The Law of Attraction teaches us that we attract in our lives the objects of our thoughts, or in other words, that we become what we think about. Then, it would only be logical that if we wanted to attract positive things in our lives, we need to think positively. In other words, if our brains are like computers, we need to give them positive input and they in return will give us positive output—happiness, success, money, love, or anything else that we could desire.
Now, this is the theory of the Law of Attraction, or rather say its underlying concept, which gets every Law of Attraction newbie excited when they first learn about it. And of course, I am speaking from personal experience here, as the concept that we become what we think about and the potential to control my results through controlling my thoughts was what initially got me excited about the Law of Attraction about 4 years ago. So what is the difference between then and now?
Obviously, quite a number of things happened in my life for 4 years. I continued being a student of the Law of Attraction, Positive Thinking and the Science of Success in general and attempted to apply the lessons I learned in my life. Therefore, I would like to share with you the biggest lesson I learned in the process. And that lesson, in a single sentence, is that we can’t and we shouldn’t try to force positive feeling and thinking on our subconscious mind when it’s telling us that we need to perhaps rethink our approach.
This statement of mine seems to run counter to one of the biggest lessons of perhaps the most respected guru of the science of success movement, namely Napoleon Hill, who said that our subconscious mind can’t distinguish if something we feed it is lie or truth. I appreciate what Napoleon Hill said, in that it gives us the motivation to create what we want in our lives through directing the power of our subconscious mind. I, however, would like to argue that the subconscious mind is not that easy to lie to. Why is that?
Well, the subconscious mind picks up its signals for what is true and what is not true through many sources. It uses our senses, and any other way, in which we get in touch with our environment, and finally it also takes cues from our conscious mind. So let’s take a certain imaginary situation in mind. Let’s visit with Rob, an imaginary man, who has recently become familiar with the Law of Attraction and is doing his best to think positively. He has decided that he doesn’t want to be a corporate slave anymore, so he quit his job and decided to start a business venture with his friend. So far, so good, right?
Well, not completely. There are many stumbling blocks to the success of his venture. First, the economy is bad, so it’s hard for their business to pick up and find clients. This is a definite negative, which one is supposed to ignore. Second, it has turned out that Rob’s partnership with Mike, his friend, doesn’t work out very well, as a good business relationship between the two seems to be more difficult to establish than a good friendship. Of course, this is another matter, which could be classified as negative, and needs to be addressed. So here we go—Rob has two major challenges—an unfavorable environment and an unsatisfactory partnership. So what is he supposed to do—let the negative thoughts about these two problems run loose in his subconscious and simply give up or block them out and pretend that everything is fine and thus create the positive environment in this way? Or is there another option?
Obviously pretending that the problems don’t exist would not solve anything. Sounds logical, right? And yet most of the followers of the Law of Attraction misunderstand its teachings for exactly that—teaching us to be positive even when the environment is, what I like to call, constructively negative. Following the Law of Attraction doesn’t mean ignoring the obstacles in life and pretending that everything is perfect. Being positive is fine, but as Anthony Robbins said, you can’t go around pretending that there are no weeds in your garden—the weeds will take it away from you! Instead of pretending the problems do not exist, we should be positive about resolving our problems. This is a major distinction, which everyone should bear in mind.
In other words, success with the Law of Attraction is not as easy as it initially looks like from watching “The Secret.” Thinking positive is a good start, but it’s not the only thing you need to do. Obviously, being negatively resigned about our situation is no good either. Rob would not benefit from becoming disheartened due to the poor market conditions and his failing partnership with Mike. This would be at least as catastrophic as if he were to pretend the problems didn’t exist. What Rob needs is to use the negative message he gets in a positive way. He needs to acknowledge his situation and look for a way to improve it as much as he can. And here is where the power of the subconscious mind and the Law of Attraction will come to the rescue.
So, to sum things up, being positive is not sufficient to successfully apply the Law of Attraction. We can’t go on lying that things are perfect to our subconscious mind—not only because it would be counter-productive, but also because our subconscious mind is sophisticated enough to tell when we are not being truthful to ourselves. The subconscious mind is our servant and ally. It wants us to be successful and the way to utilize its powers to the fullest extent is to share our challenges with it and ask for its cooperation.
Or should we say—approach the negative in a positive fashion?
