The Law of Attraction (LoA) gets a bad rep because of cheesy YouTube Videos and terrible books. They want to make the concept simple and enticing, but in doing so they lose much of the life changing impact that the practice can have. I didn’t believe until I started believing. Imagine that. 😉
We are who we think we are and that’s how we accomplish our goals. If we don’t believe we can write a great book, hike the Appalachian trail, or create a career that will make us so happy that we can’t believe our luck then it won’t happen.
Let’s break the LoA down. First, we have to understand confidence.
What is confidence?
Confidence is our belief in our abilities. When we believe we can accomplish a goal, our minds set to work to make our goals a reality.
I’m working with a client who is afraid to reach out to old customers. He has enough steady work right now, but he knows his slow time is coming soon. He is afraid of the responses that he will receive. There is a reason why they are no longer customers. Right?
My client doesn’t want to face this reality. So he continues to do the same things he always does – wait for business to come to him.
He may have confidence in many areas, but in his business he lacks the confidence to learn from past mistakes.
Creating a Positive Mindset
Happy people have a resilience that unhappy people don’t have. They believe that good things will come into their lives. Even when faced with a terrible tragedy, they find a way to create a positive spin.
They may not call it LoA, but that’s exactly what they are doing. They are sending out intentions and expecting them to come back.
When you believe in positive outcomes, you train the brain to expect positive results.
My Thick Skull
I never believed that I deserved a wonderful career that made me happy. I thought it was something that might happen, but I was more concerned with making money. So my first job out of college was for money, but the work didn’t resonate with me. I wrote poetry on my breaks and during lunches.
My thick skull wouldn’t comprehend the possibility that my job was all wrong for me.
I worked because I had to. I never thought to align my strengths, focus, and passions into a career. I had yet to discover my superpowers.(create “what are career superpowers?” post).
The layers of my skill finally eroded away to open my eyes to my error. I could build a business on the side as I discovered my superpowers.
Once I believed in my superpowers, the LoA finally began to work for me. People began to seek me out because I put out intentions to the world that I could help other people. I trusted my powers offered them to the world.
Using the LoA on Your Career
You have to believe that you have dormant superpowers that need to be discovered and harnessed. If you don’t, there isn’t much career leverage that you can create. If you do believe that you have “the spark” inside of you then you will take yourself to amazing places.
1. Believe in Your Skills
I’m not talking about blind belief, but honest belief that allows you to understand your superpowers. By recognizing your kryptonite and understanding how to maximize your superpowers, you’ll build the confidence you need to offer your skills to the world.
2. Create a Vision
So many of my clients don’t know what type of work will make them happy because they don’t visualize their perfect workday. They see what other people have and think that they want that same thing. Then when they are doing that thing they realize it is all wrong for them.
The more you work on projects that make you happy, the clearer your visions will become.
3. Find Work You are Passionate about
You can’t force yourself to enjoy work that sucks. You may apply all the engagement tools in the book, but if you don’t have any intrinsic motivation will never spark a fire. You must do work that makes you feel energized. It’s easy to offer up your skills when you are doing work that energizes you.
4. Find Work that Captures Your Interest
Focus has been a weakness of mine. I have always liked so many things that I never took the time to master my skills. After realizing this I began to practice the art of focused attention.
I set an egg timer for 25 minutes and made sure that I did not become distracted from the task at hand. I rewarded myself with 15 minutes of Yoga after completing a task. I realized that my most productive times were the times between 1pm – 5pm, so I made sure to do my hardest tasks during this time.
The more I practiced the art of staying focused, the better I got at it. Now I can write for an hour straight, take a quick stretch break and then write for another hour without a problem.
You need to find out what helps you stay focused on your important work. Have fun experimenting with different ideas and eventually a few will work for you.
5. Chunk Your Tasks
Many tasks aren’t just straight forward. There needs to be some planning in order to make the tasks feel feasible. A short email doesn’t need much planning, but an email proposal does. So you must divide your work into small chunks in order to stay on task and avoid feeling overwhelmed. Five minutes of planning before I start a small project can save me an hour of procrastinating.
6. Improve Your Emotional I.Q.
Every career has its difficult moments. Whether we are working with difficult people or stuck for a solution, it’s natural to get upset. We can’t avoid our emotions, so we need to work on these issues on a regular basis. Whenever I’m feeling upset, overwhelmed, or just plain stressed out I go for a walk. I get away from my work and let my mind relax.
You need to find ways to work with your emotions. You may want to keep a one-sentence journal about what upsets you and why. By doing this every day for even just a month, you’ll begin to see a pattern. Once you recognize a pattern you can focus your energy on processing these emotions quickly so you can get back to doing work that makes you happy.
7. Develop a Flexible Mindset
You career is constantly fluctuating. The people you meet in your business, at work, or online will bring new opportunities. You need to be able to adjust your plans quickly to adapt to your changing environment. I’ve met people who have turned down work because it didn’t fit their perception of themselves. It’s important to be open to the idea of taking your career in the direction that your clients or company push you toward. As long as you can still get excited about the work.
Being too fixated on what you want your career to look like will create a lot of heartache. By being flexible, you will be more likely to become happy and successful.
Infusing the Law of Attraction into Your Career
Successful people are successful because they expect to be. When they fail, they find ways to adjust their plans.
You must believe that you deserve good things to happen in your career. If you don’t, it’s harder to attract the right clients to support your business. It’s difficult to connect with the right co-workers who are willing to help you build your career.
I’ve read that most personal development information works because people want to create positive change in their lives. They use all kind of resources to learn.
You can have the career of your dreams, but you have to put in the hard work to attract the right people and projects into your life. Once you build your superpowers and network, your career happiness will multiply.
How have you used the LoA to improve your career?
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* Catherine Caine of Be Awesome Online write a post about looking professional online. In the old days we could were a fancy suit to impress, now we have the internet barrier. We need to appear professional, but it's harder to do since people need more than a picture and a nice sales page to see how good you are. Check out Catherine's post, very much worth your time.
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It's funny how much confidence can come down to a fundamental belief that "you'll find a way" ... which is entirely different than trying to figure out whether you can or you can't.
Karl, have you seen Jerry and Esther Hicks' Secret Behind the Secret? I recommend it. The trouble with the LOA is that most people can't get it to work. There's effort involved and most people are lazy, but deny it. No one wants to take responsibility for the circumstance they're in.
I think the fact that we need life coaches indicates that guidance, respect, and maturity is fundamently lacking in society. When did we become so lacking in confidence to solve problems. Respect, motivation, and having a mentor (a family member) are all positive forces in the LOA. Confidence starts at home.
Good stuff here Karl. Talk soon, Simon.
As much as this is just one small part of what this post is about, #3 really stuck out to me. While I am busy on the side trying to find my superpowers and build my network, one foot is still firmly entrenched in the "day job" and feeling like a failure because I can't just use all the techniques I have been reading about to "make it work." I am sure it will be much easier to expect success in one area when I can let go of the feelings of failure in the other!
Hi Karl,
I like your take on the "Law of Attraction" much better than most of the cheesy books and videos out there--primarily because you keep it realistic and you make it clear that attracting what you want in your life requires a sense of knowing what works best for you as an individual and--surprise, surprise!--takes some work. I would add that understanding what's really plausible and maintaining some common sense about it is probably useful, too.
I confess to not being a fan of The Secret because much of the underlying thinking gets absurdly twisted and horribly lacking in empathy when people start trying to apply the underlying principles (you attract into your life what you think about)to victims of horrible tragedies. There's also the whole issue of being careless around asking for something and not being mindful of how that request or wish manifests for you and using the principle to gain more "stuff" or self-centred purposes with no regard for how it impacts others along the way.
I'll end on a positive note and thank you, again for, having the wisdom to identify and extract the really important principles out of an oversimplified "movement".
Have a great day!
Hi Karl
Love how you broke it down Karl!
Yeah, I have heard many who thought the LOA was just some "fad" or scheme or something. But it really isn't.
As many of the commentators above pointed out, and you did so well, it starts with us. The reason so many are so unhappy in so many areas of their life, is because they always blame external circumstances. And they do the same with the LOA - they see it as some external system outside of them that is supposed to work when they snap their fingers... well, not quite.
It is indeed about our confidence and belief in ourselves and how things can or cannot go...simple as that. This is why other experts say - when we change our thoughts, we literally change our life 🙂
Great piece!
Hi J.D., That core confidence always saves the day. Many of us can thank your parents for this trait.
Hi Simon, Good point. Too many people want to dream and expect results with no action. The only way to build positive thoughts and outcomes is through practice. The more we try, adjust and try again the better our results become.
Hi Karen, Letting feelings go is key to creating the life that you desire. The more you hold on to the failure the harder it is to create success. It takes practice, don't give up. Keep taking small actions that will build confidence and you'll get there.
Hi Sue, As we develop your thoughts and feelings, we create the life that we desire. I can understand your feelings toward the "Secret." It's all fluff without substance. Our desires can be very powerful when backed by action.
Hi Evita, We need to work with external and internal elements to create the success we desire. This is so true. I love how you put it. Without working on both we end up falling short.
Hi Karl, this is a great post indeed. I was a huge fan of the LoA, and I got a bit upset with so many people wanting sell you their advices, and books, and programs, and videos. I thought they were trying to use us consumers rather than giving us the tools to use it on our own lives and giving us the support we need to make it work. So thank you very much for your article, it's very helpful!
Hi Karl, this post is very useful and I really appreciate steps 1-4 especially. If you're not happy and don't have a passion for the work you're doing, chances are you won't do a very good job. Thank you for the reminder!
Karl,
I think a lot of the people who are unhappy and broke are trying to sell others on the LOA. It's crazy!
I believe in giving and I live to give. With that attitude and way of life I can't and don't go wrong. If we focus on giving we'll always have our needs met. My cup runneth over and I'm grateful.
Hi Karl -- I liked what you said about developing the ability to focus our attention -- it's something that doesn't receive a lot of attention, no pun intended, when we're talking about productivity, which people tend to associate with zero-email-inboxes and so on. But in the end, no e-mail managing system can work unless _we_ can pay attention for a long period of time to a task.
Hi Yin, Yep, it became a gold rush and everyone jumped on board, wrecking the experience of discovering this powerful tool. Have you been able to use the LoA in your career?
Hi Heather, Connecting our passions with our work is a huge part to our success. The more we practice the more likely we find emotional connections that spur our motivation.
Hi Tess, It's funny how unsuccessful people can sell LoA. We need to find more belief in ourselves and less in trying to find our beliefs from other people.
Hi Chris, Exactly. If we can't stay focused we'll never get anything accomplished. We can't expect this to come easy. This takes practice as well as tasks that connects with our passions.
Hello Karl
Your post is exactly what I would have written if I had a successful career. However, my thick skull is the part where I'm currently at right now.
In fact, my skull is probably thicker than everyone elses'. The thing is, I have 4-year college degree, but I have never had a "real" job. Therefore, my thick skull tells me I will NEVER EVEN find a job. I mean, I visualize all the time about me working at a job. Yeah, it feels good and all, but the thing is deep down inside I DON'T EVEN BELIEVE IT. I just don't believe I will ever find a job, you know, like how some people believe that hey will never find the love of their Life?
I know where the low self-esteem and confidence come from. My childhood with parents berating me and telling me that I need good grades...and STILL telling me that my Economics degree is worthless and that I NEED another set of SKILLS. I NEED to get this belief out of my head, I HAVE TO or else it might ruin my Life.
I....don't know....I can't even believe that I will ever be independent. Own a car, a house......
I just....it just seems so alien to me.....I don't know what to do....
You know, for me it's probably not even about money or something that I like. It's just finding a RESPECTABLE job. Make money, and not McDonald's money.
Hi Jason, You've nailed your problem on the head. Now what are you doing to fix the problem?
Look, you've stopped lying to yourself. That's awesome. Now you need a plan to leverage your superpowers. A plan that you can get excited about. Yes, you will have doubts and emotional pain, but you have to find a way to lean into these fears, embrace them.
I would love to help you some more. I coach clients such as yourself to help break through bad habits and develop good habits that support your dreams. If you aren't ready for this I understand, but know that you need to find someone to help you through these issues.
Well, I've always known what I SHOULD do to break through and solve my problems.
I should change my beliefs. Simple as that.
But the problem is I don't know HOW to change my beliefs. My father is very, very negative. I just don't know why....don't know why someone's father cannot even support and encourage to do what he loves.
It silently breaks my heart.
He affects my negative thinking. I don't want it anymore. I have to break free of him and be independent. I have to, that way he probably won't get on my case anymore.
My plan is actually already set in motion, I DO have a plan, a plan that will bring me much success.
The problem....my father does not support me. I WANT support from my family. They are important to me. But if they don't show support. I have to cut the line eventually, I can't go on like this anymore
Hi Jason, It sounds like you need to get support from other friends and family. At some point you need to let go of expectations your father, create some distance and build your core confidence with people who can support your needs.
You may want to find a professional therapist to help you through this transition. It really helped me overcome a lot of my own issues.
I think the term "Law of Attraction" is just that -- a term. But I feel it gives a name to what all of us have experienced every minute of every day of our lives, be it positive or negative. The "flexible mindset" you talk about is key, in my opinion, so as to not have a set scenario built up in your mind. Be open to any and everything that comes your way.
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