There’s no secret to how the Law of Attraction works (excuse the pun), but many people don’t understand it. Some of those who don’t understand it, think it’s all a load of rubbish. Well, I’m here to tell you that it isn’t.
Although it’s a simple concept, perhaps it’s been oversimplified to the point where it appears as realistic as fairies living at the bottom of the garden. The bottom line is that to use your subconscious to manifest something, is possible, but only if you believe it is.
If you don’t believe it’s possible to do so, you’ll never notice the times when you do manifest something. You see, most of us are doing it often and don’t even realise it. We don’t see it because we’re not consciously looking for it. Think about that for a moment!
How the Law of Attraction Doesn’t Work
There are reasons why the Law of Attraction won’t work for you. Firstly, you must believe it can work for you. This is not to say that all you should do is ask and will then receive. The book, The Secret only scratched the surface on this, perhaps making it seem it was that easy.
It defies logic to think that you can just desire something, ask for it and wait for it to arrive. The Secret, in some ways, gave that impression. I think this is because it didn’t go into enough detail of what you need to do as part of the process.
Because the whole process has been packaged as a “secret” which only a few people know about, it makes it appear to be a magical formula or like casting a spell. This, of course, is not the case. The law of gravity doesn’t make things fall to the earth, it explains why it happens.
The Law of Attraction, I believe, is similar in that it explains how manifesting something can occur if certain things happen. You can’t just instruct the law to perform magic at your whim.
Magic is no more than an illusion and because it looks real, it’s easy to accept as reality. Don’t be fooled into thinking that all you have to do is ask.
Consider Confirmation Bias
The theory that “like attracts like” is true. It can, to some degree, be explained by confirmation bias. It’s a concept which has been known about for many centuries. The scientist, Francis Bacon wrote about it in the 1600’s.
Our mind receives thousands of messages every day and we can only be aware of some of them. Each of them goes into our mind, but we tend to notice those which align with our beliefs or opinions because they confirm them.
This is known as confirmation bias, where the message confirms what you believe. If you decide to buy a new car, once you make that decision, you begin to see those types of car all the time.
It’s as if they’ve magically appeared, but they were there all the time. They had no relevance to you until you place the thought of one in your mind and hey presto, they begin to appear.
If you begin to train your mind to think positive thoughts about a situation you want to change, or something you want to bring into your life, you’ll begin to notice any little changes that align with these thoughts. The confirmation bias theory suggests you’re noticing them, only because you placed the thought into your mind and not because there are changes happening.
I believe the difference with the Law of Attraction is that you are making the changes or taking the actions necessary to bring about what it is you want. It’s not so much about noticing little changes (although you probably will), but more about what you do to create any change.
First Steps to How the Law of Attraction Works
You might read that thoughts can change your world and think, how on earth is that possible? Well, thoughts alone won’t make changes, but crucially, they can begin a chain of events that will bring about change.
Without thinking about something, you can’t start the process of bringing it into your world. Thoughts are the seeds to change. They are the creators of what will follow. This is a process brought into existence by your thoughts.
We often set goals we want to achieve and that’s a good thing because the Law of Attraction can help you get there. It’s not enough to just focus on the goal, it won’t be achieved by just thinking about it. It’s the how you’re going to get there that really matters.
There are people in the world who have the same goals, but some of them are winners and some are losers who won’t achieve it. They have the same goal, but there must be something else that sets them apart.
It’s the route to achieving the goal with beliefs and actions that makes the difference between those who achieve and those who don’t. This is how the Law of Attraction works. It’s the process which you follow, which you focus on, to get you to that goal. I’m sure you can see that it’s not magical, it’s logical.
Your Mind is Magnetic
It might help to think of your mind and thoughts as being similar to a magnet. As you know, magnets attract metal. They don’t discriminate, they pull in any metal which is attracted by the magnetic field, whether it’s a useful or useless metal.
Your mind acts in the same way, with your thoughts attracting situations which match them. It attracts both positive and negative situations which align with your positive or negative thoughts.
What you are thinking affects how you feel and how you act. This is how different situations are created or how certain people enter or leave your life. It’s you that makes it happen, but it’s the thoughts in your mind which begin the process.
If, for example, you’re running in a race and your thoughts are that you have no chance of winning, there’s a very good chance you’ll lose. Your negative thoughts are attracting a negative outcome and that’s what you’ll deliver with a poor performance, because of those thoughts. That is the power of your thoughts.
Be Clear About What You Want
It’s no good having a vague idea of what you want to bring into your life. You must be specific and crystal clear about it. If you skip over this part of the process you might not get the results you want, or in the way you want them.
When I sat down and thought really hard about some of the things I’ve wanted in my life and have managed to achieve, I was shocked. Not one, but all of them arrived in a way I hadn’t expected, with some of them in a way which I would have preferred to have been different.
One of these, was particularly strange. I’d been thinking about buying a new car as my current one was getting old, I knew the make and colour I wanted. I decided to wait for a good few months when I knew my finances would be in a better position, so put it to the back of my mind without thinking much more about it. Crucially, even though I put it out of mind, I knew I would get it, there was a certainty about it.
A couple of weeks later a car went out of control outside my house and ended up smashing into my car which was parked on the front drive and totally wrecked it. I couldn’t be without a car, so I needed to buy a new one. I went to a local dealership and asked what they had to offer.
I didn’t mention the make and colour I’d put in my mind a couple of weeks before, I was just looking for a good deal. The make and colour weren’t that important to me at this time.
Strangely, the first car the salesman showed me was the same make and colour I’d thought about (a lot) a couple of weeks before! It was a reasonable price and weirdly, about a week previously, I’d inherited a little bit of money, which was more or less enough to pay for the car. It’s mine now!
Does the Law of Attraction Work That Way?
You might say that the way I ended up with a new car was down to circumstantial coincidences and you might be right. To me though, it was only when I thought about it afterwards that I realised I’d got exactly what I wanted after planting a seed of thought about it and knowing it was on the way to me.
As I mentioned earlier, know your goal but also think about how you might get there. If you’re involved in the journey, you might reach the destination in the way you want to. Having an absolute belief that you will get it is also essential. You must know, and I mean really know it’s yours.
Some might say that this is putting faith in the universe to deliver to you. It is, although it’s also believing in the process and in yourself to be a part of making it happen.
Remember, you won’t achieve very much if you just sit around waiting for things to happen. If you do, things will happen but mostly not in the way you want them to.
What About Affirmations?
Affirmations are one of the techniques to manifest what you want. Repeating them over and over will help to imprint the message into your subconscious mind. It doesn’t really matter if you believe them to be true or not because the message will still reach the subconscious.
Because the subconscious doesn’t discriminate, any message will be accepted. It’s a bit like a filing system or a library – what gets put into it gets stored. Repetition will help form a new belief or habit.
It’s similar to how you learned your times tables when you were young, by rhythm and repetition. I bet you still remember them and if you say them out loud, still do so with the same rhythm.
Yes, affirmations are powerful, I must admit that I used to think they were a pointless load of rubbish. That’s until I came to understand that they work by helping to shift your mindset and are far more effective when combined with emotion.
And Visualisations?
Visualisations can be very helpful in altering your mindset, but alone they won’t change your world. Don’t get me wrong, they are powerful. For example, if you visualise an orange being peeled with some of the zest spraying out, you’ll imagine the smell and your mouth will probably water.
There’s no orange in front of you, but you can almost smell and taste it because of the image you placed in your mind. Creating images in your mind can have a huge effect on how you feel and consequently, how you behave.
By repeatedly creating a visualisation of something you want, but crucially, as though you already have it now, it will make you feel good. By doing this, you imprint on the subconscious and you shift your mindset to take the right kind of action to move towards it.
This will affect the situation and people around you. You change and everything around you begins to change. People who don’t fit this new attitude begin to fade from your life and new ones appear. I’m sure this has happened to you at least once in your life so far.
This is How the Law of Attraction Works
It’s not difficult to understand how the Law of Attraction works, because the change comes from within you. The “law” is not a magical formula, it is a process you can follow. It explains how you can change your life, it can’t change it for you.
By using affirmations and visualisation combined with emotion, you can create a major shift in your mind. When this happens, you’ll see the changes beginning to take place before your eyes.
It’s as if one minute you’re looking in one place, then the next you’re looking in another place that you hadn’t noticed before. You’re noticing it now because you’ve implemented what the Law of Attraction says.
It was Dr Wayne Dyer who said, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Your world will completely change because you’ve changed, that’s how the Law of Attraction Works.