Since the release of the movie “The Secret”, an inflow of well-intentioned students have begun playing with the concepts of the “Law of Attraction” and “Intention Manifestation”. I dedicate this article to those who are interested in these concepts but have not yet fully grasped them, or have tried them out and have run into some challenges.
Firstly, I’d like to say that implementing the “Law of Attraction” in your life is not something you should expect to master overnight. It is probably a lot better to think of it more like a martial art. You start out with a white belt and you have no idea what’s happening, what you’re supposed to do, and most probably, your body and mind are not conditioned properly to perform the techniques required to be successful. As you train, however, your mind becomes refined, your actions become refined, and eventually you earn your black belt. Although it might be a journey of many years before you reach black belt level, you’re always further ahead after every step you take in your “training”.
Although I think the movie “The Secret” is a wonderful introduction to the “Law of Attraction” and “Intention Manifestation”, it is not a complete course in itself. My introduction to these technologies came a few years before “The Secret” came out from a book called “The Science of Getting Rich” (TSoGR) by Wallace Wattles. I’d like to thank Rebecca Fine for making this book available free of charge in eBook format at: www.scienceofgettingrich.net.
What I liked about TSoGR is that it is a complete course, and that is why I think I have been able to get results from it a lot faster than those who are introduced to this world via “The Secret”. However, the downside, if you can call it that, to TSoGR is that it was written over a hundred years ago during a time when the world was much different, especially speaking from the point of view of spiritual expression and language. During the times when Mr. Wattles lived, Christian religion was dominant in society so a lot of the book is written referencing God and in some cases passages from the Bible are referenced. I would guess that this might turn off some people who are of non-Christian faiths. Modern books are a lot more politically correct and often refer to things like “the Universe” or “Supreme Being” or “the Source” so as not to offend anyone of any particular faith, however during the times of Mr. Wattles, the only language to express his views available to him included God in the picture.
Anyone who reads TSoGR and understands the concept taught within will easily see that instances of the word God can easily be replaced with “the Universe” or “the Source” or whatever other name you would call the source of all life, but I suspect that some people who don’t believe in a Christian God will not read the book because it references God so many times and it might be a point they get hung up on. That is why a movie like “The Secret” is much easier to distribute to the masses as it doesn’t refer to any one particular god, thus appealing to people of any faith.
Anyway, I’m going to go through some of the pitfalls I see people falling into with the Law of Attraction and Intention Manifestation models and I will be referencing quotes from Mr. Wattles throughout the discussion.
The first thing I would like to write about is what Mr. Wattles calls “Acting in The Certain Way” because I believe this to be one of the greatest pitfalls of newcomers to Law of Attraction and Intention Manifestation.
Mr. Wattles starts out by saying:
“Thought is the creative power or the impelling force which causes the creative power to act. Thinking in a certain way will bring riches to you, but you must not rely upon thought alone, paying no attention to personal action. That is the rock upon which many otherwise scientific thinkers meet shipwreck – the failure to connect thought with personal action.”
As you can see Mr. Wattles clearly states that setting an intention is not enough. It must be followed up by personal action. He goes further to say:
“We have not yet reached the stage of development, even supposing such a stage to be possible, in which a person can create directly from formless substance without nature’s processes or the work of human hands. A person must not only think, but his personal action must supplement his thought.”
Mr. Wattles called the energy within the universe that he believed to be intelligent and responsive to our intentions “formless substance”. Further, Mr. Wattles continues:
“Your thought makes all things, animate and inanimate, work to bring you what you want, but your personal activity must be such that you can rightly receive what you wanted when it reaches you. You are not to take it as charity, nor to steal it. You must give away every man more in use value than he gives you in cash.”
As we can see, personal action is required to complete the process. In the movie “The Secret” they refer to three steps. 1) Ask, 2) Answer, 3) Receive. Step 3, the process of receiving is where personal action must be taken. However, this is where I think a lot of people mistake what this means. It does not mean you become a workaholic and look for crazy ways to manage your time in such a way that you take more and more action because it makes you feel important to be busy. There are a lot of people who are busy doing nothing. They take action like a ball of energy going in all directions, burning themselves out and accomplishing nothing. Mr. Wattles continues by saying:
“But you must act in a certain way, so that you can appropriate what is yours when it comes to you and so you can meet the things you have in your picture and put them in their proper places as they arrive.
You can really see the truth of this. When things reach you, they will be in the hands of others, who will ask an equivalent for them. And you can only get what is yours by giving the other person what is rightfully his.”
It is very important to understand the difference between acting and acting in a certain way. What is the difference between the two? What is the difference between the workaholic who sits in his office working 16 hours a day, ignoring his family, ignoring his health, struggling to make ends meet and feeling burned out compared to the person who is able to manifest riches beyond belief in all his life categories like finance and health etc.? The difference is in the actions they take, or more accurately the quality of action they take. To understand what Mr. Wattles means by “acting in a certain way”, I turn back to his text:
“There are very many people, who consciously or unconsciously, set the creative forces in action by the strength and persistence of their desires, but who remain poor because they do not provide for the reception of the thing that they want when it comes.
By thought, the thing you want is brought to you. By action, you receive it.
Whatever your action is to be, it is evident that you must act NOW.”
Here Mr. Wattles touches upon yet another key element of the process of taking action. He makes a clear distinction that acting in a certain way encompasses acting in the present moment. Books such as “The Power of Now” describe the power in living your life and taking action in the present moment. Mr. Wattles simply describes it as:
“If you act in the present with your mind in the future, your present action will be a divided mind, and will not be effective. Put your whole mind into present action.
Do not give your creative impulse to original substance, and then sit down and wait for results. If you do, you will never get them. Act now. There is never any time but now, and there will never be any time but now. If you are ever to begin to make ready for the reception of what you want, you must begin NOW.”
It is clear that Mr. Wattles wants us to understand that the actions we must take have to be in the present moment. Now, logically we can never act in the past or the future so all our actions are always in the present moment. What separates acting and action in a certain way is your awareness of the actions you’re taking. For example, taking action in the present moment while thinking about what happened yesterday or this morning, or two weeks ago, or how horrible your neighbors are or thinking about tomorrow’s problems divides your mind and you become ineffective. Focusing on the present moment is required. What else?
“And your action, whatever it is, must most likely be in your present business or employment, and must be upon the persons and things in your present environment. You cannot act where you are not, you cannot act where you have been, and you cannot act where you are going to be. You can only act where you are.
Do not bother as to whether yesterday’s work was well done or ill done; do today’s work well.
Do not try to do tomorrow’s work now; there will be plenty of time to do that when you get to it.”
This is where the workaholics (including formerly myself) run into conflict. Doing tomorrow’s work now is not taking action in that certain way. This is a very important distinction that must be properly understood. It is not about filling your day with more and more tasks, and creating more and more things to be busy with. It is really about the quality and value of your action rather than the quantity of it or the speed at which you perform it.
“Do not wait for a change of environment, before you act; get a change of environment by action.
You can so act upon the environment in which you are now, as to cause yourself to be transferred to a better environment.
Hold with faith and purpose the vision of yourself in the better environment, but act upon your present environment with all your heart, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.”
This means that you don’t need a new job or some new environment before you get started acting in that certain way. You can and must do it immediately, NOW, in your present moment, in your present situation, in your present circumstances, whatever they may be.
“Do not cast about, seeking some new thing to do or some strange, unusual, or remarkable action to perform as a first step toward getting rich. It is probable that your actions, at least for some time to come, will be the same ones you have been performing for some time past, but you are to begin now to perform these actions in the certain way, which will surely make you rich.
If you are engaged in some business, and feel it is not the right one for you, do not wait until you get into the right business before you begin to act.

… Hold the vision of yourself in the right business, with the purpose to get into it and the faith that you will get into it and are getting into it, but ACT in your present business. Use your present business as the means of getting a better one, and use your present environment as the means of getting into a better one. Your vision of the right business, if held with faith and purpose, will cause the supreme power to move the right business toward you. And your action, if performed in the certain way, will cause you to move toward the business.
… Hold the vision of yourself in the job you want while you ACT with faith and purpose on the job you have, and you will certainly get the job you want.”

At this stage, it is important to absorb what Mr. Wattles is saying about taking action in the present moment. For anyone who finds themselves lacking in the discipline of taking any kind of action these words are wise reminders that we must act and we must act NOW. For people who feel they have been taking action, for the workaholics who slave away for hours on end to try to get ahead but feel nowhere further than they were before, it is also important to understand what Mr. Wattles calls “efficient action”.
“Every day is either a successful day or a day of failure, and it is the successful days which get you what you want. If every day is a failure you can never get rich, while if your day is a success, you cannot fail to get rich.
If there is something that may be done today and you do not do it, you have failed insofar as that thing is concerned – and the consequences may be more disastrous than you imagine.
You cannot foresee the results of even the most trivial act. You do not know the workings of all the forces that have been set moving on your behalf. Much may be depending on your doing some simple act, and it may be the very thing which is to open the door of opportunities to very great possibilities.”
As we can see even the most trivial acts such as answering the telephone, or opening a door or turning off a television or paying someone a compliment are important. Mr. Wattle warns that:
“Your neglect or failure to do some small thing may cause a long delay in getting what you want.
Do, every day, ALL that can be done that day.
There is, however, a limitation or qualification of the above that you must take into account.
You are not to overwork, nor to rush blindly into your business in the effort to do the greatest possible number of things in the shortest possible time.
You are not to try to do tomorrow’s work today, nor to do a week’s work in a day. It is really not the number of things you do, but the EFFICIENCY of each separate action that counts.
Every act is, in itself, either a success or a failure. Every act is, in itself, either effective and efficient or ineffective and inefficient.

… The cause of failure is doing too many things in an inefficient manner and not doing enough things in an efficient manner.”

So how do we make our actions “efficient”? What exactly does Mr. Wattles mean when he speaks of efficient action? Well, we know that these actions must be taken in the present moment, but how must they be performed?
“Every act can be made strong and efficient by holding your vision, while you are doing it and putting the whole power of your FAITH and PURPOSE behind it.”
By faith, Mr. Wattles speaks of the level of certainty that you have that your vision will come to be. The purpose, of course, is the reason why you want the vision to be brought to your life. It is by combining a vision, an intention of what we want, having a strong conviction that we will get it, and being clear as to why we want it in the first place that we can instill efficiency into every ACT we take in the present moment.
This does not mean you spend all of your day visualizing what you want every time you go to take action, it is simply about keeping that vision in the back of your mind at all times, and using your spare time when you are not “working” visualizing that vision or intention.
I hope this article will help some of you clarify what is meant by the process of “receiving” the intentions you’re seeking to manifest. Always remember that your job is to create a vision/intention and then to receive it. Doing one without the other will not work. Too many workaholics act inefficiently and without any clear vision, purpose or faith. To see results, faster than you’ve ever dreamed possible, do both. Take action in that certain way, in an EFFICIENT manner, but do it with a purpose-driven vision/intention of what you want to achieve. I’ll conclude with Mr. Wattles comments on this very topic:
“It should be the work of your leisure hours to use your imagination on the details of your vision and to contemplate them until they are firmly fixed upon your memory. If you wish speedy results, spend practically all your spare time in this practice.”

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!