The law of attraction is a univeral law that works whether or not we consciously recognize it, much like gravity keeps us on or close to the ground whether we want it to or not.

What that means is that the law of attraction is working for you right now. Whether or not you’ve tried to influence how it works. And whether or not you’ve succeeded in influencing it.

There are various steps that you can take to use the law of attraction and make it’s effects close to the ones you’d like to happen.

You will need to put some effort in to this – the universe works a lot better and a lot faster when it “notices” that you’re actually doing things rather than just pretending that you are.

But don’t worry – the steps are easy enough to do although you may need to set aside some time to make sure that your thoughts and intentions are clear and as close to what you want as possible. And it’s worth keeping track of things so that you don’t inadvertently send out mixed signals that then work against you achieving the various things you’ve set out to manifest.

History of the Law of Attraction

The law of attraction is based on the idea that like attracts like. So if you’re thinking positive thoughts most of the time you’ll attract the positive things contained in those thoughts whereas if you’re thinking lots of negative thoughts then those negatives will manifest. As we’ll see later this is further complicated by the way our subconscious mind essentially discards certain words (usually negative ones) when it does its best to help the universe interpret your thoughts.

The term “law of attraction” first appeared in 1877 and has grown in popularity since then.

Authors such as Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich and Wallace D Wattles in Science of Getting Rich explored the ideas of how our thoughts turn into reality.

The books are still relevant today but because they were written over a century ago the language isn’t what we’re used to nowadays, which can make them heavy going to read. There are audio versions available which can be easier to understand and are often more convenient to use as you can listen to them whilst doing other things.

Napoleon Hill’s book was inspired by the millionaire Andrew Carnegie who encouraged Hill to spend what would turn out to be 20 years of his life studying successful people and how they had achieved success and considerable fortunes. Hill initially distilled the concepts into 16 “laws” and then further reduced the number to 13 in his best selling – and best known – book.

Mark Victor Hansen has said that the principles discussed by Hill have stood the test of time and that, of the various principles, using a Mastermind group and knowing your destination or goal are the two most important.

The law of attraction typically focuses on the second of those – knowing your destination and attracting it into your life.

Wallace D Wattles book, whilst less well known than Hill’s, has been similarly influential. He is credited with being the inspiration for The Secret and his most famous book was turned into an audio product and a workshop by Bob Proctor with the aim of cutting through some of the opaque language and making it more relevant to modern audiences.

There are plenty of more recent books which explore the law of attraction such as You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay and the various books and other products associated with The Secret which gained lots of attention when the movie (and then the spin-off books and other products) was launched in 2006.

Throughout its history, the various teachings on the law of attraction have focused on the idea that it is always operating in the same way that other fundamental laws of the universe are always in operation – that’s why it’s referred to as a law.

Concepts behind the Law of Attraction

There are various concepts that are behind the law of attraction:

• You attract the things into your life that you focus on and think about most often
• The law works whether you use it intentionally or unintentionally
• Positive reinforcement helps speed things up – even seemingly small things like being grateful for the good things you’ve already attracted into your life can make a big difference
• Our subconscious mind struggles to process negatives and usually just ignores negative words. Which means that how you phrase your everyday thoughts as well as your law of attraction requests makes a big difference to the outcome

Sometimes these concepts seem a bit vague.

After all, how can the universe – a really vast expanse, mainly comprised of emptiness plus a few seemingly randomly placed rocks and gases – react to us?

And taken at that level, it probably can’t. A star, billions of light years away, that may or may not still exist but whose light we are only just seeing can’t do much (if anything) to help you attract more of whatever it is you’re setting your intention on into your life.

But adopting that idea is to ignore lots of things that do influence you.

Try this simple test next time you’re in a shop or restaurant (which can be a seated restaurant or a fast food one, the test works regardless):

• Smile at the cashier or waitress.
• Be happy and friendly and polite
• Notice how their reaction almost always changes for the better

You’ve just used the law of attraction.

You’ve attracted a positive reaction from one (admittedly small) part of the universe.

And you’ve almost certainly positively affected the next few people that both you and the cashier or waitress encounter.

At its simplest, that’s the law of attraction working.

Like attracting like.

All from the small ripple effect of you smiling and being friendly to someone else.

That particular experiment works in a “fake it until you make it” mode as well – you can be in a bad mood behind the facade of the smile. But smiling itself will change your mood for the better – preferably a real smile rather than a forced grimace but if you couple the forced growl that you’ve somehow turned into a smile along with looking upwards you’ll find that it’s a quick and easy mood changer.

Do that as an experiment, whether or not you think it will work for you, and there’s an excellent chance you’ve just done your first positive law of attraction experiment.

Positive reinforcement is another aspect that helps with the law of attraction.

Although we learn fast (that’s the survival instinct kicking in) we’re also creatures of habit – chances are you keep approximately the same routine most days, maybe with a variation at weekends.

What that means is that you need to reinforce the new habits you’re starting to make to get the law of attraction working better for you.

Some people find that affirmations are a good way to do that. They’re best kept relatively short – a sentence normally works well – and repeated at set times each day (that’s the habit side of things) as well as maybe the occasional extra reads prompted by things like screensavers, PostIt notes, phone alarms and anything else you find convenient.

Whichever way you decide to go about it, the main idea is to focus on what you want rather than what you don’t want.

That’s a subtle difference that you need to take on board as the way we phrase things is really important.

For instance, one of the health warning messages on cigarette packets in the UK is a very simple “Don’t Start”.

Which ticks all the boxes for the regulators. It’s a simple message and taken at face value it’s unambiguous, telling people not to start smoking.

But…

Remember that our subconscious mind struggles to interpret negatives and most of the time ignores them.

Which means that the real, deep down, message that’s hiding in plain sight is “Start”.

Hmm…

The tobacco companies probably paid someone a small fortune to come up with that warning. It’s up there alongside the “repeat” message that’s common to almost all bottles of shampoo and essentially close to doubled sales when it was first introduced.

Words and thoughts are that powerful.

So be ultra careful how you phrase the things you set out to manifest in your life using the law of attraction.

How to Set an Intention

An intention is a good starting point for manifesting things into your life.

it’s the focus for what you want to attract.

The dictionary definition of intention is “a thing intended; an aim or plan.”

Ignoring the part of that definition that essentially goes round in circles, we’ll go with the idea of an intention being an aim or a plan. Quite often, especially in personal development, aims are called goals – use whichever word works best for you. Some people find the word goal too pushy, others find that it helps push them towards whatever it is they want to achieve.

The same goes for plans – they might bring up visions of detailed blueprints (maybe the kind you see in older movies where the whole table is covered in sheets of paper that are rolled up at the edges) or they could bring up the thought of something almost unplanned or planned at the last minute like a road trip.

Go with whatever works best for you but for this section we’re going to call them an intention.

Your intentions aren’t cast in tablets of stone – they can and do change over time. Much like some of your childhood dreams of what you were going to do when you grew up (become a train drive or an astronaut maybe) have evolved. Hopefully you’re doing something now that you enjoy and that you’re rewarded for (in whatever way you interpret those ideas) but if that’s not the case then maybe changing that should be the focus of a new intention.

To help keep your intention top of mind, you could incorporate it into one of your regular affirmations:

• I allow myself to have a fulfilling and rewarding job
• I allow myself to attract wealth and abundance
• I allow myself to be happy and grateful

I’ll cover using affirmations – and why I’ve suggested those wordings – in the next section but for now, pick an intention.

Home in on just one – not a bucket list of them, although you can jot down the rest of the things you want to attract in a list somewhere.

Why just one intention?

Because your focus is highest if you actually focus rather than adopt a fuzzy, scattergun, approach.

If this is the first time you’ve intentionally set an intention then choose something relatively small, almost insignificant.

The logic behind doing that is you need to prove to your conscious mind that setting intentions really does work and manifests the things you’re seeking.

It doesn’t mean that your goal of a million (or whatever) in your bank account won’t happen, just that it’s unlikely to happen overnight.

An ideal “starter” intention would be one that is easily achievable within a few days, a week at the outside.

Then gradually work up to bigger intentions – ideally still splitting them up into smaller, quick, chunks to keep your conscious mind on board.

This may sound counter-intuitive but there’s a logic behind it.

The law of attraction works regardless of whether or not you believe it does. But it works best when your subconscious mind and your conscious mind are both working together rather than against each other.

Your subconscious mind is the part of you that does all the regular day-to-day tasks such as making sure you remember to breathe, pump your heart, grow your hair and nails, those kind of tasks that if you had to think about each of them all the time you’d never do anything else.

It also concentrates on keeping you safe and inside your comfort zone.

But because it does so many different things for you, your subconscious has to interpret things as easily and quickly as possible – it doesn’t use reason or logic, it’s closer to the binary yes/no computer model of things.

Hence it normally ignores negatives as they complicate the decision process.

Your conscious mind can often be at odds with your subconscious – because it has time to reason and often time to overthink things. Including whether or not you’re attracting what you set out to achieve.

If you’ve ever had a nagging doubt or a questioning voice in your head, chances are that’s your conscious mind making its presence known.

Setting an intention is one of the best ways of getting the two parts of your mind to work together in partnership. Which, in turn, means the intention is much more likely to happen.

The reason for setting your initial intention as one that can be manifested fast is that it gives the best chance of success – less time for doubt to sabotage or your subconscious to decide that it’s further outside your comfort zone that it would like.

It also means that you can keep the intention simple and unambiguous.

Because of the problems with negatives, your intention should be worded in the positive.

That’s why aiming to lose weight often turns into a struggle whereas being a slimmer person who only eats when they’re hungry can work with a lot less effort.

Distill your intention into a sentence – you can (and probably should) flesh it out later.

Treat it a bit like an elevator speech where you’ve only got a few seconds to get your point across.

If your intention starts to turn into an essay then it’s too long!

Don’t restrict yourself when you set your intention. Often we set artificial boundaries to the things we want to happen whereas the universe is (to all intents and purposes) boundless. And it can deliver boundless things as humans are proving on a daily basis.

For instance, all the wealth in the world has been created by us from nothing and all the man-made things (and even quite a few of the seemingly natural things such as parks and gardens) have been created by us first imagining them and setting our intention that they will happen. Think about that statement as you look around your surroundings: the computer screen you’re looking at, even the words you’re reading. They all started as intentions. That’s a powerful thought in itself.

But they all started with small intentions.

So start by picking something that you can manifest fast to prove to yourself you can do it.

Then jot down a simple sentence that sums up the intention.

The first few times you do this don’t have to be anything life changing. They could be as simple as seeing a particular color and model car or someone with odd color hair or noticing a coin on the street and picking it up.

Go with whatever seems good for you.

Then let your conscious and subconscious minds loose!

And be open to noticing whatever it is you’ve set your intention on.

Once you’ve done that a few times, build up whatever it is you’re setting your intention on.

Your subconscious will be getting used to the idea of you doing this and will incorporate it into the umpteen things it already does all the time.

Your conscious mind will have had a light bulb moment as it notices that the things you’ve set your intention on have come to pass. Probably quickly.

Which means that as you grow the size of your intentions they’ll also happen.

But there’s a quick trick you can employ with larger intentions:

Split them up into smaller chunks – in the same way you wouldn’t devour a whole meal in one mouthful.

Using Affirmations

Affirmations are usually short sentences that help tune your mind to the things you want to achieve or manifest.

You need to phrase them positively – it’s worth repeating that our subconscious mind struggles to cope with negative words and usually just deletes them from things which can turn the meaning of things upside down without you even knowing.

The other thing that’s worth doing with affirmations is checking that the way you’ve phrased them is congruent with whatever is going on around you.

A lot of people suggest that affirmations should be in the present tense – that’s a very good idea. But it means you have to be extra careful how you word the phrases you’re going to be repeating regularly.

The reason for that is that it’s all very well having an affirmation that says something like “I am rich and successful” but then you look around you, see some signs that maybe you’re not exactly successful, your conscious mind kicks in and asks how you’re going to pay the next bill that’s due and before you know it, the phrase you chose or so carefully worked on has been demolished.

That’s why I often use the phrase “I allow myself to …” in the affirmations I use.

It’s a lot less contentious – after all, it’s what you’re aiming for so you it stands to reason that you’re going to allow yourself to do whatever it is you’re aiming to do or attract.

And it works.

It slips easily past your conscious mind because it fits perfectly with your aims.

And you can’t look around to find something to counteract the affirmation because all you’re doing is giving yourself permission to do something.

Likewise your subconscious mind is unlikely to contest the phrase for exactly the same reasons as it sits well with your conscious mind. It’s just something that you’re happy to have happen in your life.

So if you’ve not had as much success with affirmations as you’d hoped, try that simple rephrasing option and notice how much more powerful they are.

For instance, I’ve just reworded some affirmations that I’ve suggested elsewhere on this site.

Here are the before and after versions:

• The attractions law works for me => I allow the law of attraction to work for me
• I have the ability to manifest my dreams => I allow myself to manifest my dreams
• I strongly believe in the law of attraction => I allow myself to believe in the law of attraction
• I attract into my life what I desire => I allow myself to attract into my life what I desire
• I attract success into my life => I allow myself to attract success into my life

There’s no specific right or wrong wording when it comes to affirmations so long as you’ve avoided any negative words.

Different people react to them in different ways and it’s very possible that you’ll react differently over time (or even day to day) because you’re in a different “place” or mindset.

Which means it could be worth having several sets of very similar affirmations worded slightly differently so you can read the ones that resonate best with you on any given day.

Affirmations also work differently depending on whether they’re read out loud or read in your head.

Your brain processes things in different ways and the voice you hear in your head (it’s OK, you can admit to this!) has a different tonality from the voice you hear when you speak out loud. And your recorded voice is different again as you’ll know if you’ve ever heard a recording of yourself and wondered if it’s really the same person.

It’s not always possible to read your affirmations out loud – you can get some quite weird looks from the people close by you a lot of the time – so reading them in your head is a good alternative.

Whispering them can work but there’s always the chance that your subconscious mind will attach a different level of importance. That could be a lesser level because it thinks you’re not serious if you don’t want other people to hear. Or it could be a higher or lower level of importance because it thinks they’re akin to being a closely guarded secret – that will depend on the importance level you normally give to secrets.

And if you think all this is too complicated, add the following affirmation to your list:

• I allow my affirmations to work positively and in my best interest at all times

You can adjust your affirmations as often as you want.

I’d suggest not changing them too often as that’s a bit like setting out on a journey to New York, then deciding Tokyo would be better and then changing your mind to a wilderness destination. If you did that, you wouldn’t know where you were going and would be very likely to stay in the same place.

The same thing happens if you change your affirmations too radically too often. Your conscious and subconscious minds get confused and decide that the current status quo is the best solution, ignoring the other directives because they know you’ll change your mind again soon.

If you find that you’re flitting between too many different things too often then try adding an extra affirmation along the lines of:

• I allow myself to focus more
• I allow myself to be more decisive (that one’s useful if you tend to procrastinate)
• I allow myself to finish the projects I start

See how you can word affirmations to meet your precise needs and circumstances?

I’d suggest keeping a relatively short list of the affirmations you currently use. Anything from one up to around a dozen – too many more than that and you’re back into bucket list territory.

Analyze them and make sure that they’re all congruent with each other. It’s easy to send mixed messages (another reason not to make your affirmation list too long) and that can work against the things you’re trying to attract.

Personally, I print out my affirmations and put the list somewhere I’ll spot them and read them on a regular basis.

I find first thing in the morning and last thing at night works for me.

And of course you can add an extra affirmation to help reinforce doing this:

• I allow myself to read my affirmations regularly

If you prefer to hear your affirmations out loud but aren’t often in a place where you can do that, a good alternative is to record them.

You may have a microphone built in to your computer, in which case download Audacity (it’s free and works on any computer) and record them, ready to play back whenever and wherever you want/

Or you could use your phone – there are plenty of apps available as well as various built-in options depending on your phone model, just need to choose one with good ratings and that makes it easy to record.

Don’t worry about getting things perfect. Some background noise is OK and the occasional stumble or pause or “err” won’t make any difference to the power of hearing yourself speak your affirmations although obviously there’s a chance you’ll get bugged by those and decide to re-record at some stage in the future. That would be a good sign as it would mean you were listening to the affirmations on a regular basis.

If you sit at your computer screen regularly, consider running a subliminal messages program in the background and adding your affirmations to that. They’ll flash up on your screen, imperceptible to your conscious mind but for long enough that your subconscious mind will take notice of them.

Or if you’re feeling adventurous you could make your own subliminal audios – these are probably best if you’re feeling a bit techie but they’re actually surprisingly easy to make. In a nutshell, you take your recording of your affirmations, loop them (copy and paste), reduce the volume and overlay an audio track. The audio can be whatever you want – your favourite music, nature sounds. waves, whatever. Then you just relax and play the track to yourself whenever you want to boost the power of your affirmations.

Your choice but it can work very nicely in conjunction with the other things you do and it’s an easy way to chill out and also repeat your affirmations, all with no real effort on your part.

How to Get Your Mind on Board

Our minds are the thing that set us apart from other creatures.

We’ve got the most advanced minds of any creature on the planet. Which can be a plus or a minus!

The major plus is that we can think things through and come up with lots of solutions.

The major negative is that we can think things through and come up with all sorts of reasons why we can’t do something.

Our minds are like that.

They’ve got so many different things to do and think about that we need to take control and organize them.

There are lots of productivity tools out there that claim to be able to do that for us or to help us to get organized. Some of them work well, others less so. Not everything will work for everyone. And not everything that’s worked for you before will work in precisely the same way the next time you come to use it.

Stop trying to remember everything!

Sure, we have lots of memories.

But our minds don’t cope very well with trying to remember everything – if you’ve ever had something that was on the tip of your tongue but refused to voice itself (until maybe you woke up in the middle of the night with it) then you’ll know this.

If you’re trying to attract things into your life, you need to get them out of your mind and into some other space where your brain can rest and think “OK, I don’t have to constantly remember that, I can just go back to the place it’s stored and look it up”.

Henry Ford famously did that when he said “Let me remind you that I have a row of electric buttons in my office. All I have to do is press one of them to call the person who can answer any question on any subject I wish to know.”

We’ve got that with Google but maybe we’re at the stage where we’ve got too much information to comfortably deal with.

Which is where getting your mind on board comes into its own.

Start by having a tidy-up.

Lists – even if you never look at them again – work well with this.

They let your mind calm down and remember that it doesn’t have to remember every single thing you’ve ever encountered.

Then you need to work with your mind to help it realize that the law of attraction works, whether it thinks it does or not.

That’s the next stage of getting your mind on board.

As I mentioned earlier, this is often best done by starting with attracting relatively small, relatively insignificant things.

Your mind won’t much care whether or not they appear.

So it won’t put much effort into stopping them from appearing – which is what often happens in the background if you attempt to attract something big and seemingly impossible as the first thing that you apply the law of attraction to.

A gradual process is normally best.

Because gradually your mind will turn around any latent negativity it’s been storing up and will just put a tick next to your (crazy?) ideas that you want to manifest.

So start with attracting something small.

When that appears in your life – and it almost certainly will, probably faster than you initially imagined – move on to something slightly bigger but still relatively inconsequential.

And so on.

So your first few things will probably be really minor – a black cat crossing your path (so long as you’re not superstitious), seeing a particular model and color of a car, noticing a certain number of birds flocked together, those kind of things.

Why those?

Well, it doesn’t have to be the particular items I’ve suggested but the main thing is they really don’t matter in the scheme of things.

If you don’t see a purple Volkswagen Beetle, so what?

If you only see five magpies not six, is that an issue?

If that black cat doesn’t cross your path but a tabby one does, who cares?

The thing is, you’ve attracted them into your life.

We notice what we focus our mind on – check this video if you want to see that in action:

 

It’s the same reason that you suddenly notice lots of the same make and model of your new car or bike as soon as you decide to start looking for it.

Your mind is tuned in to that, almost to the exclusion of anything else.

Getting your mind on board is something that takes time. It’s a bit like trying to turn a supertanker on a dime – it doesn’t happen.

But taking your time and gradually getting things more on track is perfectly do-able.

One of the tricks is not to beat yourself up when you do things that are out of kilter with your main aim.

That happens.

But in much the same way as dieters go back to their diet (always assuming they’ve got the conviction in the first place) after the occasional stray via a chocolate cake, you can get your mind back on track.

One simple trick to help reduce negative thoughts is to wear a rubber band on your wrist. Every time you catch a negative thought forming, snap the band.

Sure, you won’t catch every single instance of negative thoughts but doing that will help them to reduce in frequency.

And, in turn, that will help your mind get on board.

Couple that with affirmations and the various other exercises I’ve suggested on this page and you’ll find that your conscious and subconscious mind come more into alignment. And when that happens be prepared for some fun!

How to Deal with Resistance

Resistance is normal.

As a species, we don’t like change.

Historians will tell you that the hunter gatherers didn’t much like the new fangled agriculture. The industrial revolution wasn’t called that by accident: it was a sea change in society.

The same goes with our normal lives.

We’ve been doing whatever it is for months or more likely years and the idea of change isn’t usually met with open arms. After all, it suggests that maybe we’ve been wrong all those years and I’ve yet to meet someone who regularly rejoices in being wrong.

And, yes, I know the Edison quote of “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” but I’m not totally convinced that’s what he felt.

The first thing to recognize is that you’re experiencing resistance.

It could be that you’ve set out to attract something and it seems as though it’s almost within your grasp – tantalisingly close but always just out of reach. That means there’s some form of resistance, somewhere.

Often the resistance is small but it stops manifestation from happening.

Some of that could be the words you use – “I can never ….”, “That always happens to me”, “Just my (bad) luck”.

If you catch yourself using negative words too often, consciously stop yourself and figure out how you can turn those thoughts and words into positives.

That could be as simple as re-phrasing those regular thoughts into the past tense.

So “I can never…” becomes something like “I didn’t used to be able to …”

“That always happens to me” turns into “That used to happen to me”

“Just my (bad) luck” gets rephrased as “I’m getting luckier”

Those simple rephrases – used as often as you remember to spot them – could be all it takes to melt your resistance.

Or you might need to do something slightly stronger.

The Sedona Method falls into that category – it’s simple yet powerful.

At its heart, it’s just a series of 3 questions that you ask once you’ve found something that’s holding you back.

You find the feeling that’s at the heart of the issue (that can take a bit of delving but just get a feel for it initially if you can’t quite pinpoint it, the process will help you narrow things down).

Then ask yourself “Could I let [the feeling] go?”

There are two allowable answers to that question – yes or no.

Sitting on the fence isn’t part of the process.

Either answer is correct – it’s what you’re feeling at this moment in time.

The next question is “Would I let [the feeling] go?”

Again, it’s a yes or no question.

And, again, either answer is correct depending on how you’re feeling.

The Sedona Method doesn’t judge your answers.

The third and final question is “When?”

That could be now, in a minute’s time, an hour, a day, a week, a month (if you really want to hang on to the feeling and wallow in it) or longer. Maybe even “never”.

Then repeat the process using the same feeling if you haven’t come to terms with it yet or a different feeling if that’s popped into your head instead.

The Sedona Method uses a great analogy with feelings and it’s a quick way to release any negativity you may be holding about whether or not this ultra simple yet ultra powerful process works.

• Take a pen or a pencil and grip it tight – notice how the tighter you grip it, the more you feel it. That’s the same with your feelings, whether they’re positive or negative.
• Then turn your hand so that it’s palm facing upwards. Notice how the pen or pencil rolls around freely and how you’re (literally) no longer holding on to the pen.
• Finally, turn your hand over again and notice how the pen is totally released as it falls to the ground.

That’s the exact same process that is happening when you use the Sedona Method.

The negative feelings are allowed to roam free and leave you.

And they do!

Try it.

As usual with this kind of thing while you’re proving to your conscious and subconscious mind that this works, pick something relatively trivial. Maybe the weather today, maybe an advert that’s just popped up in your browser. Something that really doesn’t matter but that evoked a glimmer of a feeling.

Then ask yourself those three questions about it.

Answer them reasonably quickly – the first answer that comes into your mind is normally correct, rather than over-thinking things.

Then move on to the next question.

Repeat the process if needed.

(ignore the url in that video – Squidoo vanished some time ago)

Like most things, dealing with resistance and overcoming it requires a degree of patience.

It’s not the end of the world if you still have some resistance after a week or two or more.

That depends on how deeply ingrained it was before you started working on it.

The other thing to remember is that you’re probably chipping away at the edges of whatever it is you used to resist.

So it’s a bit like demolishing something in the real world – if you were chopping down a tree, you wouldn’t expect to fell it with the first blow of the axe but you would expect to eventually fell it.

The same happens with reducing and hopefully eliminating resistance: it can take a while, chipping away at the edges. But given time you’ll manage it.

Reaching the Correct State – Quieten Your Mind

The law of attraction works best when everything is in alignment.

That means the thoughts you’re thinking, the intentions you put out to the universe, your actions, being grateful and many more (seemingly trivial) items.

The more of these things you get right, the quicker you’ll start attracting what you want into your life.

That means that reaching the correct state is critical to the degree of success you achieve.

But how do you do that and what is the “correct” state anyway?

Most people’s minds are working overtime. There are so many things to remember and think about, even with so-called time saving devices.

We’re always in touch with everyone else – mobile phones see to that as does social media.

Then there are the stresses of work or family or anything else that crops up in life.

So our minds don’t get chance to unwind.

Relaxation is an important part of achieving the correct state to help the law of attraction work its magic.

If your mind is constantly buzzing with thoughts then your subconscious has a hard job distinguishing which are the important ones and which are just background noise.

Sure it’s good to meet up with friends for a coffee but that means all sorts of things have to happen – you put in a diary note to remind you to meet your friends, you make your journey to the coffee shop and order your drinks plus any treats, you catch up with your friends and half-listen to what they’re saying whilst concentrating on what you’ve got to tell them, the caffeine kicks in, you get back to whatever else you’re doing that day.

We do that kind of thing all the time for all sorts of reasons.

But if you’ve ever woken up in the morning and felt as though you’ve never been to sleep because your mind was racing so much, it’s time to learn how to quieten your mind and get it into the correct state to help the law of attraction with the manifestation process.

It’s time to diarize relaxation into your daily life!

Your daily routine almost certainly has slots for most things but if you’re like most people it neglects “me time”. It’s too easy to prioritize everything else in your life except yourself. Which is how stress accumulates and takes its toll.

Personally, I play myself a meditation or hypnosis track before I go to sleep – it’s a routine for me that I’ve followed for years. The precise track has varied over the years (I eventually get bored of playing the same one) but the routine has been a part of my life for a long time. Sometimes I’ll fall asleep while the MP3 is playing, other times I’ll fall asleep soon after it finishes. But either way the result is the same: my mind is quieter than before I played the track.

Other people I know play themselves a track to start their day off. Personally I’ve never been able to regularly get up that extra bit early to be able to do that but you’ll know if you’re the kind of person this would work for.

Other people find that they can’t currently spare the time for a daily addition to their routine – whether or not that’s the case for you is your decision although I’d suggest that if you really can’t spare some time each day to concentrate on yourself then maybe you need to re-check your priorities but until you can rearrange things then aim for something that happens every few days or once a week – a local yoga class, maybe some Tai chi, whatever works for you to help quieten your mind.

Because that’s the ultimate goal of this – reducing the chatter that’s constantly going on in your mind.

The lower the level of the chatter, the better your subconscious will be able to pick out the important thoughts and ideas which, in turn, will allow you to attract the things you really want into your life.

If you’re still skeptical, ask yourself whether or not you’re attracting what you want into your life with your current routines.

And if the answer is no, be open to the idea of doing something to get you closer to the correct state to be able to manifest more.

Pick a method that resonates with you and feels “right”.

Your first reaction is almost certainly correct, whatever it is.

That’s because you haven’t had time to over-analyze the thoughts.

So go back through those ideas again and pick the one that leaps out at you most:

• Meditation
• Hypnosis
• Yoga
• Tai chi or other exercise
• Even a daily brisk walk (couple that with a walking meditation where you become more aware of the things that are happening as you walk)

Monitor the results over the coming days and weeks.

Figure out whether you’re feeling more relaxed more often.

You may need to ask a friend who you don’t meet too often – it’s difficult to spot small changes on a day to day basis but if they’ve not met you for a month or a year or whatever, they’ll spot the positive changes that are happening in your life and your attitude.

Getting the chatter in your mind to quieten down can take practice.

If you’re feeling playful, try this with the more irritating voices and thoughts in your head – remember that you’re creating them so you can change them or even un-create them.

• Shift where the nagging doubts and thoughts are coming from – move them to your little toe or (even better) put them in a catapult and fire them well away from you
• Change the tone and volume of the voices – you can turn the volume down even if they initially refuse to change position.
• You can also change the voice – Mickey Mouse is usually a good option as he’s never really been meant to be taken seriously.
• Play some “what if” games with the thoughts – what if they are wrong? Ask the thoughts awkward questions like that and be like a child, asking “why” until you get the answer you wanted. That can take a few iterations but is amazingly powerful – it’s a lot like the Sedona Method questions but simpler as there’s only one question to ask.
• Do your best to play down any lingering doubts. It’s easy to wind yourself up with negative thoughts and in extreme circumstances they can even contribute to disease so do your best to quell them in whichever way works best for you.

Above all, don’t let your mind control you when you know it’s not really acting in your best interests.

Knuckle down and start whatever it you’d planned to start – that can be a very good way of proving to your subconscious mind that you’re really serious this time.

Use the Mastermind Alliance Principle

Napoleon Hill was a big fan of masterminds. He defined them as ““A friendly alliance with one or more persons who will encourage one to follow through with both plan and purpose.”

They’re a collection of minds working together so that the sum of the minds involved is greater than just adding up the potential of the individuals involved.

You can operate a mastermind in several ways:

• Organize a group of people to physically meet on a regular basis. That works fantastically well.
• Organize a group of people to meet “virtually” on something like a Skype call. Again, that can work brilliantly and a number of mastermind groups I’ve been involved with have used this as an addition to physical meetings.
• Run a mastermind group entirely in your own mind. You can pull in the greatest minds in the universe, living or dead, whether they speak your native tongue or not. In this scenario you’re only limited by your own mind and you can let it roam as far and as fast as you dare.

A mastermind alliance works best when it has a focus. Which means that if you’ve got several things you want to focus on, you may need to find more than one alliance to help you.

The mastermind meetings can be formal or informal – personally, I’ve found that the ones that have a specific agenda work best as they tend to stay on track more.

It’s usual for the agenda to be something like this:

• Short “catch up” telling what each person has done since the last meeting and what they think is their next issue to address. Apart from clarification questions, each person is allowed to speak without interruption.
• Pick on one or more people (normally one at a time) to work on their issues. The group contribute ideas and nothing is ruled out by the person who’s being helped, no matter how outrageous or out of the box the ideas are. The person who’s being helped usually takes copious notes and will then commit to put at least some of the ideas into practice before the next meeting (they’ll report back in the next catch up). Depending on the amount of time available at the meeting, there could be one or more of these sessions. It’s up to the mastermind alliance to set a time allowance for the process and to make sure that all members get their turn, even if it’s not every meeting.
• Possibly a guest speaker or presentation on a topic relevant to the mastermind’s purpose. If you’re running the meeting in your head then the guest speaker could be anyone in the world who’s done a presentation on your topic – Ted Talks, YouTube videos, webinars, etc. If you’re in an actual group with other people then it’s generally better to have the guest physically present or on the Skype call – other presentations can be watched in your own time.
• Final round up including commitments of things that will be done before the next meeting. It’s useful if everyone takes down notes on everyone’s commitments as it helps to reinforce the authority of the mastermind alliance.

You can run that meeting format whether it’s in person or in your head.

Obviously (unless you’ve got a really vivid amount of imagination) the amount of banter will be different in person versus an imaginary mastermind but the results are still well worth it.

The logic behind imagining your mastermind alliance is that it’s possible to tap into the knowledge of the greatest minds that ever existed.

For a handful of dollars you can get books that will reveal much of that knowledge – buy a few books and swap the time you’d have spent mindlessly surfing the web or watching Netflix or (if you’re old fashioned like me) watching television. And instead spend that spare hour reading.

You’ll get the benefit of the knowledge contained in the book for almost zero cost – lots of books are available second hand on places like Amazon and Barnes & Noble for  little more than the cost of postage.

Older books that are still valuable long out of copyright are often available completely free if you’re happy enough to read them online.

Once you’ve read a book or two by a particular expert you’ll know enough about how they view things to be able to meet them in the privacy of your own mind.

At first. this sounds like a variant of talking to yourself.

But treat it more like a guided day dream and you’ll be in good company. Einstein famously chased a beam of light in his mind and that was one of many ways he came up with his brilliant ideas that are still valid today.

Going back to reading books – there are several authors I read where I now know what they’re likely to say before I get to that stage of the chapter. These are easy to mastermind with – I just pose the question and their most likely answer pops into my mind more often than could be put down to co-incidence.

Play with the idea of meeting experts in your field in a mastermind alliance that’s held totally in your head.

Be open to the idea that the thoughts that come into your mind are at least as valid as they would be with an in-person meeting.

And be open to the idea of having either a formal or an informal mastermind gathering with people you know locally or over the web.

Masterminds work best if they have a good goal and a finite timescale.

Like most things humans do, they can drift if allowed to go on for too long. Anything up to a year seems to work well, longer than that it’s usually worth regrouping. Let the people who have moved on in their mind move on from the group and invite new participants if some of you need to run with the project for longer.

Put your Law of Attraction Ideas into Practice

There comes a time when you need to move from theory to practice.

It’s very easy with any subject to think that you need to know more before you can start – it’s often referred to as analysis paralysis.

This is especially true with subjects like the law of attraction where our minds often resist the idea that it can work, even though a look around your current environment will show you very clearly where your current thoughts have led you.

It’s often worth playing a game – our minds have been trained from a very early age to treat stories differently. Which is why movies are so powerful and that bunch of flickering lights on the screen and those soundwaves coming from the speakers can cause you to jump out of your skin when that dinosaur (or whatever) finally stomps onto the screen, Or you cried when Bambi’s cartoon mother died.

If you can get into the state of trance that allows you to treat the whole idea of attracting what you really want into your life without effort then that’s a fantastic place to be.

Your thoughts will manifest easily if you allow them to.

Try it – start with something seemingly trivial where you’re equally happy whether or not it manifests. The Sedona Method refers to this as “don’t give a hoot” and that’s a good way to think about it.

If you go back in your mind to times when you really didn’t care what the outcome of an event was, chances are that you got what you wanted more often than not.

The same applies to the law of attraction.

Get your mind in a place where it’s equally happy whichever outcome happens. A bit like a “heads I win, tails you lose” coin toss.

Initially, that’s easiest to do with events that really don’t matter. Whether you’ll see someone wearing a violet scarf today, whether at least two pink cars will pass you on your next journey, that kind of thing.

Then gradually work up to bigger, slightly more significant, events.

Your mind will already be receptive as the earlier, trivial, thoughts have manifested.

Which helps the bigger thoughts to come into place in your life.

Add in some daily affirmations into your routine – they’re quick to repeat and won’t noticeably take up any time. I often repeat my affirmations while I’m getting dressed in the morning or walking somewhere or getting ready for bed at night. It’s the closest I get to multi-tasking and it’s easy to do.

Another simple way to help your mind get on track is hypnosis. All you need to do is put your headphones on, listen to an MP3 and let the power of the hypnosis work its magic.

The neat part about this is that you’re put into a state of relaxation where your conscious mind is moved out of the way and suggestions are sent directly to your subconscious mind.

Most of the time you won’t feel much happening apart from being relaxed.

But behind the scenes, lots of things start to move into place which help the universe to better react to give you the things you desire in your life.

And if you’d like lots of free resources to help you with your law of attraction quest, click this link.