphasized, and even omitted, by many proponents of the "Law of Attraction", resutling in a "Something for Nothing" philosophy. Nowhere in the known Universe, as documented through science (and, most importantly to the "Law of Attraction", physics itself), has the concept of "Something for Nothing" been documented. This is physically represented by the concept of the Perpetual Motion Machine.

The sooner one accepts that ACTION is required in order to realize one's goals, the sooner one can realize those goals.

Not a "Natural Law" but part of a PROCESS

The "Law of Attraction" is not a "Natural Law" but, rather, is an over emphasized part of a PROCESS directed toward achieving one's goals.

Fittest Russian girl ever on America's Got Talent

This is a remarkable YouTube video of an athlete performing on "America's Got Talent". Virtually as soon as the video begins, you can understand why the judges and the audience were astounded at her performance.

The point I wish to make is that there is no way she achieved this level simply by visualizing as advocated by "Law of Attraction" proponents. I don't know anything about her but am nonetheless confident in proposing that she has spent years practicing so as to perfect her ability, with an underlying inherent talent, to the point evidenced in her performance.
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Athletes Use of Visualization

An Integral Part of Training

Virtually every athlete today uses mental visualization as part of their training routine. I am sure we will see many examples of Olympic athletes in February (2010) moving their body as they visualize their performance immediately prior to competing. They will be visualizing every component of their routine, visualizing how their body feels as they perform their routine flawlessly. In actual competition, however, life happens and their routine may be less than perfect, less than flawless and they may not win a medal for their peformance.

The key is that visualization comprises as "PART" of their training. They still go to the prcatice fields, the tracks, the gyms and work ... work ... work so as to master their sport.. By analogy, we need to go through life and work ... work ... work for our goals.

The Analogy of a Mountaineer

To Reach the Summit

It is analogous to a mountaineer desiring to conquer a mountain. Think of the first ascent of Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. They didn't simply visualize their conquest and "manifest" themselves at the top. They climbed Everest and were the first to do so. Furthermore, other climbers have subsequently reached the summit, many of whom have made their own first ascents (via new routes, without oxygen, etc). Others have died, and continue to do so because mountaineering is an inherently hazardous sport. It is very enlightening, however, to ponder why many subsequent climbers have sought to make the climb more difficult (i.e. without oxygen, via the North face, etc). It is because of the personal growth realized through rising to the challenge they have set themselves.

Also, due to the elevation of Everest, the uppermost reaches of the mountain constitute a zone of death, in which the body is slowly dying to the lack of sufficient oxygen. Therefore, another characteristic of climbers is a "BURNING DESIRE" to reach to summit.

Only a very small proportion of the population are mountaineers and so we must imagine what must drive a mountaineer to attempt to reach a summit, particularly one as difficult as Everest (or K2). There is a very good reason why some mountaineers have been retained as motivational speakers to discuss life in the context of mountaineering (in fact, it might properly be referred to as a "cliche" now). The literal conquest of a mountain represents a wonderful analogy for the conquest of our own figurative "mountains".

Our day-to-day lives represent the uniform plain of our existence. A mountain represents some difficulty in our day-to-day lives. Simply getting up in the morning may represent, figuratively, a small hillock. Earning our first $1 million may be the financial equivalent of Everest. To reach the summit (to conquer one of life's difficulties), requires effort (to varying degrees).

Furthermore, a successful conquest, in virtually all cases, requires a plan. For example, any modern attempt to conquer Everest definitely requires a plan, fundamentally because a permit is required. Furthermore, there is a finite window of opportunity in which to attempt the summit due to the monsoon season. By analogy, conquering life's difficulties requires a plan, realistically multiple plans for each aspect of our lives, for each separate and distinct goal in our lives.

The "Law of Attraction"

Originally advocated by such author's as Charles Haanel and Napoleon Hill, the "Law of Attraction" has been seized upon by recent New Age "Guru's" and packaged as a stand alone means for "manifesting" your reality. The "Law of Attraction" essentially equates to "visualization", the process of visualizing one's goals as richly, deeply and thoroughly as possible so as to make it seem as real as possible.

The next step, however, is to develop and implement a plan designed to achieve the intended goal. There is no resource of "Universal" energy waiting to "manifest" our requests. We have been provided, however, with an infinite source of imagination, will power and resolve ... between our ears. It is a true statement that

"ANYTHING WE CAN CONCEIVE AND BELIEVE, WE CAN ACHIEVE".

This statement implies a component of "Action", however, which has been omitted from recent interpretations. Today, "the "Law of Attraction" movement would have us believe that we "Conceive", and "Believe" in our goal, then simply wait for it to "Achieve" itself. The fallacy of this belief is apparent once one gives any thought to any goal one has already realized in one's life. Every single one of those goals to date has been achieved with a level of effort from the recipient, whether it has simply been asking the rich parents for a BMW, or working for a lifetime to abolish slavery. There has been an effort required to access the resources necessary to realize the goal.

The degree to which one is willing to commit oneself to achieving one's goals dictates the level of success one will realize.

Available Resources

There has been a wealth of materal written with regard to achieving one's goals, much of which is sound, reasonable and valuable. The interested reader is well advised to search the internet for resources on the follwoing:

  • Positive Affirmations

  • Setting Goals

  • Vision Boards

  • Mind Movies and,yes,

  • The "Law of Attraction" itself

In addition, the books of Napoleon Hill, particularly "Think and Grow Rich" and "The Law of Success", are strongly recommended.

The more thoroughly you understand the process by which you can CONCEPTUALIZE, VISUALIZEand IMPLEMENT ACTION toward your goal, the more likely you are to achieve that goal.

The PROCESS

How to Achieve Your Goals

1. CONCEPTUALIZE

In order to eventually realize a goal, you must first have one. In order for a goal to be successful, it must be:

  • Specific

  • Measurable

  • Action Oriented

  • Realistic

  • Timeframe


"I want to be healthy, wealthy and wise" is not a goal one is likely to realize as it is not specific, measurable, action oriented and has no timeframe. You would have to decide for youorself if it is realistic.

In contrast, a goal such as "I have $300,000 owing on my mortgage. I want to have it completely paid off, through the use of increased monthly payments and annual lump sum payments i`n five years" meets these criteria and is a worthy goal.

2. Visualize
Use any means at your disposal to help you visualize your goal, keeping it in front of you as much as is reasonably possible. It has long been recommended that you write out your goal on a card and keep it in your wallet or purse, so you can review it anytime you wish.

In more recent times, the concept of a "Visionboard" and "Mind Movies" have been proposed. A Visionboard is proposed to capture not just a single goal on a 3"x5" card, but all your goals on a cork board on some other larger sized medium. Most of us have multiple goals, ideally balanced between all areas of our lives (i.e. financial, personal, family, spiritual, etc.), and these can be organized and portrayed on a Visionboard. The idea being that the Visionboard captures the essence of our goals in an intergated and highy visual manner.

Taking the idea one step further are Mind Movies. Using easily obtained software (including Windows Movie Maker), a "scrapbook" of images representing a digital "Visionboard" can be created and, even better, put to music as a "Movie". The advantage of these concepts, in our digital age, is that the resutling Visionboard and /or Mind Movie(s) can be placed onto our Blackberry or iPhone and taken with us. As far as assisting us in visualizing our goals, these are VERY POWERFUL techniques.

And this, unfortunately, is as far as most recent "Law of Attraction" proponents take us. From this point, we are advised to "release our visualized goals to the Universe and wait for them to become manifest in our lives".

ACTION

The Critical Component

3. ACTION

The next critical component to successful realization of your goal is to IMPLEMENT the ACTION necessary according to a PLAN.

As formualting a plan can be difficult, it has been essentially omitted from recent versions of the "Law of Attraction", as widely described today. The key is that the plan does not have to perfect in order to be implemented, it simply needs to be implemented. Once you have initiated your plan for realization of your goals, you may, and probably should, continually revise it as you move forward. As you enocunter each new obstacle, difficulty or surmount each component phase in oyur plan, revise it ... modify it so it remains a dynamic plan of action.

By doing so, you are keeping your goal, and its realization, actively before you, constantly thinking about it and how you can realize it, make it manifest in your life. You are continually identifying new skills or abilities you might need to learn. You are continually seeking the necessary resources to achieve your goal. And, arguably most importantly, you are continually growing, personally, physically, financially and/or spiritually, as you move toward your goal.

An Example

The Education System

Perhaps the best, and universal, example of this is your education. If you review an educational system with regard to the required features of Goal Setting (above), you will see the strong correlation. Regardless of how far you have progressed in your country's educational system, you are farther ahead in life than your uneducated counterpart. Your annual goals have been defined for you by your local School Board and the Education Ministry / Department at the provincial, state and/or federal level. Your progress has been enforced upon you by your teachers and principals. Your education has been measureable, broken down into annual increments and broadly realistic for your age group and ability. Although some may resent having been forced into the education system, the advantages of an organized educational system far outweigh the disadvantages.

Summary

The "Law of Attraction"

The modern day definition of the "Law of Attraction" is far different than that originally advocated by authors such as Napoleon Hill and Charkles Haanel and that, to a large degree, is why is does not work for so many people today. The concept has been reduced and packaged as "something for nothing". We are being led to believe that we can receive the objects of our greatest desires simply by visualizing them and thereby "manifesting" them into our lives. We are being told we have God-like abilities to create our own realities. And while this is, strictly speaking true, there are significant differences bewteen how one might define "creating our reality" (see my article Why the Law of Attraction Fails.

To the hardcore advocate of the "Law of Attraction", I would challenge them to visualize, then manifest $1 million in a suitcase. I would challenge them to visualize themselves performing with the ability o the young woman in the YouTube video at the start of this article.

The "Law of Attraction" has its place, as a powerful means of manifesting your desired goals into your life, however, it must be accompanied by directed ACTION toward those goals.

The "Law of Attraction" Process

What do you think?

I have attempted to returnt he "Law of Attraction" concept to its original formulation, that of a process toward realizing your goals, rather than a utilization of "Universal Energy" to manifest such goals.

The concept and principles of Quantum physics, as exciting and thoguth provoking as they are, DO NOT support creation of "something from nothing" using the vibrational energy of your thoughts. Any such proposals are misrepresentations.

What do you think of this article (Pro or Con)? I woud be very interested in receiving your comments.

  • theraggededge Jan 21, 2010 @ 3:25 pm | delete
    I think you have covered a lot here but missed out the most important part...in order for action (or anything) to have the most impact, you need to get inspired to it first. Feeling good is an intrinsic part of the process. If you act from a place of feeling good then your actions will be more effective than if you are doing something you hate.

    We often take life too seriously... understanding that to get a happy and fulfilling life, you have to feel happy and fulfilled first. Things must change on the inside before they can change on the outside.
  • Dynamic1 Jan 21, 2010 @ 5:09 pm | delete
    You are correct. I did neglect to explicitly state that a "Burning Desire" was necessary for successfully achieving a goal. I believe the requirement is implicit in the lens.

    It is certainly much more difficult to achieve a goal if one is not inspired, motivated or otherwise encouraged to pursue it. Goals at work may be much harder to achieve as they would be imposed or required by the company.

    Personal goals should be expected to be somewhat easier as they derive from your desires. A goal, however, pursued with a Burning Desire (a la Napoleon Hill) would be very difficult not to achieve.
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This Forum is dedicated to Personal Development in support of the Integrated Success Program web-site and the Integrated Success Program blog. The web-site contains many of the classic personal development texts, including Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" and "Law of Success", Charles Haanel's "The Master Key System" and the inspiration books of James Allen, including "As A Man Thinketh".

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This group was created to discuss thoughts, opinions and interpretations originating, in part, from the classic personal development texts (James Allen, Charles Haanel, Napoleon Hill, etc.) and other related topics of interest (i.e. Law of Attraction, Creative Visualization).

Researching the power of the mind and, more specifically, the sub-conscious mind over the past twenty years has allowed me to discover of many gems of wisdom buried in these timeless texts, as well as more recently published texts. The recent release of "The Secret" has had the result of drawing considerable attention to the "LAW OF ATTRACTION", however, I believe the process underlying its application to one's life was missing from the movie.

Contrary to the hype attending release of "The Secret", the LAW OF ATTRACTION is not a recent discovery in metaphysics, nor has it been actively suppressed by the Church or hidden societies. It simply passed into relative obscurity through the passage of time. It has been, and remains, available to everyone who searches for it and is willing to actually apply it to their lives.

The formula is available, and is, in all likelihood, well known to most. In its simplest form, it was concisely summarized as follows:

Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives;
he who seeks finds;
and to him who knocks, the door will be opened

Matthew 7:7 (Luke (11:9) NIV

In short, visualize your desired outcome, then take the appropriate action to receive its manifestation. ACTION is an integral, necessary part of the three part formula to realize (manifest) your desired outcome.

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Dynamic1

I have been a student of personal development for over 25 years, with specific interest in the ability and latent power of the mind, particularly the subconscious.... more »

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