For some unknown reason, many proponents of the Law of Attraction forget taking action. But
really, how can you expect to achieve – or attract – anything if you’re not doing something to bring it about?
But if you’ve gone through the other steps – figuring out what you want, making a decision, uncovering any mental blocks – taking action should be something you’re ready for and excited about.
Take the next logical Step
There are two types of action you can take. The first is to take the next logical step. If your goal is large or long term, you’ll have many steps to take.
Look at your goal and where you are now. Then create a list of steps you need to take to get from here to your goal. If it’s a long term goal, this list may be long. Put due dates beside each step to keep yourself on track. In business, we call this a plan. Learn how to create a 90-day plan in my post How to Create Your 90-Day Goals.
If you’ve set a goal but have no idea how to achieve it, your first step should be to gather information or ask for help. Read books, go online or look around for someone who has already achieved your goal. Look to see what they’ve done.
Just one word of warning: if you’re gathering information, set a time limit for yourself. Otherwise you can spend forever gathering information and never actually take any steps towards the goal.
Inspired action
The other type of action you can take is what Jack Canfield calls inspired action. These are ideas that come to you out of the blue – while in the shower, driving your car, in your sleep. Often these ideas will leap you past many of the steps in your plan and get you to your goal much faster.
In Jack Canfield’s Key to Living the Law of Attraction: A Simple Guide to Creating the Life of Your Dreams
, Canfield writes “the universe will start responding by sending you the ideas, people, opportunities, money and other resources you need to fulfill your desires and make your dreams a reality.”
I don’t know if the universe is sending you this help. Maybe. Sometimes I suspect that help is always there, but we usually don’t see it. We expect things to be hard, we don’t expect to get great ideas and we don’t expect others to help us.
But I know that when I’m committed to a goal and I’m actively working towards it, unexpected things happen. All kinds of help falls into my lap.
Recently my sister asked for my help with a new project. While we were on the phone I pulled out a business card of someone with information that could point us in the right direction. I told my sister I’d make the call on Monday. Later that day I ran into this woman at Staples. She was able to give me the information I needed while we were in the pens row.
Now, I live in a small town. It’s possible I run into this person all the time but haven’t really noticed because she’s only a casual acquaintance. Or it could be that the universe put us together because I expressed an intention to talk to her so it decided to help me along. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that when I saw her I recognized the opportunity and took action.
And that’s the real trick to this step. When you have an inspired idea or an opportunity drops into your lap you need to recognize it and take action. You can’t say “but it’s not on my action plan”. If you come across something that will leap you forward faster, you need to take it.
Negative intentions may rear their ugly head
When it comes time to take action, you may find yourself having trouble getting going. You may procrastinate, get mired in “research” or keeping busy doing tasks that look like work but are really unnecessary.
If you catch yourself doing these things and not taking action towards a goal you’re committed to, consider whether you have some unresolved negative intentions. If that’s the case, go back to the exercise from yesterday and work through the process.
If you have some deeply hidden negative intentions, you may need help just identifying them – from a coach, a therapist or a trusted friend.
I recently discovered that my overall negative thought was that everything I did had to be perfect and nothing I ever do is good enough – probably because I’m human and not perfect. It was then pointed out that my tendency for procrastination was probably a result of these negative thoughts – why bother starting something, it won’t be good enough anyway.
Uncovering this particular block has been a big help in moving forward to achieve my bigger goals.
So, if you want to use the Law of Attraction to achieve your goals, take action. Take the next logical step, take advantage of inspired ideas when they appear and ask for help.
One thing I’ve discovered from interviewing success entrepreneurs is that no one does it alone. They all have a coach, a mentor, a mastermind group – sometimes all of the above – to help them move on to bigger and better things.
Tomorrow I’ll talk about receiving and give a final wrap up – my personal thoughts on the Law of Attraction.
Andrea J. Stenberg
