The big mistake most people make when it comes to using the Law of Attraction – or using anything to achieve their goals and dreams – is wanting to know how.
“How do I make it happen?”
“What are the exact steps I should take?”
“How do I get from here to there?”
The thing is, you rarely if ever know how in advance.
Once you complete a goal and can hold it in your hand, or show it off to friends, you can explain the how of it.
You’ll then have a complete beginning-middle-ending story.
The puzzle will be revealed.
You can then explain the steps you took.
But not before you attract it.
Recently I surveyed my list, asking what book they would like to see me write next. While virtually everybody wanted more books like Zero Limits and AT Zero on ho’oponopono, a few wrote in some suggestions.
Those people were usually wanting to know how to attract something specifically, and how I did it.
They wanted stories of people revealing exactly how they attracted their goals.
They were asking for step-by-step plans.
This is the big mistake.
Let me explain:
When I was making a name for myself as a copywriter and marketer back in the 1990s, a lot of things occurred that I couldn’t predict, let alone know how to make happen.
For example, the Internet came along.
Who saw that coming?
I was one of the first to be online already – on what were called Bulletin Board Systems (a kind of miniature, local only, limited reach Internet) – so when the actual Internet was born, I was already there.
The speaking and writing I was doing in Houston, where I lived at the time, now being posted on CompuServe and AOL, broadcast my name across planet Earth.
It helped make me cyber-famous.
It was certainly an essential step in my career.
But I never saw it coming.
It was never on my to-do list.
How could it be?
Are you starting to see how this works?
During these same early years, I wrote a little book called Spiritual Marketing.
I released it online, free, and it touched millions of lives.
I never knew it would do anything. I released it to the world in the hope that it would help people.
But The New York Times wrote about it.
And Bob Proctor urged me to publish the book.
And it became an early print-on-demand book.
It was also my first Amazon bestseller.
But I wasn’t following a “how to make it happen” plan.
No such plan existed.
These synchronistic events were happening as a side result of my passion and persistence.
They were happening organically.
They were happening on the way to my dream.
I couldn’t predict them because I couldn’t see them.
They were on the unseen road ahead, to be discovered as I kept moving forward.
And along the way in this adventure a publisher contacted me. He later published my book, Spiritual Marketing, but with a new title: The Attractor Factor.
That became the most powerful and popular self-help book I’ve ever written.
And The Attractor Factor was given to a television producer in Australia. She read it and contacted me.
She said she wanted me to be in a movie she was making about the Law of Attraction.
It was to be called The Secret.
That movie changed my life.
It put me on Larry King’s television show, twice, and got me invited to speak in countries I didn’t know existed.
How do you make those things happen?
After all, none of them could have been foreseen.
When people ask for the step-by-step exact plan to make something happen, they are making the mistake of thinking there is such a plan.
There isn’t.
There is a general formula, but not a specific one.
There are formulas for helping you choose your intention, start taking action, and maintain momentum once you get going.
But there isn’t a specific “do this and then do this” plan.
Even Mark Twain knew it.
Twain said, on his 70th birthday, “You can’t reach old age by another man’s road. My habits protect my life but they would assassinate you.”
Thinking you can copy the specific things I did in my life to attract and achieve specific results in your life is a big mistake.
Thinking there is a “how” to get where you want to go is an error.
You attract the results you want with the formulas I have revealed, in books like The Attractor Factor, Attract Money Now, and most recently in The Miracle.
Other self-help authors have other formulas.
Mine goes something like this:
- Declare your intention or inspiration.
- Take the first baby step to begin moving toward your goal.
- Keep taking action on all next steps and new opportunities.
- Surround yourself with positive people and messages.
- Clear any limiting beliefs as you notice them.
You’ll notice there isn’t a specific task that will work for you and everybody else.
There isn’t because there’s no way to know it in advance.
Steve Jobs knew this, too.
Jobs once said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”
Melissa Etheridge told it to me this way –
Have faith that it’s all working out in your favor.
Have faith that “The Great Something” is – as I sing in my title track song on my new album – your “hidden ally” in life.
Have faith in yourself, the Universe, The Great Something, and your journey.
And then one day, after the dust has cleared, and you realized you attracted your goal, you can look back and tell the how of it all.
You can then connect the dots.
But all you can do today is the next obvious action step.
It’s the next “dot” that will lead to your success.
Dot by dot, by dot, you will get there.
Now go do today’s “dot.”
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS – Check out www.MiraclesCoaching.com
18 Comments
Excellent blog, and a great reminder that no two paths are the same. We follow our hearts and follow inspiration always traveling with faith.
Great lesson Joe. That’s exactly how it is. Once people reach their goal, they tell others about certain steps, not the limitations and how unpredictable things were at the start of their journey.
Follow your our direction in life dont get stuck in I wish I could dig deep within your soul snd it will lead you.
I am listening to your book the Miracle for the second time now and I had to stop and locate your website to say a huge THANK YOU with all my heart for what you have given me. This post has jumped at me that’s why I am contacting you through this. I love your books but this one is difinitely a miracle. I had so many A-HAs in the last week (more than ever before) and so much more understanding and clearing and brain fog lifting 😀 and so much more that is hard to describe in words. I am very grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you ❤️
Thank YOU. 🙂
I can only second your thanks. I’m going to listen again this weekend, if my writing doesn’t get in the way again. The universe keeps giving me new ideas…!
These days, I am a writer. At the moment, I’m concentrating on short stories.
Someone recently asked me where I get all my ideas from. Specifically, how I went about writing a story about angels and demons. I told them, I hadn’t set out to write that specific story. I set out to write *a* story. It just happened that it ended up being about angels and demons.
I started writing, trusting my subconscious and the universe to supply the story as I put down one word after another. When I finished, I then went back and edited it and smoothed it and changed it. But I never had a plan to write exactly that story.
PS, my Mother tells me I have a very strange and twisted mind.
I don’t know how much I should say thankful to you. You were always my favourite mind wizard. Your book “zero limits” is always in my repeat reading list. Just I was so depressed and searching on net and bumped to this article. No need to say how much these words revitalised me. Thank you so much. Just now bookmarked your blog. Keep writing. Keep inspiring. Loads of love to you Dr.
Joe, i follow your career and find is fascinating , in the attractor factor the history of Jonathan you wrote the energetic change you lived under the help of him, and after that you fly to fulfill your destiny. The lesson is to do the energetic clean to fullfill the unique path that every person have to complete. The article show the no script aproach and connect to inspiration. Thanks for the books you wrote and the inpiration you comunicate
You are welcome
Joe you’re one of the n’est author un my life, your books inspired me more. I’m here in Africa .. i hope to organize something here and call u for conférence. +225409847. Thanks for allez.
I look forward to it
This is coming from the guy who’s been emailing his subscribers all week about a known internet scam. I’m talking about the AZ Code. Why on earth would you promote a product that has fake testimonials on it’s sales video. Either you’re bad at due diligence, or you really need the sales commission.
Carl, if it were really a “known Internet scam” then Clickbank, the company hosting it, would have to take it off their site. It would be illegal. Also, I have not once promoted the product to my list. Others, using my name, promote lots of products I’ve never even seen. This is one of them. So, it appears, you have not done your own due diligence. Nonetheless, I wish you well.
I’m on your email list. ([email protected]) Unless that’s not you sending these emails, there’s a larger problem at play here; someone’s using your name to promote products you don’t know about. As for the “scam”, anyone who uses a fake name, and fake testimonials from Fiverr.com is obviously not a reputable vendor.
Oh dear,
this is so lovely…
thank you sir.
I am from Iran where you may can not never be here. but i know i will see you finally anywhere. thank you for all your books and articles. your words come from your heart. thank you, thank you, thank you
One of the things that I learned from you is that it’s impossible to our conscious mind to see all the picture but it’s crucial to do the conscious work which is getting rid of subconscious beliefs because by doing this we can change how we think, decide and what kind of action we take when there’s possibility to achieve what we want in life and whatever it is.
I learned from you that the major reason because of we don’t get what we want in life is because our conscious intentions don’t fit to what we hold in our subconscious.
Because of these beliefs we also can’t see a lot of possibilities and for me this is the reason because of trying to find out HOW something will happen isn’t good idea.