Create Good Things

One of the most powerful ways of creating good things in your life with the Law of Attraction is to develop the ‘attitude of gratitude’. Unfortunately, gratitude seems to have become something of a forgotten secret among modern day Law of Attraction practitioners, so in this article we will outline exactly why gratitude is so important.

The idea that ‘what you focus on expands’ is commonplace in Law of Attraction teachings, and many people interpret this to mean that they should focus their attention on their ultimate goal. If you can do this with a feeling of having already achieved the goal then that is a perfectly workable approach, but sometimes it is the case that fixing your attention on the goal also makes you very aware that you have not yet achieved it. Focusing on the goal can therefore also ‘accidentally’ involve focusing on not having what you want, and of course that ‘not having’ condition can also expand in your life if you are not careful.

An alternative approach is to develop the habit of gratitude, and specifically, to develop the habit of being grateful for whatever you have in your life that the manifestation of the intended goal would increase. Since the goal itself has not yet been achieved in terms of the linear time track, your gratitude target should be the emotion that you expect to experience when the goal has been achieved, rather than the specifics of the goal.

For example, let us imagine that you are using Law of Attraction principles to attract more abundance into your life. In this case you need to identify what emotions having a greater level of abundance would give you – let us say for the sake of illustration that it would give you a sense of security, optimism and freedom. That being established, you should now develop the habit of being grateful for whatever level of security, optimism and freedom you already have in your life, however small.

As you form the habit of using gratitude to focus on the emotions that you associate with your goal, what you focus on will, according to the Law of Attraction, expand. You will therefore find that the conditions of your life will naturally change to give you even more security, even more optimism and an even greater sense of freedom.

The expansion of what you focus on through gratitude could come via the straightforward manifestation of your goal, or it could come via another route that you haven’t even considered before, but your focus will certainly expand.

This is why it is rarely a good idea to be too specific about how you want a desired condition to manifest itself. You may think that more abundance automatically means that you have to get more money, but it could just as easily come into your life in the form of a gift or windfall. For example, you could win a new house in a competition and have security handed to you directly along with a reduction in your monthly living expenses (no more mortgage or rent payments). If you had been focusing exclusively on abundance manifesting as cash, you could easily have missed out on this non-financial way of experiencing your desire.

To summarise, developing the habit of gratitude is something that all Law of Attraction practitioners should do. Take your focus off your problems, worries and concerns and instead put it squarely on the conditions in your life that you want to expand. Be grateful for whatever measure of those conditions you already experience, and trust that the universe will expand them without you having to force the issue. Do this and we think that you will be very impressed with how things progress.

Talismans and amulets have played a significant role in helping individuals to live more successfully over the last several hundred years, but do they still have a place in the lives of those of us who work with the Law of Attraction? The short answer is yes, but the form which our talismans and amulets might take will usually be quite different from the forms used earlier in history.

Both talismans and amulets can be defined as objects which were viewed as being endowed with a magical quality of some kind. In general terms, talismans were carried or worn on the person in an effort to attract a certain quality of condition (for example, good luck or greater financial success) whilst amulets were mostly carried or worn to provide protection against negative forces such as bad luck.

In previous centuries, where the belief in ritual and personal deities was much more common than it is today, talismans and amulets often featured ritual symbols and/or depictions of a deity (or several deities) associated with the intended use of the object. As such beliefs dwindled, so did the use of talismans and amulets, and where their use continued, the design of talismans and amulets changed to better suit the new understanding of how the universe worked.

There is much anecdotal evidence that talismans and amulets were effective in helping those who used them to live better lives. Talismans of health often gave their users a much-needed energy boost, and talismans of luck and wealth really did seem to make their owners luckier and wealthier. In ages past, it was thought that this was due to the external forces depicted on the talismans and amulets favouring the owner, but when we look at the subject with our modern understanding of the Law of Attraction and how the universe works, it is easy to see that talismans and amulets worked in a much more practical way.

In brief, people believed in the power of talismans and amulets. As any regular reader of Create Good Things will be aware, the power of belief is the force which changes our lives from the inside out (see The Magic of Believing). If we believe that we are getting stronger, wealthier, luckier or more attractive then those are the qualities that we will attract into our lives. Whether we believe in our own intrinsic power as spiritual beings or we put our faith in a symbolic object, it is the belief itself which brings about change.

This does not mean that those of us with a modern understanding of the Law of Attraction cannot gain benefit from using talismans and amulets. There is definitely value in carrying a physical symbol of a desired condition or quality on our person at all times, as every time we see that symbol – directly or peripherally – the subconscious mind will automatically begin to dwell on the associated condition, and that in turn will help to speed the manifestation of that condition or quality in our lives.

The good news is that virtually any small object can be used as a talisman or amulet – the important thing is to associate your chosen object with the end result that you want to achieve. For example, you could obtain a key fob and view it as a talisman which will help you to grow healthier and stronger, or you could obtain an unusual coin and view it as something that will help you attract greater wealth and success into your life. If you are so inclined you could even make a talismanic object of your own by inscribing a personal symbol onto a metal disc (blank medals or dog tags are useful for this).

Whatever object you choose as your personal talisman or amulet, be sure to keep it on your person at all times – on a chain around your neck, or in your purse, wallet or pocket. That will ensure that you encounter the symbol several times a day and keep your subconscious mind working with the Law of Attraction to manifest your goal.

Why is it that some people get better results more consistently with Law of Attraction principles than others? Even in cases where one gives several people of equal ability the exact same principle to use in their lives, the results that each participant gets will often be very different. In these cases it obviously isn’t the principle at fault or all of the participants would find it ineffective. And it can’t be the ability of the individuals at fault because we have said that results vary even where everyone involved is at the same ability level. So what is it that causes the varying results in such cases? We believe that it is something we call the Progressive Action Factor.

In any endeavour in life, the best way to get reliable and consistent results is to master something small and then progressively expand the sphere of action as your skills, confidence and application grows.

For example, if you wanted to be a world class cello player but you had never played before in your life you wouldn’t start out by booking a concert hall where you could perform. Instead you would learn technique and practice scales, then move onto the simplest of tunes before gradually progressing to more challenging material. By focusing on the smallest, most immediately relevant action and taking it, your skills would increase in the most efficient way possible. And yes, one day you could well be good enough to perform in a concert hall.

Unfortunately, many people who learn and use Law of Attraction principles completely ignore this Progressive Action Factor. Instead of starting out small – by learning how to manifest a parking space or improve a sometimes patchy relationship, for example – they set out to manifest a lottery jackpot or the starring role in a Hollywood blockbuster. Yes, those things are sometimes possibilities (the actor Jim Carrey used the Law of Attraction to make his first $20 million in Hollywood and there are people who claim to have won lottery jackpots with Law of Attraction technique) but unless you have developed mastery in the small things first and progressed gradually to the more ambitious desires, you aren’t likely to fare any better than an over-ambitious cello student booking a concert hall appearance on Day 1.

To make sure that you are taking the Progressive Action Factor into consideration, we advise all Law of Attraction students to follow a handful of simple rules:

1 – View your journey through life as if you were on a stairway to heaven, and take just one step at a time. Start where you are and focus on the most immediate task possible, and don’t try taking the next step until you have developed mastery in your current situation. For example, if you want to achieve the body of your dreams but you are currently a couch potato and habitually eat junk foods, focus on moving around more and adopting a healthier diet to increase your energy levels and improve your health and fitness.

2 – Be sure to make every mundane effort possible as well as employing Law of Attraction principles. Exercising more and eating healthier foods are mundane activities (or a form of lesser magick as you will recall from our discussion about The Accidental Magickian) but they are necessary to achieve success. By all means visualize having a healthier body and use other Law of Attraction principles, but don’t expect them to work without you putting in at least some mundane effort along the way. The universe helps those who demonstrate a willingness to help themselves.

3 – Be patient. Although taking the Progressive Action Factor into consideration makes development appear quite slow, over the long term it is always more effective – and faster – than trying to run before you can walk.

Adhere to these three simple rules and you should start noticing an improvement in the results you get in life almost immediately. But don’t take our word for this – give these rules a fair trial and you will soon see for yourself!

Most people think of magick as a rather niche subject which should be of interest to no more than a minority of the population, but when one understands the definition of the word magick it becomes clear that this is not the case at all. Aleister Crowley famously defined magick as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity of the Will”, and if we think about the subject in this way then it is something we should all be studying in order to become more effective at using it.

Regardless of personal beliefs, all human beings are in the business of trying to make their lives as good as they can be. In other words, we are all trying to bring about change in accordance with our will. We work hard to try and get a promotion, dress smartly to attract members of the opposite sex, take on home improvement projects to make our environment more comfortable, and so on. None of these things appear to have anything to do with anything metaphysical, but they are all examples of magick in action. In the examples given it is lesser magick (also known as mundane magick) that is being used, but it is a type of magick nevertheless.

What this means is that everyone who tries to improve their lives in some way is practicing a form of magick, and even the person who doesn’t ‘believe’ in anything metaphysical could be described as an accidental magickian.

Since we are all using magick whether we realise it or not, it makes sense to acknowledge that fact and to then shift from being an ‘accidental magickian’ to being a ‘purposeful magickian’, and we can do that in three simple ways:

1 – Study Magickal Systems
There are numerous magickal systems that we can study and all of them can teach us something, so we should follow our instincts and start with whatever magickal system feels right. Maybe you are drawn to the writings of Aleister Crowley, to the Chaos Magick works of Phil Hine or to Daniel Keaton’s immensely practical Magickal Creation course that we have discussed elsewhere (see our Magickal Creation excerpt). Whatever the case, make a point of studying your chosen system for at least a short period of time each day.

2 – Recognise Accidental Magick
Your regular study of magickal writings will help to make you more aware of how you are ‘accidentally’ using magick in your life right now. For example, you might suddenly realise that you are doing things which project a certain type of energy out into the universe which brings about certain results, positive or negative. You might also realise that the attitude you have about life is itself a magickal tool which you are using, for better or worse. If you are fortunate then you will find that you are currently using magick in a way that really is helpful to you, but some people find that they are accidentally using magick in a way which hinders them – such as by having more cynicism than optimism, for example. In this case your awareness will allow you to get your magick back on track so that your Will – and not your fears – is always in the driving seat.

3 – Use Magick Intentionally
The final way to shift from being an accidental magickian to a purposeful one is to start using magickal intentionally. This is a matter of taking the magickal system that you are studying and using it in a deliberate and purposeful way. Start viewing yourself and acting like the powerful magickian that you have the potential to be. Recognise the power that you have allowed to remain dormant with you and release it to create the kind of life that you have always wanted. When you start to live your life with that kind of attitude – as a creator who chooses to make things happen – it will be as if you have just flipped a switch in your life and you will start achieving the kind of results that most people only ever dream about.