Why Visualization is Only 1 Piece of The Puzzle
January 24th, 2008 | Published in Marketing, Strategy | 7 Comments
Ever since the movie “The Secret” entered the market-place, an entirely new industry sprang up around it regarding the Law of Attraction.
I’m a teacher of The Law, I’ve been studying it for the better part of 11 years. I’m also glad that The Secret brought some of these spiritual principles to the mainstream. It certainly helped open more people to these concepts, and it definitely made for great conversation and great learning as more and more people discovered these teachings.
However. I’m now seeing a down side.
Along with bringing more visibility to these principals, it’s also spawned a belief system that if you only think a “certain way” or if you just focus on “these right things” that everything in your life will suddenly shift and you will attract everything you could possibly want.
There’s a big problem with trying to think just the right things, or visualize just the right dreams. The problem is - we live in a physical world. You have to interact with physical things, and people, and you’ve had past experiences that mold who you are - and all of that comes into play when creating your present circumstances. As humans, we just do not have the ability to materialize what we want out of thin air - and no amount of visualization is going to change that.
I’m seeing more and more people become frustrated with these principles because some people teaching them are leaving out the most important pieces - the pieces that teach what the right actions are to accomplish your goals, and the pieces that support us in the human journey. We can have success - but sometimes, we need to learn. We are not all-knowing beings. We are never done learning - as we strive toward our goals, there are things we need to learn to help us achieve what we want.
You may want a successful business, but if you don’t know the steps to take to achieve that, you’ll need to learn them. You may want to be a massage therapist, you’ll need to go to school to learn to safely massage your clients. You may want to play the harp - you’ll need to learn the strings, the notes and how to read music.
Mark Silver, has a really great post on his blog about why we can’t visualize our way to success. His post is what inspired my thoughs here.
If you’ve tried visualizations, mantras, and affirmations and still you’re finding yourself stuck. It’s ok - all you need is a little help, maybe some guidance, and maybe some support. You can get where you want to go - and yes - it’s important to visualize your goals and have the right mind-set around them. But, you need to take action too, and sometimes, you need someone to show you the way.
About Jenn Givler
January 24th, 2008 at 9:01 pm (#)
Whenever things happen to me seemingly from out of the blue, I can always track it back to some action that I have taken. I have had some interviews with newspapers and radio station come my way because they found my website. I have had clients come to me from recommedations from people I have coached or even just randomly met. When I take a particular action, I cannot ever see all the ramifications of it but I know without action I get nothing at all.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:15 pm (#)
Katherine - how much do I love what you said - especially this piece: “I cannot ever see all the ramifications of it but I know without action I get nothing at all.”
How true. There is a lot in the unscene that “moves” when we take action. That’s the “magic” in the Universe. You get to be surprised by how things will transpire, and the results you didn’t even expect
January 25th, 2008 at 12:11 am (#)
Hmmm… maybe I’ll not erase this comment, because I’ll get it write in less than 35,000 words! :). Lots for thought.
I liked what Mark said about being present in the moment and that’s where you are. As someone who has practiced the Law for a long time and having read your blog, I am sure you aware of the deeper points–one of those is accepting what is and moving on. No matter what we think and how we try and change our excitement if we’ve dug ourselves in a hole, we might have to do some work to get out–and that does take effort. Very often we dug that hole to avoid looking at something we really didn’t want to look at!
I love what you said about magic to the last person. I spent a year where I was a member of one of the networking groups. I don’t think I got a single referral–okay actually I got two people to come in a total of six times from them. This didn’t pay my dues. However, that year was my busiest year. I could trace non of my patients back to this group in any way (and I looked trying to see if I should keep with it as it was at a horrible hour of the morning) but still I was very busy. My practice dropped off after I left the group–not a lot but some. I think it had something to do with going out on a weekly basis and asking for the patients that I wanted and telling a group of people about what I did. These people may not have gotten me referrals but someone was listening!
So maybe it shouldn’t be that we can just sit around and do things unrelated to our want (or our business) but as soon as we do something about what we want things will often start moving–however only if we’ve gotten out of that hole we might have dug for ourselves!
January 25th, 2008 at 6:31 am (#)
Jenn- thanks for picking up the conversation here. It’s definitely a tricky point- we need to be present and Remember our Source, and yet also acknowledge our neediness and powerlessness. When we’re plugged in, we experience awesome things, and when we’re not, we’re reminded that we are not the Source of what arrives, merely an expression.
Ahhh… such deep ponderings. Time for a cup of tea. Cheers!
January 28th, 2008 at 5:51 am (#)
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February 16th, 2008 at 5:27 am (#)
I felt the same way about the secret. I enjoyed it, however felt that it was over simplfied
While as a hypnotherapist I know how important it is to ’see it, to acheive it’ but as you said it is only one part of the puzzle..action is required! When we see it, act on it then we send a powerful message to the universe that this is what I/we need, what I/we want.It shows that we are truely open to receiving it.