It’s No Secret That You Can’t Attract Everything You Want
But here's what you CAN do to make it more likely you'll get what you want
The Secret is a 2006 book by Rhonda Byrne that claims to reveal the secret to getting anything you want.
So what’s the secret? It’s called the “law of attraction.” Supposedly, whatever you think about you attract into your life. Everything you experience is determined by your thoughts.
According to the book, the most successful people throughout history have known and used the law of attraction. That’s how they became wealthy or accomplished remarkable things, and you can, too! The only reason you haven’t yet is that you spend too much time thinking about what you don’t want in your life, so you attract those things instead.
The law of attraction is bullshit, as you’ve probably already discovered. Of course our mindset matters, but other factors beyond our control also influence what happens.
Proof That the Law of Attraction Doesn’t Work
Have you ever worried about something you expected to happen that didn’t? I certainly have. For instance, before my husband and I moved out of our last apartment, I was convinced we would have to pay hundreds of dollars in damages.
I read the fine print of our lease, which listed damage fees for things like missing slats on the window blinds and stains on the caulking around the sinks. I constantly thought about how much we would owe and what would happen when we couldn’t pay it. The final move-out inspection went well and we weren’t charged any damage fees at all!
If the law of attraction were true, we would have owed a fortune in damages. My thoughts would have attracted and caused that result.
My experience is not a rare exception to the law of attraction, either. Psychology Today summarized the results of one research study:
A whopping 91 percent of worries were false alarms. And of the remaining 9 percent of worries that did come true, the outcome was better than expected about a third of the time. For about one in four participants, exactly zero of their worries materialized.
Just because we think something bad will happen doesn’t mean it will.
What if we focus our attention on what we do want, though? If we think about it often enough, can we attract wealth or anything else we desire? The law of attraction says we not only can, we will. Reality proves otherwise.
Here’s an example from my life. My husband and I had planned to visit Australia to celebrate our 30th anniversary in 2021. We were so excited about the trip that we contacted a travel agent there more than a year in advance and started to work out the details. We researched our options and decided where we wanted to stay and what we wanted to do.
We paid the initial deposit and set money aside each month to fund that dream vacation. We couldn’t wait to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef and envisioned how wonderful our trip would be.
Then a global pandemic canceled that dream vacation. We never once thought that could happen!
You can probably think of at least one example from your life, too. You expected something good to happen, planned for it, and took the steps you believed would lead to that result. Despite your best efforts, what you thought would happen did not.
The Law of Attraction Isn’t Just False, It’s Harmful
The law of attraction is harmful for at least two reasons. First, it blames the victims of terrible tragedies, violence, and discrimination for their fate. It denies the reality that other factors we cannot control also determine what happens to us.
According to the law of attraction, if a hurricane, tornado, fire, or flood destroys your home, it’s because you thought something bad was going to happen. If a school shooter murders your child, it’s your fault because you worried that could happen and therefore attracted it.
Your thoughts, not the fact that the company goes out of business, is sold, or has owners who eliminate your position to save money, are the reason you lose your job. You aren’t convicted of a crime you didn’t commit because others are racist. You don't get assaulted or receive death threats because of someone else’s religious or political beliefs. According to the law of attraction, all of those things happen solely because you think they might. Your thoughts are the magnet that attracts them.
I never thought I would lose my job. My friend who has cancer never thought she might get it. A relative whose 16-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver never thought that would happen. We were all shocked when we were told. We were blindsided by events we never saw coming.
The other reason the law of attraction is so dangerous is that it gives people false hope. They wrongly believe that as long as they think about what they want to attract, fully believe they will get it, and take the right actions, whatever they want is guaranteed to happen.
Then they are devastated when that illusion of total control over every aspect of their lives is shattered by something they never thought could happen. A global pandemic, the sudden death of a loved one, a job loss, or some other unexpected and devastating event leaves them feeling powerless and hopeless.
The law of attraction is a cruel lie, but it is a popular one. Who doesn’t want to believe that they can have anything they want if they just think the right thoughts? Authors, coaches, and retreat leaders know that if they promise to teach people how to do that, they will attract wealth to themselves, even though they can’t deliver the results they promise.
What is True and Can Help You Get What You Want
Your mindset is not the only factor that determines your fate. I chose the title image of a goldfish wearing a shark fin to illustrate that truth.
The goldfish can think it’s a shark and do its best to look and act like a shark. None of that will give it the size, strength, or teeth of a shark. The goldfish may believe it’s a shark, but its predators know it’s not and will still eat it.
Mindset is not everything, no matter how many self-help gurus claim otherwise. Other factors can stop you from achieving your goals. However, mindset is incredibly important. If you think you cannot do something, it’s highly unlikely that you will do it. You probably won’t even try. If you do attempt it, but don’t succeed at first, you’ll almost certainly give up.
On the other hand, if you believe you can do something, you’re far more likely to achieve that goal. You’ll be more motivated to keep trying if it’s harder or takes longer than you expected. You’ll find experts to teach you how they did it. You’ll read books or watch videos that explain how to do it.
Even if something has never been done before, if you think you can do it you won’t give up until you either succeed or are satisfied that you’ve given it your best shot.
The Wright Brothers are famous because they achieved something no one else had. On December 17, 1903, they flew a powered aircraft.
It took years to reach that goal. They began experimenting in 1899 and flew gliders more than 1,000 times before attempting their first powered flight. They designed their own lightweight engine and efficient propeller. Their first attempt, three days before the successful flight, failed. You can read more details about their efforts and the results here.
If the Wright Brothers had listened to the experts who claimed it couldn’t be done, they never would have flown that aircraft. English Scientist Lord Kelvin, for instance, said, “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” At least two other experts agreed:
The demonstration that no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which man shall fly long distances through the air, seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration of any physical fact to be. — Astronomer Simon Newcomb, 1901
In 1903, the U.S. War Department’s final report on Professor Samuel Langley’s attempts to build an airplane stated,
We are still far from the ultimate goal, and it would seem as if years of constant work and study by experts, together with the expenditure of thousands of dollars, would still be necessary before we can hope to produce an apparatus of practical utility on these lines.
(Source for all three quotes: NASA’s website)
There’s more to mindset than just believing you can do something, though. You also need a strong motivation to do it. You have to be willing to sacrifice other things to have the time and energy necessary to achieve your goal.
For example, I know I can clean the toilet, but I rarely do. I don’t enjoy that task or consider it important enough to give up something else I’d rather do so I’ll have time to clean the toilet.
What do you want to achieve or have in your life? What do you need to do to make that more likely to happen? Which activities in your life now are you willing to eliminate (or spend less time on) to make room for the activities that could help you get what you want?
You can’t magically attract anything you want into your life if all you do is think about it. You have to take actions likely to make that thought a reality. Even then, there is no guarantee you’ll get what you want.
That truth is not as popular as the lie that you have complete control over everything that happens to you. The idea that you can attract or manifest whatever you want (and ward off anything you don’t want) is far more appealing.
When you accept the truth that you won’t always get what you want, though, you can do everything possible to achieve your goals without blaming yourself if you don’t achieve them. You realize that there are factors you can’t control and stop frantically trying to force the results you want.
You learn to relax and go with the flow when unexpected events require a change of plans. Ultimately, accepting reality is a much healthier way to live than believing the lie that you can attract anything you think about.
What action will you take to make it more likely you’ll get what you want?