Whenever you form an intention, that intention has two primary components. The first component is the content of the intention. The content is the information part of your desire. It’s whatever you decide you want, such as a new career, a better relationship, or an extra $10,000. That part is pretty straightforward.
The second component of an intention is the energy you bring to the intention. Some people describe this as a feeling, like passion or gratitude, but the feeling is actually the result of the energy, not the energy itself. However, you know there is energy in your intention when you connect strong feelings to it.
I’ll explain the energy component in more detail in a moment, but first let’s address…
Failure experiences with the Law of Attraction
I often hear people complain that they’ve dutifully and correctly applied the Law of Attraction, but their intentions just aren’t manifesting. Some of the more stubborn believers will continue beating their heads against the wall, using the same ineffective approach even though it generates no results week after week. (Please don’t do that to yourself.) Others give up within a matter of hours when their cappuccino grande fails to manifest, concluding that the whole Law of Attraction concept is bogus. (Please don’t do that to yourself either.)
I’ve previously written an article called Why Do Intentions Take So Long to Manifest? which covers some common problems people experience when trying (unsuccessfully) to apply the Law of Attraction. Now I want to address the most common mistake of all.
Content alone is not enough
Here’s the #1 mistake people make: They mistake content for complete intentions. The problem is that content alone isn’t enough because energy is an essential component of every intention.
Great content + no energy = an intention that won’t manifest anything but frustration.
Consider all the content that’s available to you on the Internet these days. Does that content just whiz around the world by itself? Of course not. Electricity is required to deliver it to you. Without electricity that content is dead in the water.
Suppose I write a new article for this web site, and before I can post it, my electricity goes out. Initially I’m frustrated that my content isn’t getting delivered to my readers. How do I solve this problem? Is the problem with the content itself? Do I need to improve the quality of the content… to write more content… or to post it on my wall? Those would be pretty stupid solutions, wouldn’t they? But that’s exactly what many people do when trying to “fix” their intentions that don’t seem to be working.
If you’re nitpicking the verbiage of your intentions, you’re like a writer nitpicking the wording of a private journal entry that no one else is going to read. It just doesn’t matter.
What is the energy component of an intention?
The energy of an intention isn’t the same thing as electricity, but it’s a good metaphor for understanding the concept. Don’t get hung up on the exact term — it’s the concept that’s important.
Many people refer to energy as the emotional juice you bring to an intention. That’s part of it, but strong emotions are the result, not the cause, of that energy.
If you want to see some high-energy intentions, look no further than children. Kids are intention-manifestation masters. When they really want something, there’s no mistaking it. They’ll ask for it, they’ll jump up and down, and they’ll drive everyone crazy expressing their desires. And assuming they don’t give up, kids are pretty darned good at manifesting what they want.
What kind of energy do you bring to your intentions? Do you speak of them like you’re talking about a piece of burnt toast? Or are you so juiced that you’re just dripping with enthusiasm?
I’m not suggesting you should behave like a kid throwing a sugar tantrum, but if you get more excited about the coming weekend than you do about your intention, well… the weekend will be the only thing you manifest.
Emotions measure intentional energy
As I mentioned earlier, strong emotions are actually the result of energy, not the cause of it. The value of emotions is that they let you know how much energy you’ve managed to pack into your intention. If you’re so gushingly enthusiastic about your intention that people keep telling you to shut up about it, you clearly have plenty of energy behind it.
So what’s the real source of this energy then?
The source of this energy is actually the universe itself. The energy is already there. You just need to connect some of it with your intention.
Consider how electricity works. The electrons are already sitting there in the wires of your home, and they start flowing when you flip a switch to complete the circuit, thereby creating a current and providing usable electrical power to your appliances. Although the electrons as particles move at a fairly slow pace, the electric field moves at the speed of light, so your appliances turn on right away.
Your intentions work much the same way. The energy is already there. You just need to get the current flowing in the right direction. And this has virtually nothing to do with the actual content of your intentions. Electricity doesn’t care whether it’s powering a computer or a coffee maker, nor does intentional energy care whether you’re building a business or a bomb.
Polarity
So how do you get this energy current flowing? First you need to understand the concept of polarity.
Going back to the electricity example. Imagine a battery. It has two terminals which are polar opposites of each other, one positive and one negative. If you hook the battery up to a circuit, electrons will flow in one direction, thereby creating a current. If you flip the battery around and hook it up the other way, you’ll reverse the flow of electrons through the wires, thereby creating an identical current in the opposite direction. (I’m trying to keep this analogy simple, so if you feel the need to out-nerd me by bringing up things like differential resistance, manifest a life.)
Now what if you wanted to increase the current flowing through your circuit? You could do that by adding more batteries, right? But in order for this to work, the batteries must be aligned to create a current in the same direction. If you put batteries into a device with some facing the correct way and some facing the wrong way, the device won’t work because you’ll screw up the current.
So what does this have to do with intention-manifestation? Well, the energy you apply to your intentions also has polarity, much like a battery. It can flow one way or the other way. You’ll know you have a strong intentional current when you experience strong emotions. No emotions means you have no current.
Many people screw up their intentional energy flow by trying to use both polarities in the same circuit. You can’t do that and expect to get good results with the Law of Attraction. It just won’t work. You must use either one polarity or the other, and you must remain congruent in your usage.
So what are the two polarities of intention-manifestation, and how do you apply them to build a strong intentional current? I’ll cover that in detail in my next article, so stay tuned. Update: here it is… Polarity
When you hold an intention to create something new in your life, such as a career change, a new relationship, or better health, at first you may see no results at all. But as you continue to hold the intention, eventually it does begin to manifest, sometimes almost miraculously. Synchronicities occur whereby new people and circumstances come into your life to make your intention first possible, then probable, and finally real.
But sometimes this process doesn’t seem to work. You hold an intention and get no measurable results. Other times the process works so slowly that you can’t be sure it’s having any effect.
Why do intentions take so long to manifest (or not at all)? Here are some common issues that can delay or derail your efforts at manifesting:
1. You fail to hold the intention.
Think of intentions like electromagnetic waves that flow out into the universe, as if you’re transmitting a radio signal. The universe receives your thoughts and reflects them back to you via the physical universe. The more thought and emotion you put into your intention, the stronger the wave you’re sending out, and the stronger will be the bounce-back reflection. Failing to hold an intention means you don’t put enough energy behind it. The reflection (i.e. the manifestation) may be so weak you can’t even detect it.
Perhaps the #1 reason people fail to hold an intention is a lack of persistence. Physical matter is really just energy, but it’s a very dense form of energy. It takes time for our thoughts to manifest here in the physical realm. On other planes of existence, such as in your dreams, matter is much less dense, so your thoughts can manifest far more quickly. In the astral realms your thoughts can manifest instantly. But in the physical universe, reality is more solid, yet it’s still powered by intention-manifestation. It just takes more energy to get things moving, so initially it may seem like they aren’t moving at all. It isn’t unusual to hold an intention religiously for a week or longer and see no apparent results. Then suddenly the floodgates open, and the manifestation comes pouring through.
If you put enough energy into your intentions, they may continue working behind the scenes even if you forget about them. Yesterday I found an old list of my intentions from 2003. I’d held these intentions for several weeks straight, then put them aside and forgot about them. To my delight I found that about 70% of those intentions had already manifested. I was amazed because I remember these intentions were a big stretch for me at the time I set them. One intention on that list was to create a massive personal development web site with hundreds of articles (voila!). Another intention was to move to Las Vegas (I’m here!). And another was to build a network of great local friends (I have amazing friends!). And still another intention was to create abundant freedom in my life (after finishing this article, I’m off to play 24 holes of disc golf at Sunset Park with a friend… not a bad way to spend a Monday morning). Another 20% of those intentions are currently in the process of manifesting — they’ve moved from possible-but-unlikely in 2003 to probable in 2006. And the final 10% were intentions I dropped because I no longer wanted them. Reviewing this list really blew me away.
If you want your intentions to manifest more readily, I suggest developing the daily habit of holding your intentions using the 30-day trial method. Currently I practice holding my intentions at least twice a day, usually during meditation. Whenever you find yourself waiting somewhere with nothing to do, mentally focus your thoughts on what you want to create in your life. Imagine your greatest desires becoming real.
2. You put no energy behind the intention.
When it comes to intentions, emotion equals energy. If you aren’t really passionate about an intention, it’s like turning on a flashlight with no batteries. Don’t pick intentions just because you feel like you should want them or because everyone else seems to value them. Be honest with yourself about what you really want.
The most powerful intentions are those that will help you manifest joy.
3. You hold a fuzzy intention.
The best intentions are clear and focused. Be specific. If you want money, specify the exact amount, or join the Million Dollar Experiment. General intentions have very little power. Make your intentions like lasers instead of candle flames, and you’ll see them manifest much more quickly.
4. You inadvertently cancel the intention.
Every thought is an intention. One of the greatest challenges with intention-manifestation is that you must drop all thoughts that conflict with your desired intention. You cannot hold thoughts like, “I hate being depressed,” while intending to be happy. “I hate being depressed” is an intention to remain depressed.
Virtually every day I get emails from people who write things like, “I’m so depressed, and I hate it.” Of course they’re depressed — they just intended it… with emotion. If you want to use intention-manifestation successfully, you must stop acknowledging what you don’t want. To acknowledge what you don’t want is to intend it, which means you will simply perpetuate its ongoing manifestation. I’m not suggesting that you live in denial — quite the opposite in fact. Remove your intention from what you don’t want, and shift it over to what you do what. You should be more concerned with living in denial of your dreams. Depressed people live in denial of joy. Broke people live in denial of abundance. People in unhappy relationships live in denial of love. Acknowledge the reality you want to create more than the one you wish to leave behind.
Imagine driving a car. If you look where you’ve been (in the rear-view mirror), you’ll crash. If you look where you already are (straight down at the road), you’ll be stuck there. To drive successfully you must look where you want to go. Looking at the road ahead doesn’t mean you’re in denial of where you are. You can still see where you are via your peripheral vision. Live your life the same way. If you like where you are right now, get out and look around all you want. Enjoy it. But if you find yourself in a bad neighborhood you’d prefer to pass through quickly (such as depression), then just observe it peripherally while staying focused on the road ahead. Don’t set up camp in a place you don’t want to be.
5. Your intention conflicts with your beliefs.
Imagine shining a flashlight at the sun. No effect, right? You’re firing an intention into an overpowering field of pre-existing beliefs. This would be like holding the intention to become a billionaire when your thoughts are overloaded with limiting beliefs about why that would be impossible for you. If you try to hold an intention that conflicts with your dominant beliefs, that intention will simply fizzle and die.
Every night in Las Vegas, the Luxor Hotel shines a intense beam of light up into the starry sky. This beam is visible from anywhere in the city (and reportedly even from space). We locals even use it as a navigational beacon. If you put out strong intentions where you don’t have many conflicting beliefs, those intentions will tend to manifest rapidly. This is the part of your life where you have the greatest control. You’re going with the flow.
Even though you may not be able to tackle your dominant beliefs head-on, you can still work around the edges of them. This is where I tend to get my best results. Set intentions which are just a little beyond your comfort zone but which will make a real difference in your life when they manifest.
When applying intention-manifestation, be patient with yourself. When you slip, don’t fall. If you catch yourself succumbing to mental laziness, fuzziness, or negative thinking, simply turn your attention back to what you want. With practice you’ll build mental discipline, and you’ll find it easier to stay focused on your desires without so much internal resistance. And then you’ll find your intentions manifesting much more smoothly and effortlessly.
How Often Each Day Should I Read or Say My Desire Statement?
The purpose of the Desire Statement is to support you in giving attention, energy and focus to your newly birthed desire. It teaches you how to add language to your desires so that they feel good. The key to the Desire Statement is it needs to be TRUE for you. You'll notice that one of the recommended sentences is "I love how it feels knowing...." Using this sentence allows you to state your desire in a way that makes it true for you. When it is true for you, you send out a positive vibration. It’s not a matter of how often you read or say your Desire Statement each day. Your goal is to give your desire positive attention, knowing that as you do that you are sending out a positive vibration.
Once you create a Desire Statement, you have completed step 1 and 2 of the three-step Law of Attraction formula. Now your work is to Allow. Spend most of your time and energy there. Keep finding proof that you are manifesting something that is in alignment to your desire. When you celebrate and acknowledge something you have manifested, this proof helps remove the doubt and negative vibrations that prevent you from receiving your desire.
In short, it’s not about how often you do each step of the Law of Attraction formula. The key point is to send out or offer a positive vibration with respect to your desire. Identify what you want, give positive attention, energy and focus to it, and remove the doubt and negative vibration you may be sending by celebrating proof as you find it.
How Do I Know if I'm Getting Any of This Law of Attraction Stuff?
This is a popular question people ask me. How do I know if I am mastering the art of Deliberate Attraction? Is there an advanced course I can take? My answer is always the same. "The application of this material into your daily life IS the advanced course!" To help you gauge where you're at in the mastery of Law of Attraction, I've compiled a list of seven sure-fire ways to tell if YOU are joining the thousands of people who really are mastering this stuff.
7 TOP indicators that I am mastering Law of Attraction:
1. I understand and accept that Law of Attraction is a process which consists of gradually reducing the negative vibrational patterns I have towards some areas in my life and replacing them with positive thoughts. Through the intentional and deliberate use of the tools of Law of Attraction, I see evidence that my allowing is gradually increasing.
2. Over time I am seeing some behavioral changes in myself. Even though I constantly hear others using don't, not and no, I have eventually stopped using these words out loud. Each time I catch myself even thinking these words, I automatically ask myself the question "So, what DO I want?" I know that when I change my words, my vibration changes, and I can only hold one vibration at a time.
3. I've noticed over time that I am observing contrast (anything that doesn't feel good to me), more and more briefly.
4. I've noticed that I am having fewer and fewer experiences of negative people and events in my life.
5. It has become second nature for me to be aware of many, many more things that I can appreciate and express gratitude for.
6. I find myself automatically assigning all my new desires to Law of Attraction. When I want something new in my life I say "I'm using Law of Attraction to get that!"
7. I understand the expression "I get what I vibrate" and I hold myself fully accountable for everything that shows up in my life, both positive and negative!
Abundance is a Feeling by Michael Losier
This question and answer interview was done by Kathy Smith, one of Michael’s loyal Virtual Assistants. Visit her website.
Q: Michael, many times during your teleclasses and seminars, you say “abundance is a feeling.” Can you elaborate on that statement – what do you mean it’s a feeling?
First one of the important things that we’ve come to learn with the Law of Attraction is that we can duplicate feelings. In other words, just through the words I use I can stimulate somebody or discourage them. In short, we can create feelings within ourselves and within others by what we say and what we think.
Abundance is a feeling. Do you ever notice how excited you feel when you know you have a check coming or when you know you’re getting an income tax refund? The excitement you’re experiencing is the feeling of abundance. We feel abundant knowing that it’s coming, even before we put it in the bank. So a question to ask is, “Do I feel abundant knowing that I’m receiving some money or do I feel abundant only when I put it in my bank account?” For most people, they feel abundant knowing that it’s coming. It has nothing to do with whether that have it or not.
So because abundance is a feeling, and the Law of Attraction responds to feelings (vibrations), what if we were able to duplicate the vibration of abundance deliberately? (This is what’s called Deliberate Attraction). We’ve come to understand that this powerful force called the Law of Attraction is constantly checking to find a vibration that we’re sending and duplicates it by giving us more of the same. So what if when the Law of Attraction is checking at every moment, that in that moment, we are offering the vibration of abundance? Given the formula, the Law of Attraction would duplicate that vibration and bring us more of the same. That’s why it’s called the Law.
Q: How do you teach people to attract more abundance?
The Law of Attraction does not care why you are offering a vibration. In other words, it does not care whether you are remembering, pretending, complaining, creating, day-dreaming or observing your reality. It obediently duplicates that vibration. So ideally, we would find something that makes us feel abundant and include it more often in our daily vibration. There are a number of tools that people can use to duplicate the vibration of abundance. I’ll give you one of them today.
Q: How do you record abundance in your own life?
On my fridge, I have 15 – 2 dollar winning lottery tickets. So I can clearly and truthfully say I won the lottery 15 times last month. I’m a winner. Look how many times I’ve won! It’s worth 30 dollars to me in the bank and it’s worth much more to me vibrationally.
You know when people buy those lottery scratch tickets? Most would celebrate the win for 21 seconds. So for 21 seconds, you are offering the vibration of abundance by saying things like, “Hey I just won 2 dollars! I love it when I win scractch tickets!” And after the short offering of abundance vibration, most people cash the ticket in again and again until they lose. And now they catch themselves saying, “I just wasted money on this lottery again. I only ever win 2 dollars. Easy come, easy go.” Now they’re in a place of offering a negative vibration.
So here’s how to take advantage of the 2 dollar winning lottery ticket. Don’t cash it. Keep it in your wallet. Put it on your fridge. And as you look at it each time, it will be a brief reminder that you won 2 dollars. Now you can tell yourself, I won the lottery! I won money this week! And now, for more than 21 seconds, you are offering the vibration of abundance over and over and over again. Your 2 dollar winning lottery ticket is worth more to you vibrationally than the 2 dollars.
Believing is the Absence of Doubt
Ha! You've heard the expression "Just believe it and it will come." Well, technically, that is true. However, 'believing' is not just thinking that you can have it; it is also feeling that it is possible. When we believe that we can "have it," that means we have no doubt in receiving it.
In the formula for Deliberate Attraction:
(1) Identify Desire
(2) Raise the Vibration (feeling)
(3) Allow it
The allowing of your desire can come to you very quickly providing you have no resistance to receiving it.
Resistance = Doubt
When you remove the 'doubt' that you can have what you want, you are allowing and that is how it can come to you.
Tools for allowing:
There are a number of tools, techniques and strategies that can help you remove the doubt (resistance). Here is one that I like best.
Ask yourself this question:
"Is there anyone on the planet doing or having what you desire?"
For example, if your desire is to attract your ideal client, or your ideal relationship, then you could ask yourself "Is there anyone on the planet who has attracted their ideal client?"
Yes! There are millions of people on the planet who have attracted their ideal clients.
NOW THIS FEELS POSSIBLE!
And when it feels possible, you have removed doubt.
And when you remove the doubt, the universal Law of Attraction can bring your desires to you.
When using the formula for Deliberate Attraction, spend most of your time "Allowing," as it determines how quickly, or slowly, your desires will come to you.
f you really commit yourself to the idea, can you earn $1 from doing something you love?
Very often people who are stuck in the pattern of doing work they dislike will shun simple opportunities to earn small amounts of money doing something they love. They assume that if they could only earn a few bucks here and there doing what they love, then what’s the point? They won’t consider it unless they’re convinced such work will bring in some serious money… more than enough to cover all their expenses. A few dollars is just too trivial and pointless.
That mindset is a huge, huge mistake.
If you want to make a living (a great living), doing work you truly love, then a necessary first step is to earn that first dollar.
Be willing to receive
Allow that first dollar to arrive. Allow yourself to receive it. Make it feel welcomed even when it isn’t accompanied by 10,000 friends.
The first day I generated any real income from StevePavlina.com was February 14, 2005. Hmmm… I didn’t even realize until now that it was Valentine’s Day. How disgustingly appropriate! Now back to our story… That was the first day I put some ads on the site. I earned a whopping $2.36 from ad clicks.
I’d been blogging for 4-1/2 months at that point, so I already had dozens of articles on the site. I might have had a few affiliate links up before then, but they really didn’t perform. So Feb 14, 2005 was basically the first day StevePavlina.com began to earn any real income.
Now was it worth my time to do all of that work just to earn enough to buy a gallon of gasoline? (This was back when gasoline was less than $2 per gallon — today you’ll need a lot more ad clicks for that same gallon.)
Twenty months later my daily income from this website had increased by more than 500 times. Don’t scoff at the extra few bucks when they show up. If you treat them well, they may tell their friends about you. Since dollar bills can really get around, they often make a lot of friends.
When you accept that first love dollar, you tell the universe, “Okay, I’m willing to be paid for this kind of work. Can you bring me more opportunities like this?” And the universe will say, “Absolutely… no problem.”
But when you block yourself from receiving that first love dollar, you tell the universe, “No, thanks. I don’t want to be paid for doing what I love. I’d rather make a living doing what I hate. Then I’ll take my leftover energy and try to do what I love on the side. Please give this golden opportunity to someone else. I’m too busy implementing my plan for lifelong unhappiness.”
Accept the opportunity — in your pajamas if necessary
When the opportunity to earn that first love dollar arrives, it probably won’t be wrapped in a beautiful gift box with a bow on top. It will more likely sneak in the back door when you aren’t even looking.
When you catch a glimpse of that opportunity, your first inclination will be to say, “Sorry, this isn’t a good time. I’m in my pajamas. Would you please come back later?”
Of course if you do that, the universe will reply, “Argh… wrong vibration. This bozo ain’t ready. Next!”
The correct response is to accept the opportunity even while you’re still in your pajamas. Just run with it. Try to maintain a playful, childlike spirit.
The next time you feel inclined to turn down an opportunity to earn money (even a puny amount of money) doing something you love, give yourself a good smack upside the head, and do it anyway.
Remember this quote from the movie Ghostbusters: When someone asks if you’re a god, you say, “YES!”
Intend the opportunity
If you’ve never noticed any opportunities in your life to earn love money, you are really, really, really blind. Such opportunities are everywhere. When you train yourself to start noticing them, you’ll see them everywhere. You’ll start seeing so many of them, you won’t even know what to do with yourself.
Even if you’ve been (consciously or subconsciously) rejecting opportunities to earn some genuine love money, you’re always free to request another chance.
Take a moment to set this intention right now: I am now noticing and accepting an opportunity to earn at least one dollar from doing something I love.
Feel free to rephrase that intention (including the currency and the amount) however you like until it feels right to you. Just keep it positive and in the present tense. The exact phrasing isn’t really that important though. The most important element is whether or not you can feel the reality of the intention.
As you think about that intention, imagine it becoming real. How would you feel if it actually happened? Grateful? Amused? Surprised? Impressed? Put yourself in that place of feeling those feelings. Take a minute to do this right now even before you read the next sentence.
I’ll even do this with you. I’m already earning quite a bit from doing what I love, but consciously intending more of it certainly can’t hurt. Maybe I’ll notice an unusual opportunity I’ve been overlooking.
This reminds me of something that happened at the gym this morning. I started exercising on one of the elliptical machines, and I noticed the water bottle holder on this particular machine had a bunch of coins in it — some pennies and some dimes. It was probably around 35 cents total. I left the money for someone else to find, but the point is that I could have gotten paid for doing something I enjoyed if I’d accepted the cash in exchange for exercising. I would have earned about a penny a minute. Hey, it’s a start — toward what I don’t know — but I doubt it was random chance I picked that particular machine today when there were dozens of others to choose from.
Most likely when you hold this intention, something will come up within the next few days. I usually see an alpha reflection for my intentions within about 48 hours. In this case my alpha reflection already happened in the past, but I didn’t recognize it until now. Sometimes that happens. As soon as you notice your intention coming into physical reality, accept what you get and run with it. See where it leads. Don’t worry about whether or not it will lead to massive riches.
Take the inspiration and run with it
Often opportunities will manifest in the form of ideas. Your job is to turn those ideas into action.
Here are some random ideas for earning $1 doing something you may enjoy.
Some guy earned about $5 auctioning his air guitar on eBay. Surely you could earn $1 auctioning something you created. (In case you don’t know what an air guitar is, it’s nothing but air — it doesn’t even exist!)
Write a poem, an article, or a song. Share it with as many people as you can, and ask if they’ll pay you a quarter for the value they received from it. Get four people to say yes, and you’ve earned your dollar. If no one agrees to pay you, ask them what you could create that would be worth at least a quarter to them.
Ask someone if they’ll pay you $1 for a 10-minute neck and shoulder massage (assuming you enjoy massaging people).
Ask someone if they’ll pay you $1 for you to listen to them talk about anything for 10 minutes. You can market it as inexpensive therapy.
Ask someone you know if they’ll pay you $1 to brainstorm 20 potential solutions to one of their problems.
As simple as these ideas are, if you actually take this exercise seriously and go do it, it shouldn’t be that difficult to earn your first dollar doing something you enjoy. Although the money you earn may be financially insignificant for the time invested, it will feel good to get paid doing something that doesn’t feel like work to you.
If you find a way to make a small amount of money doing what you love, you can gradually earn more. Maybe at first you’re earning a rather pathetic, unstable, unreliable income. That’s perfectly okay. If you keep at it, several things will happen.
First, if you really enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll get better at it. You’ll be able to build your skills much faster than people who hate their work. It’s really hard to compete against someone who loves their work.
Second, if you work cheap and produce halfway decent quality, you’ll start to get repeat business. If you can give a good $1 massage, it’s a safe bet that your happy clients will come back and request another — even if they’re just friends or coworkers. A 50-minute Swedish massage at a decent spa in Las Vegas typically runs about $150. $1 for 10 minutes is a real bargain.
Third, people will start to refer new clients to you. They may even gift their friends with your $1 massage.
Fourth, you can re-invest what little money you make to improve your service. Eventually you’ll be able to buy some scented candles, a relaxation CD, massage oil, a massage chair, a massage table, etc. You might buy a book on massage techniques or become a certified massage therapist. But initially all that matters is that you enjoy giving someone a back rub and hearing them moan with pleasure.
All of these factors work synergistically. If you keep at it, you’ll eventually get so much repeat business and so many referrals that you’ll absolutely have to raise your prices to keep up with the demand. Eventually you’ll be able to make a good living doing what you love.
Finally, when you get good enough, you can earn even more money teaching others to do the same.
Erin’s story
This is exactly what happened with Erin. A few years ago, she began doing psychic readings for people — just for free at first. The feedback was very positive, so she started offering her readings via her website. She didn’t earn a lot of money at first, but her prices were low for her skill level, so she was able to attract a steady stream of clients.
After doing readings for a while, Erin’s early clients began booking their second and third readings, and they also started referring their friends and family to her. Erin started getting more clients than she could handle, so her waiting list began to grow.
Eventually Erin began hearing complaints from clients who didn’t want to wait so long to get a reading, so she raised her prices to restore balance. This pattern kept repeating itself several more times… with further price increases dictated by supply and demand.
Two years ago a 30-minute phone reading with Erin was $55. Today a 30-minute phone reading with her is $295, and a 60-minute reading is $395. She keeps working to improve her skills, and she continues to get lots of repeat business and referrals. Erin is now earning five figures a month from her psychic readings with no end in sight.
When I first met Erin in 1994, she was working as a secretary for $9 per hour. Even then she was very psychic. She loved talking about her intuitive impressions, and she prided herself on being able to read people accurately. She used to take me to the Psychic Eye bookstore and explain various oddities to me. Occasionally we’d splurge on a 15-minute reading with one of the psychics, and she’d comment on it afterwards. At one point she took a retail sales job in a different metaphysical bookshop where there were psychics doing readings. More than a decade ago, she was surrounded by opportunities to get started on the path of doing her own readings, but she kept turning them down because she was still in her pajamas.
What recurring themes — what opportunities — keep resurfacing in your life… even as you repeatedly turn your back on them?
Say yes!
I think we’re often sent small opportunities to test our readiness. If we block those small opportunities, we’re broadcasting that we aren’t ready to receive the bigger ones yet.
Say yes to small opportunities to receive love money, and bigger ones will surely come your way.
Sometimes we get so wrapped up in what we’re already doing that we don’t allow ourselves to receive the golden opportunities that come to us. We don’t answer the knock because we’re too busy paying attention to what we already have… instead of noticing the arrival of exactly what we’ve been longing for.
Don’t make the mistake of intending what you want and then rejecting it when it arrives, especially if that first package is smaller and less exciting than you’d like. Prove to the universe that you’re willing to receive the small package with love and gratitude, and bigger opportunities will soon follow. If you fail to accept the small packages, you’re telling the universe you aren’t ready for the bigger ones.
That first dollar of love money is more important than you think. Don’t downplay its significance. Don’t tell it you’re too busy. Don’t slam the door when it asks to come inside. Treat that love dollar like royalty. Prove to it that you’ll be a good host for its thousands of friends.
What can you do within the next 24 hours to earn $1 from doing something you love? If you’re already doing work you love, how can you earn an extra dollar from doing something else you love but have never been paid for?
How can I earn an extra dollar from exercising? Hmmm…
One of the key models for goal achievement is that of cause and effect. This model says that your goal is an effect to be achieved, and your task is to identify and then create the cause that will produce the desired effect, thereby achieving your goal.
Sounds simple enough, right?
However, the main problem with this model is that nearly everyone seriously misunderstands it. And that misunderstanding comes from not knowing what a “cause” really is.
You might assume that the cause of an effect would be a series of physical and mental actions leading up to that effect. Action-reaction. If your goal is to make dinner, then you might think the cause would be the series of preparation steps.
To an outside observer, that certainly appears to be the case. The scientific method would suggest that this is how things work, based on a purely objective observation.
However, within your own consciousness, you know that the series of action steps is not the real cause. The actions are themselves an effect, aren’t they?
What’s the real cause? The real cause is the decision you made to create that effect in the first place. That’s the moment you said to yourself, “Let it be” or “make it so.” At some point you decided to make dinner. That decision may have been subconscious, but it was still a decision. Without that decision the dinner would never manifest. That decision ultimately caused the whole series of actions and finally the manifestation of your dinner.
Where does that decision arise from? It might arise from your subconscious, or in the case of conscious decisions, it arises from your consciousness. Ultimately your consciousness is the greater power, as it can override subconscious choices once it becomes aware of them.
Missing this very simple distinction has contributed to quite a number of failed goals.
If you want to achieve a goal you’ve set, the most crucial part is to DECIDE to manifest it. It doesn’t matter if you feel it’s outside your control to do so. It doesn’t matter if you can’t yet see how you’ll get from A to B. Most of those resources will come online AFTER you’ve made the decision, not before.
If you don’t understand this simple step, then you will waste a lot of time. Step 1 is to decide. Not to ruminate or to ponder or to ask around and see whether or not you can do it. If you want to start your own business, then decide to make it so. If you want to be married and have a family, then decide to attract a mate. If you want to change careers, then decide to do so.
It blows my mind that people think that something else has to come before the decision. People waste months trying to figure out, “Is this goal possible?” And this makes a lot of sense to do so if you’re at a certain level of consciousness. But all you’re really doing is creating delay, and you’ll simply manifest evidence to suggest that the goal is both possible and not possible. You think doubt in your head, you find doubt in the world.
Time and again I’ve seen evidence that not only people, but the universe itself, can sense a lack of commitment to a goal. Have you ever heard someone tell you about a goal of theirs, and you can just sense how wishy-washy and uncertain they are about it? They say things like, “Well, I’m going to try this and see how it goes. Hopefully it will work out OK.” Is that evidence that a clear decision has been made? Not remotely. Are you going to help this person? Probably not — who wants to waste their time on someone who isn’t committed?
But what happens when you sense total certainty in the other person? Will you help them if they ask for it? You’re far more likely to help a committed person because you can tell they’re eventually going to succeed anyway, and you want to be part of that success. You even feel more energized and motivated yourself to contribute to the success of people who are very clearly committed to a goal that resonates with you and which is genuinely for the greatest good of all.
Don’t you think this process works the same way within your own mind? If your consciousness is divided against itself, do you think it will commit all its internal resources to your goal? Will your subconscious give you all the energy and creativity it possibly could, or will it hold back? Think of your subconscious mind as a multi-tasking computer processor. What percentage of resources will it devote to a task that you’ve told it to execute with the words, “Run this for a little bit and see if it works, but quickly dump it if it seems too difficult”? Now what if you gave that CPU a process labeled, “Run this now”?
The universe itself works on the same principle. Think of it as the superconscious mind. When you’ve made a clear, committed decision, it will open the universal floodgates, bringing you all the resources you need, sometimes in seemingly mysterious or impossible ways.
Whenever you want to set a new goal for yourself, start by setting it. Take the time to become clear about what you want, but then just declare it.
Say to the universe, “Here is the goal. Make it so.”
Do not ask the universe for what you want. Declare it. Don’t ask. This is very similar to prayer, but you are not praying FOR what you want. You are praying WHAT you want. You are simply saying, “Here it is. Make it so.” It is like planting a seed in the ground. You do not say to the ground, “Here is the seed. Please, can you make it grow?” You simply plant the seed, and it will grow as a natural consequence of your planting and tending to it. It is the same with your intentions. Simply plant them. There’s no need to beg.
Intend that your goal manifest in such a manner that is for the greatest good of all. This is very important, as intentions that are created out of fear or a sense of lack will backfire. You may get what you want, but it will yield a bitter aftertaste. Or you may get the exact opposite of what you want. But intentions that are genuinely made for your own good and the greatest good of all will tend to manifest in a positive way.
After I declare my intention, I wait for the resources and synchronicities to arrive. Usually they begin to manifest in 24-48 hours, sometimes sooner. Sometimes these synchronicities appear to be the result of subconscious action. I just happen to notice things that may have been there all along, but now I see them in a new light, and they become resources for me that I never noticed until after I declared my intention. But many times it’s nearly impossible to explain such synchronicities as the result of my own subconscious action, even if I step back and try to look at them purely objectively. Sometimes they come in such unusual avalanches that I can only explain them as the result of superconscious action. On some level the universe itself is aware of my intention and is doing its part to help manifest it. I also find that the more inviting I am of these synchronicities, the more easily they flow. Right now I typically experience about 10 per week on average, and I think that’s because I have many different intentions in the process of manifesting, so there’s a constant flow of resources coming to me.
The mental and physical planning and action steps come later. That’s how I organize the resources that have arrived. Once enough resources have come to me, I can begin to see how they all fit together to achieve the goal. But if the path seems too complicated or difficult and I don’t like what I see, I put out some new intentions to make it the way I want it to be. I declare, “Let it be simpler.” I again wait for the synchronicities to arrive, and a simpler approach becomes clear. Usually for an approach to be simpler, it means I have to get past some personal block within me. I have to grow on some level in order to be able to take advantage of a simpler solution. Or perhaps I have to learn a new skill first. So while it might be simpler, it might also be harder on a personal level. For example, by putting out the intention to do more to help people, I had to develop my communication skills. That makes the goal easier to achieve, but it’s more work up front.
It took me a number of years to be able to trust this approach before I could begin to use it as my default manner of goal achievement. I have to be open to achieving goals in unusual ways sometimes. I get what I intend, but not always what I expect. So when the synchronicities begin dropping me clues, I do not always understand how they’ll be part of the path to the goal. But invariably there’s an intelligence at work, and if I trust it, it will work just fine. Usually it will bring me new information first, so I can raise my own awareness and knowledge to the level required to achieve the goal.
For example, if you declare your goal to become wealthier, within a few days you might see all sorts of synchronicities related to spirituality. They may seem to have nothing to do with wealth whatsoever. So you figure it’s just a coincidence, and the approach isn’t working. But the approach is sound, and it is working. Most likely it’s a signal that the path to wealth first requires you to improve your consciousness. This is especially true if your intention was for the highest good of all. If you become wealthy before your energy and consciousness have reached a certain level, then greater material wealth may only feed your problems — your goal cannot yet manifest for the greatest good of all. But if you first learn to use your energy and consciousness positively, then the greater resources that wealth provides you will be a positive manifestation instead of a negative one.
In truth this is a simple and direct process. But our minds are so cluttered with the flotsam and jetsam of social conditioning that we have a hard time thinking on this level. We get so attached to seeing our goals manifest a certain way because that’s how they manifest in TV shows or in movies. Or maybe that’s how our parents or friends did it. But this attachment to a particular “how” blocks us from allowing our goals to manifest far more easily. If we could loosen up a bit on the “how” and just learn to allow the manifestation to occur in its own perfect way, goal achievement would be far easier.
So often I see people sabotage their own goals because they do not understand the power of intention. Realize that EVERY thought is truly an intention. Every thought. So most people manifest a cluttered mish-mash of conflict in their lives because their thoughts are in conflict. They simultaneously set a goal and then unset it. “I want to start my own business.” “I wonder if it will work.” “I wonder if I’ll succeed.” “Maybe this won’t work.” “Maybe John is right, and this is a mistake.” “No, I’m pretty sure it will work just fine.”
If you are trying to achieve goals on the level of action-reaction, meaning that you’re purely focused on the action steps, while at the higher level of intention-manifestation, you’re putting out conflicting thoughts, then you’re sabotaging yourself. If you go on a diet and exercise like crazy, while all the while thinking, “I’m fat. This is hopeless. This is taking too long,” then your higher level intentions will override your actions, and negative or incongruent results will follow.
If you want to achieve a goal, you must clear out all the “hopefully” and “maybe” and “can’t” nonsense from your consciousness. You cannot allow yourself the luxury of a negative thought, and that is an intention to manifest what you don’t want. This takes practice of course, but it is the essential art of learning to use your consciousness to create what you want. When you are congruent in your thoughts, your goal will manifest with ease. But when you are incongruent in your thoughts, you will manifest conflict and obstacles. As within, so without.
Why is it you’re able to do this? Because you have that power. Not believing in yourself simply means you’re using your own power against yourself. You’re like a god saying, “Let me be powerless,” and you don’t even realize it. If you think/intend weakness, you manifest weakness. If you project your power outside yourself and onto the external world, you lose your power.
You don’t need anyone’s permission to do this. It is a natural human ability. But it takes practice to develop your consciousness to the level where you can apply it and especially to learn to trust it.
What happens if you decide to manifest a really, really big goal, one that seems physically impossible? The process will still work. It’s just that there will be a lot more steps, and you may be led through various synchronicities for years before you’ve reached the point where your ultimate goal can manifest. It might take longer than your human lifetime if the goal is so big. But you will certainly make progress if you use this approach.
So what is your goal? Say it out loud right now, and let it be for the greatest good of all. Then say to the universe, “Make it so.” Wait for the synchronicities and unusual coincidences to arrive. Follow them where they want to lead you, even if it seems strange at first. Allow your goal to manifest.
