Quick Takes:
Have you ever read the book The Law of Attraction? Maybe seen the movie? If not, the Law of Attraction is the term given to the principle that “like attracts like”, and by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results.
At it’s core, the Law of Attraction makes sense. I’m a firm believer that what you put out into the world comes back to you ten fold. But, if you’ve read the book or have seen the movie, you know that the Law of Attraction is portrayed as some mystical power, and that if you think positive, you will achieve all the good things in life you want.
It’s likened to thinking positive and then finding 100 dollars on the ground. Or visualizing a car you want and then someone throwing you the keys and saying, “hey, I think you deserve this, go for it!"
In this regard, the Law of Attraction makes no sense. Sorry, but positive thinking alone will not make you successful. It will, however, give you a base to take positive action, which, over time, will present opportunities to you that you can take advantage of.
It’s not the positive thinking that attracts success. It’s positive thinking that causes you to take positive action that opens up positive opportunities, that, if taken, give you positive results. If you continuously envision a new car, it’s not that it will present itself to you, it’s that you’ll take that focus and come up with a plan, and then systematically take actionable steps to attain your goal of a new car.
Where your focus goes, so too goes your actions. That’s what the Law of Attraction means.
In this sense, it’s not so much the Law of Attraction that should interest you, but instead the Law of Scarcity and Abundance.
The Law of Scarcity and Abundance, which has been championed Andy Drish of The Foundation as well as Owen from Real Social Dynamics, is as follows:
When you are first starting out in moving toward a goal, you’re in scarcity. You have minimal opportunities, and you’re looking for something, anything, to push you in the direction of your goal. As you remain focused on your end-goal, and begin to take action, you pick up momentum as you get closer and closer.
Then, once you attain your goal, you move from scarcity to abundance. Through the positive action you took, and the confidence and self-awareness gained by your first success, you begin to attract more opportunities. It’s as if before you had zero opportunity, and now you have too many opportunities.
Through the confidence and positivity gained in abundance, you communicate to the world that you are deserving of more, and people will believe it and act accordingly.
So, how do you push through scarcity and gain the life-long benefits of abundance?
No matter what you’re trying to start, whether it be a new business or gain new social skills, you’ll start off in scarcity. Your understanding of what it takes to succeed will be limited by your lack of experience, and you’ll be too focused on success, causing you to be too eager.
Traits of a Scarcity Mindset:
1. Lack of experience and knowledge
2. Lack of available opportunities
3. Overeagerness
4. Belief that you are a victim of circumstance
If any of these traits describe you, don’t worry, everyone starts in scarcity. Your lack of experience causes a lack of opportunities, which causes you to be overeager in situations when you can sense an opportunity, which causes you to over pursue and fail, which causes you to believe you are a victim, and that nothing is your fault.
Blah! That sucked even writing it; brings back a lot of memories (both past and present!).
This is where the Law of Scarcity and Abundance veers from the Law of Attraction. With the Law of Attraction, you just have to keep thinking positive and the world will bend itself to you. I don’t agree with this.
To break through scarcity, you don’t want to focus on attraction, you need to focus on abundance.
Abundance is the key to success. Stated earlier, whether you are looking for a significant other or looking for a lucrative business venture, the world can tell when you’re in abundance. And once you are, it will bend itself to you.
The reasoning behind this is that through abundance you sub-communicate your confidence. When people sense that you are a centered, positive, and confident person, they will be drawn to help you, and you to them. But to achieve this, you need confidence through a mindset of abundance.
Traits of an Abundance Mindset:
1. Good natured attitude
2. Quiet confidence that allows opportunity to present itself, rather than you frantically looking for opportunity
3. Strict set of values which keeps you centered, regardless of the situation
4. Belief that you always provide value, and if people disregard your value, it’s only their loss
5. Focus on the journey, and the knowledge that your journey will end in the full realization of your potential
Ah! That felt really good to write.
If Abundance is the key to success, than a movement from scarcity to abundance is the ultimate key.
But how can we break through a mindset of scarcity? It seems like scarcity causes a perpetual loop, where your lack of experience and knowledge ends with you feeling like a victim, which furthers your lack of experience and knowledge.
True, but not always so. Identifying your scarcity mindset is the first step to overcoming it. Do any of the 4 scarcity traits describe you? If so, you’re stuck - at least partially - in scarcity.
To break the cycle, the first step is to have experiences in the arena in which your goal resides. If it’s starting a company, start working on one! Start a blog, a consulting business, a lemonade stand, anything really. If you want to find a loving partner, go out and meet people! Work on your social skills by putting yourself in situations where you need to think on your feet.
Trust me, you’ll suck at first.
But through these experiences you’ll start to gain specific reference experiences that add to your situational knowledge. If you start a lemonade stand, you’ll start to see how producers and suppliers squeeze your margins (no pun intended). If you commit yourself to meeting strangers at bars, you’ll begin to learn how to approach people without putting them off.
You learn how to act in certain situations, which makes you more confident, which will result in people receiving you more positively, which will lead to more opportunities, which will lead to a good natured attitude. People will sense this, and will treat you favorably, which will increase your confidence, which will lead to even more opportunities, and so-on-and-so-forth.
Through more confidence, you become more assured of your values, your value, and your potential. Before you know it, you’ve entered a mindset of abundance.
If, and only if, you reach a mindset of abundance does the Law of Attraction actually work. But we know that it’s not attraction at work, it’s abundance.
---
The ultimate takeaway? Be confident in yourself! Go out and have experiences that will move you toward your goal! Your success will never be greater than your self worth. Make sure that your self worth is infinity, so your success has no choice but to follow.
Check out my recent newsletters on the topic
