RE: Rewiring Your Brain for Fun and Profit - The Fallacy of Self-Help
I wouldn' t say that the law of attraction is total bs. But it's the same as with luck.
Just passively waiting that something happens will not make you successful, lucky or is a solution to any problem.
You have to kick yourself every day to get up and do something.
But then the law of attraction works. The more you're in contact with successful people the bigger the chances are that you're also successful. The more you have to do with money the bigger the chance that you also make some money. The more you learn the bigger your chances to get a cool job.
So i think the "secret" is not wishing for something but getting started to work for it. Get out of your passive state and get into an active one. Create your own world. But then you'll for sure attract other creative people and it seems that things fall into your lap.
Only changing your thinking doesn't work.
If you don't like the past results it's time to change how you do things. If you keep doing it the same as before you can't expect different results than before.
Any good system that actually works tells you that much. I have no idea if this "Law of Attraction" thing does that or not, but I've met a lot of bashing it from people who are all about using magic (or "magic" if you like) to bring positive change in their life.
At least that is how I use the term. You work with yourself & your life changes for the better? That is what I call magic. NLP is a good example of something that qualifies as magic in my book. From what I've heard about "Law of attaction" & "Secret", they omit some important steps to qualify.
Thing is, most of that works that way as you and OP describe. But the best description that I've met is one by ancient greeks in their concept of Kairos. Kairos is the fortunate moment, when you have an opportunity to do something significant. It is something that you have to be ready for, and you have to take action when you encounter that opportunity. It was depicted as a flying guy with a single lock of hair, and that was only way to catch him, but you only had one shot, so you had to be prepared.
I think that a lot of the problems that create that market for self-help is that people are looking for a "magic bullet", that would allow them to acheive their desires without doing any actual work. Looking into yourself, and changing your habbits are a lot of work. But if you take any system, even one that ommits that part, and add that bit, if you are prepared and keep looking at word for opportunities, you will most likely do better then someone who only uses "positive thinking".
I myself prefer works like "Prometheus rising" by Robert Anton Wilson, as a "self-help" & brain-hacking manual. Stuff by Joseph Campbell is also great in that regard, although it is somewhat more than self-help & brain hacking.
Yeah true. Lots of those systems forget to mention the implementation parts of those ideas.
Because any goal (being lucky, be successful) without a strategy how to achive it is nothing more than an idea. The problem with that is that the implementation and espcially the details take most of the time and work.
I really like the concept of kairos, never heard of it before. But that's exactly what i said.
Only if you're prepared the luck can hit you.
for example :
You can only make a bargain buying a rare oldtimer car when you are prepared to pick up the car on a trailer, have space at home to park it, have sufficient funds available and most important to find the offer before others do which requires at least having setup an email notifier alert or checking specific platforms manually. If those things aren't fulfilled that opportunity will simply pass. Some will say that was luck, others say it was good enough preparation and taking an opportunity.
I've read one of that Law of Attraction books, not sure if its the one which initially was spoken about and i think it wasn't that bad. It was more about the mindset than implementation but if you don't take it as the one and only truth and research other literature in this context too then it is worth a read.
For some people it already helps when they start with slowly changing their mindset which i would say is a requirement if you really want to work on your habits. You will fail for sure if you're sure about that in the beginning already. Perhaps the same reason as why those "xxx for dummies" books are such a success. They abstract themes as much as possible to make complex themes easier understandable.
Just see "law of attraction" as "theoretical success for dummies", that helps :D
The practical part then helps with the implementation :D
Which is weird, because some (lots? most?) traditional systems have it in them. Perhaps problem with them is they aren't stated plainly enough with all those hots people in the past had for obfuscating their insight so it wouldn't fall into "wrong hands".
I mean one of the most common things for this kind of stuff is a tarot deck, which follows a good blueprint for thinking about change. Basicly there are four suits that are the following steps & answer questions that they all rise you are in for a good start:
Then there are trumps, which are archetypes & roles, and the whole thing is quite good to break down any situation into easy to understand chunks.
I've seen psychologists develop & use systems that work with symbols from persons personal vocabulary & mythology, which are also quite great. But this stuff works for those purposes quite nicely also. :->
Oh, another thing is all this stuff needs discipline. From what I read & observed it takes people around a month of daily repetition to make something into a habbit, but there is a hack, that if you start with things that are small, quick & easy and then expand them once they are part of daily routine it is a good way to go around chaging your life. When they say "start small" they aren't kidding.
Cool sounds like i should read a bit into tarot. Never saw it from that point of view.
But you're onto something there. Nowadays people want it served easy understandable so that you can read it in the 5mins of your midday break. See again "xxx for dummies". Also information doesn't need to be obfuscated anymore like many years ago, we're living in times of the internet. The largest knowledge base ever available if you're able to find the right data.
And very true that the same principles which are discussed in law of attraction or so many other success/lifehack blogs/sites/articles can also be found in buddhism or most martial arts philosophies.
Mostly the same stuff packed into new words and a new context and i think that's also the breaking point. You simply need to start somewhere. Each generation or group of persons has its own contexts in which it can understand concepts. And everyone can have its own entrypoint for his specific context to enter the world of working on yourself and development as a person.
But we're drifting away from the original post somehow. I think when people are lead to thinking about themself and their actual mindset that is great in any way. Just don't be fooled that it stops there and that when you think about what goes wrong it will change. You have to be active to actually change something then.
btw....thanks for this great discussions...kairos and tarot really made really curious to read more about it
Actually, it's funny you bring up luck.
My post was inspired by a brilliant post by @cryptogee
About how luck is not a factor. Even though people perceive you as lucky. You can't attract luck.
The fact that the law of attraction gets sold as scheme to get rich or to achieve your dreams, is what really irks me.
Hehe...i know which post you mean. I commented on that one too, saying that luck is not a passive state.
It's something you need to be prepared for. Either by learning in advance or having the right ressources at that moment to be able to accept your "luck".
If you aren't prepared the luck will simply pass you.
Yeah i know what you mean with that self-help gurus, but isn't it that people actively decide to believe them and give them their money although there's enough info on the net for free. It comes always down to the same. Educate yourself and resolve dependencies to external persons/knowledge by doing so.
The more you know the lower the chances that others can scam you.
I would say you can attract luck. But not by thinking that you're lucky and that you deserve it. You need to be prepared and work for it. And then it's taking opportunities.
in the first half or so you shoot down the concept of the law of attraction then in the last part you show how you implemented the principles to make it work for you.
you're kinda crazy Huh?
check out this audio book that's been around for quite a while maybe it can help you see the connection between how you think, act and create the circumstances that you experience i love this book it changed my life it is called "As a man Thinketh"
this is an audio book on youtube
Sorry, but the law of attraction is a far cry from the NLP techniques. What I tried to explain in this article is the big gap between a marketing product like 'the secret' and the teachings of people who actually did research in this field.