Achieve the Goals You Set: Use the Law of Attraction

The beginning of a new year, whether a calendar year or the year following your date of birth, is a common time for people to evaluate their lives. Unfortunately, most people choose goals based on what they think they should have (or be) in comparison to others, rather than on what they truly want for themselves. This is counteractive to the Law of Attraction, which is why most people end up not accomplishing their goals.

The Law of Attraction is the fundamental method by which creation works. Life is energy. Energy expands by attracting to it more of itself. As energy accumulates, it begins to slow down and solidify. In other words, from a sudden passion or longing for something, like energy is drawn, which as it slows down becomes conscious thought and then spoken words, before translating into action that creates visible results.

We have many sayings that are reflections of the Law of Attraction:

• Like attracts like.

• What you put out comes back.

• What goes around comes around.

• By their friends shall ye know them.

• An eye for an eye.

• The world is your mirror.

• What you dwell upon, you make happen.

It doesn't matter if you dwell on positive or negative things where creation is concerned. Since life is about energy, not words, our focus and the passion behind it is what creates, whatever it is we say. So it behooves us to focus on and get excited about what we want, not what we don't want. Here are a couple of examples:

1. Don't say you want to stop being so disorganized. That puts your focus on the disorganization. Say instead that you want to organize your workspace better, and visualize a clean office with lots of open table space for projects.

Clean it up one time, just to take a photo. Then post it and look at it regularly, following whatever ideas you get. Like, "Wow. I really like the look and feel of my office in this photo. How did I get it that way? Oh yeah. I took a day off to clean it all up. I think I'll do that again. In fact, maybe I'll do it once a month, just to keep it that way." And then do it. Pretty soon you'll be organizing more things as well.

2. Don't say you're angry at the dishonesty of Wall Street and the poor economy and you're going to protest it every chance you get. That keeps your focus on the poor economy.

Focus instead on working for financial transparency (for example). Keep your focus on transparency, so that opportunities to create or live that way are drawn to you.

Look at your business life to see if you act with open integrity. Change what you need to, including your work, if you find that it's feeding dishonest business practices or is causing you to feel hatred, anger or resentment on a regular basis.

Since most of us want a life that is successful, focusing on current successes can create the perfect backdrop from which to create more success. Identifying our successes helps set the stage for believing in a positive life. Feeling positive, optimistic, excited about your life is central to living a good one. So the first step toward successfully accomplishing goals, and even identifying what we want as goals, is to recognize and celebrate our current successes. This increases self-confidence and the belief that, since we already did this much, we can accomplish more, especially the things we really want.

Here is an exercise to try. Make a list of all of those things you like about your life - your friends and family, favorite activities, the best things about where you live, successes in your work, success in your hobbies and skills. Use this list to feel really good about yourself whenever you need it, to remind yourself of your strengths and your power to create good things.

Life bringing us things we don't want helps us to define what we do want. That's because the minute we see what we don't want, we also see the opposite. What that means is that negative events and people can be blessings when we use them to recognize our wants more clearly. Our negative and positive emotions are the key to identifying what we really want to improve in our lives.

Here is a procedure to use for choosing real goals:

1. Make a list of what you already know you want.

2. Make a second list of what you know you don't want, especially those things that felt especially uncomfortable this last year.

3. On the don't want list, flip each item to its opposite - what you would rather have or be instead.

4. Add those items to the first list (of things you do want), then get rid of the don't want list. You don't need it anymore.

5. Now you have one long list of things you feel good about that you know you really want. Let's pare it down. Are there any items on the list that are already part of your life? Acknowledge them as successes and cross them off.

6. Now consolidate or group the remaining items on your want list and identify the one that feels like the most fun. Fun things tune you in to your most confident, excited self and open up your creativity.

7. Imagine yourself being highly successful at that one fun thing. Assume that all the other things you want will come along with it, without your even having to work at it . . . which will happen, as long as you don't block them in some way. Staying with the fun of the one is key to making it all happen.

Most of us have been taught that we need to work at goals, in order to achieve them. The Law of Attraction says otherwise. Once we've visualized a goal and have allowed ourselves to become excited about it, the Law of Attraction will "move mountains" to make it happen - to bring the opportunities we are looking for. Our only job is to stay excited about it, to notice it when we put up blocks, and get past the blocks to being excited and sure again.

Here is an example. A few years ago I decided to marry something I really enjoyed doing with making money. I liked to write and was passionate about working to support the environment in some way. Within a month or so a friend told me about a job that had just opened up writing proposals for a water conservation consultancy. i was excited, applied for the job, and got it. The salary was low, but I expected it would increase as time went on.

Presently I noticed that the owners of this company were not excited about water conservation, but only about making money. I had created a great team of people that were starting to generate additional work for us, but the company's attitude made me uncomfortable. Instead of seeing it as a reminder that I was increasing my income by doing something I love, I began to criticize them in my mind for being greedy and focused on the wrong thing. I began to resist the making money part of it and stress the environmental part of it. (The company, meantime, had its own fears they were acting out.)

Eventually the company adopted the attitude that working for the environment was a good marketing tool, changed their website to reflect it, and hired more staff who believed it. But I didn't change my attitude about money. I resisted it every time they said, "Let's make money!" Because of that and other things, even though I liked what I was doing I ended up with less money than when I had started four years earlier.

My biggest challenge in that situation was the negative attitude I'd held about focusing on money as a major goal. I only half saw my resistance when it was happening, and now that I've recognized it my job is to get optimistic again, this time including the receiving of money as a reward or as part of the pleasure and/or process of doing the kind of work I like best.

Sometimes you will have resistance that is too strong to ignore or distract yourself from. In this case, you'll need to talk yourself out of it. Tell yourself (from the example above), "What they want I want also. It doesn't matter which they think is most important. I know that I can have everything I've been asking for, including having a rewarding job AND lots of money. I just need to stay excited about it." Then find what's most exciting to you about your situation and focus on it.

The excitement you put out as you go about your work (or project) is what will draw opportunities to you. You will recognize them as they come, because they will feed or match your excitement. There is a knowing about it - a sort of recognition or expectation that will tell you this is something to act on.

The real goal is staying tuned in to the best of yourself and your dreams. You have been creating dreams all your life, every time you experienced something you didn't like, so there is a huge reservoir of them waiting to manifest. The more you stay tuned in, the faster they can come. The better you can retrain your thinking to focus on positive and self-confident thoughts, the more clearly you will recognize the opportunities you long for. They are all around you.

Your life could be transformed overnight if you wanted it to be, if you have the discipline. Watch your feelings. Use them as gauges to direct your thoughts and actions. They will tell you when you are tuned in and when you are not. When you feel bad, you're not tuned in. When you feel great, you are.

Never. Life is all about growing and expanding. The more you see that you don't like, the more you automatically ask for what you do. The more you focus on what excites you, the more you'll draw it to you and the more successful you will feel yourself to be. Then you'll see more you don't like, recognize what you do like, get excited about this new thing, draw it to you . . . and it goes on and on, and life and you and those you love continue to grow for as long as life exists.