The Law Of Attraction Debunked October 30, 2008
Posted by Andrew Wee in : Internet Marketing , trackbackMade famous by the 2006 film, “The Secret“, the search phrase “Law of Attraction” throws up tons of results on any of the search engines.
From self-professed “Law of Attraction coaches”, to being able to gain mastery over the secrets of life, it just seems so easy and just a $19.95 shipping and handling charge away.
The essence of the Law of Attraction, though it seems somewhat hokey and new age-ish especially after being given the quasi- or even pseudo-scientific spin by para-scientents (ie: not quite “official” scientists) has its basis in books like Wallace D Wattles “The Science of Getting Rich” and Napolean Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” (although Napolean died poor…).
The major problem I have with the whole “Law of Attraction” movement is its emphasis on “thinking” and somehow attracting wealth, happiness or whatever you want to attract to you.
If it smells a little like the internet wealth programs which promise to make you untold riches while you sleep, or those weight loss programs which help you lose weight while you sleep or watch TV, you’re not too far wrong.
The fact is that success at anything – whether it’s closing a major business deal, building a successful internet business, or forming a relationship with a significant other – all require effort, and learning. There’s no 300 page PDF which will guarantee you success.
If that were so, we’d all be internet millionaires within 30 days of having started, wouldn’t we.
Here’s where I think the Law of Attraction is useful – as a starting point.
If you have a mental picture of where you want to be, who you want to be, what you want to be, you’ve taken the first step in becoming success. This is also where the heavy lifting will beging.
I get emails from aspiring bloggers who write:
“I like your blog, and I want to make a successful living from my blogging. I’ve spend hundreds of dollars buying books on blogging (ebooks and physical books), and I started a blog, but I haven’t been successful yet. Help!”
With some further probing, I find that they’ve been blogging a total of 3 weeks and have a trickle of traffic coming to their blog, and generated a total of $0.27 from Google AdSense after publishing a total of 5 blog posts.
Your actions determine your results.
Though the wishful thinking aspect of the law of attraction can give you a temporary bump in your motivation and maybe even spur you to write a blog post, or two, or three, it’s the ability to continue taking consistent, focused action that will give you results.
It’s one of the reasons why I spend a considerable amount of time developing the blog training system which I launched last month, and for a number of the motivated new and intermediate level internet marketers out there who’re looking for a system to follow and scale up their internet income, the Secret Blog Weapon could hold the “The Secret” to your internet marketing success.
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The Law of Attraction and the Secret has a very special place close to my heart. Since watching the Secret, and by having a “pro-active awareness” of the Law of Attraction, I have changed my life like night and day.
So its not really about “practicing” the Law of Attraction but more of an “awareness” of it.
A lot of people think the Law of Attraction is a specific action. They imagine its about thinking about what you want and having it magically appear. This has been a downfall for many wannabe practitioners.
The truth of the message is simply to use your will to focus on what you want and only on what you want while you are taking the steps to make it happen and putting away the doubts. Its more about “clarity” than magic.
If you want to be practical and take away the “sexiness” of the movie, it boils down to this – define what you really want clearly, then visualize the outcome to a point where you can break it down into smaller goals and to do items, and take action each day to complete the to do items. Voila! What you want becomes reality over time.
Magic? Hardly. Common sense? Absolutely. However, I must admit, when your intentions start becoming a reality, there are parts in there that does “feel” like magic.
Happy manifesting and doing everybody.
Good Job Mr. Wee.
And I believe what you think you believe too! But all is not as it seems on Earth as it is in Heaven, breath deep the gathering gloom…oops flashback. IMO you must mentioned the works of Malcolm Gladwell, “Outliers” and Deepak Chopra’s “Seven Spiritual Laws of Success”, to mention but a few, if and while trying to dismiss “thinking” as a means to a so called ‘successful end’. A balance is needed between action and contemplation, while remembering that if monetary gain is the only goal, then you probably need some “Secret” osmosis to into you own psyche. And if you think you can dream yourself into awakening wealthy, then you better pinch yourself. But it may be better then beating your head against the wall of ‘action.’ And then again never, and I mean never—and I usually never say never–under estimate the power in a dream.
LLAP
Really nice. I think the law of attraction depends on your knowledge and understanding. Success comes when you fully understand it and embrace the law of attraction. Me? I’m still having difficulties in attaining success. But at least I already know “The Secret”. God bless!
There’s another element that’s been left out… the impact of others and outside systems on our ability to succeed. I lived in a very poor country for some time. People had just gotten out of a horrible civil war that displaced families, maimed and killed hundreds of thousands and are facing a situation where there is a huge destruction of infrastructure, few educational opportunities, little formal sector employment for them, disease outbreaks etc. Something like “law of attraction” is unlikely to change their circumstances. It’s another invention to keep the masses believing that they have the power to change their destinies (financially anyway). It’s a hoax and only serves to as a cover up to the forces that keep people down. I would even say it’s downright offensive.
What people do have is coping skills and their own creativity and thinking and best of all their resistance. If the law of attraction were true, the narcissists, handlers and abusers that keep cropping up in my life wouldn’t be there because I’ve worked my butt off on things I think were important only to have them crop up.
I should note – I’m a victim of organized stalking and electronic harassment. My overt harassment only began recently but I’ve gone through years of harassment and social engineering. As I was preparing to defend my dissertation, the harassers made their harassment overt: extreme cyberbullying, death threats posted, constant hacking (I’m hacked as I write), car tampering and vandalism, stalking and feedback from surveillance, threats to hurt my daughter who is a minor, just to name a *few* things. Then they have the nerve to post “law of attraction” and other new agey opiate messages. Since my harassment appears to be “behavior modification” (trauma conditioning or what people call mind control), then I can only guess that “law of attraction:” is something “bad” since people who harass and torture innocent people have nothing good in mind. Law of attraction is a ploy, not a reality.
Ok, now I think “organized stalking” is also a meme.