You are what You Think.

Exploring how thoughts become things.

Have you ever read a self-help book which tells you to affirm your goals or to visualize? What do they mean by the subconscious mind and the law of attraction? Many of you may have heard of a book called The Secret, it is a book that introduces this idea of the law of attraction, it sounds so fantastical, the idea of driving your dream car by thinking hard about it, or landing that dream job by using the power of your subconscious mind.

I am not trying to be negative, but this idea does get a bad reputation from a lot of people, today, we are going to explore how this works.

What the law isn’t.

The law is not really about your thoughts, it is a lot more meaningful than that, it consists of three parts:

1. Thoughts.
2. Feelings.
3. Beliefs.

These three parts add up to create a whole system known as vibration. You will attract the things will mirror your dominant beliefs, which are backed by your feelings, which start from your thoughts.

So this means that only thinking about owning a Ferrari won’t bring you a Ferrari. If you don’t have any emotion towards a Ferrari, if you only think of it as an engine and four wheels, you will not manifest it. If you believe that petrol is expensive and a Ferrari has low mileage, making it a pointless car, you will not be able to “manifest” a Ferrari.

Intending to manifest a Ferrari is not the whole process, it is just the start.

Affirmations and Visualizing are just Tools.

In the book, The Secret, they tell you to affirm and to have a vision board, in Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill writes about reading your goals before you sleep and after you wake up.

These tools are important, I like to read my goals, it has been proven that by writing your goals down, your chances of success increase by 42%, which is incredible.

Tools help you cultivate thoughts that are in harmony with what you want, for example, a Ferrari 458 convertible. Merely saying that you own a Ferrari will not get you one, another important point is that if you do not feel good about your desire, don’t use these tools.

It isn’t about being Positive 24/7.

This one might shock you, but you can’t be smiley all the time, you have to face those negative emotions, you have to feel your negative emotions and work on changing them, happiness and positivity are just parts of your emotional system, to only focus on them would be too unbalanced.

You have to be honest about your limiting beliefs, you have to confront them and then let go of them, only then will you start to manifest.

Emotions provide valuable feedback about your mental state, learn to harness this to make changes in your mental health. It is ok, not to be ok, that is how we grow.

Here is how it works.

The second thoughts start to become things is when you start to take action, your mind gives you a blueprint or a map to your goal, it is up to you if you want to follow that path or not.

Let us say that you want to go to the gym, you start thinking about the gym and your mind redirects you to images in your head about the benefits of doing exercise. It floods your brain with photos of fit people who are happy and vital, your conscious mind may start to resist, it may say that it has an appointment, or that you are not that fat, it is just the T-shirt. This back and forth rally will continue up until your conscious mind agrees to go to the gym.

You start going to the gym, you like it, you go consistently for a month and you realise that you are starting to look like those people in your head, don’t stop there, keep going, then you go for a couple of months and then a year, and at the end of the year you look like a fit, healthy and happy person.

Your thoughts become things when you start to take action, this is not wishful thinking, it is common sense.

You see when we want something, we think about a lot and our unconscious mind works on ways to gain that desire. I had desired to get into a good school and I got in very quickly, the interview was a breeze and now I am preparing to go there, I also desire to become financially independent and that will take six months, the point is, the time may vary, but if you want something bad enough and you work towards it every day, you will eventually get there.

Tony Robbins gives us this idea of pain and pleasure. If we want to avoid an activity that will give us short term pain and long term pleasure, we find a way to block out the thoughts of doing that activity.

You may not control when you manifest your desire, but you can control what you choose to do with your desires and ultimately the thoughts in your head. You have the choice of showing up every day, you also have the choice of being lazy.

To conclude, here are the takeaways from today’s article:

1. The law is not only about your thoughts, but it is also about your dominant beliefs and feelings.
2. Affirmations and visualisations are just tools, by themselves, they are not strong enough to manifest.
3. You have to confront and change your limiting beliefs, it is not all about being positive and suppressing negative emotions.
4. Emotions provide valuable feedback, they are necessary to improve.
5. Thoughts become things when you start taking action.
6. Control may be an illusion, but the ability to choose is not, you have the power to choose long term happiness for the trade-off of short term pain.