For the last couple of decades, there’s been all kinds of chatter about the movie The Secret and the Law of Attraction. Do a quick Google search, and you’ll find posts and articles like:

  • Learn the Law of Attraction in 5 Easy Steps!
  • How to Manifest What You Want Using the Law of Attraction
  • Unlocking the Secret: How the Law of Attraction Works

Both the Law of Attraction and The Secret are based on the principle that you can get everything you want by simply:

  1. Asking for it.
  2. Visualizing it.
  3. Believing you can have it.

Those are great principles, and all three are keys to achieving any goal you have. That said, The Secret and the Law of Attraction both miss the most important part… Do the work. Asking, visualizing, and believing is only the beginning. How you think is the foundation of everything, but you need to do your part to achieve anything in life. When thoughts meet action, that’s when amazing things happen. 

The First Three Steps

For those of you who have spent any time around me or have followed me here, you know my faith is extremely important to me. Steps one and three, Asking and Believing, align well with who I am.

Asking is a Biblical principle that the Word is very clear on… 

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. – Matthew 7:7-8

As well, the concept of belief, or having faith that transcends what you can see in front of you, is another foundational Biblical concept…

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. – Hebrews 11:1

The challenge we all face is this… these verses are easy to take out of context, and they are often hijacked. Our relationship with God does not make Him a cosmic vending machine. Asking and believing is a core part of our relationship with Him – they wouldn’t be included in scripture if they weren’t. At the same time, doing those two things doesn’t mean our lives will be free of challenges and health struggles, or that financial wealth will fall from the sky. That is never promised. What the Word does promise is that God will give us everything we need to walk through our challenges and struggles, and that He will meet all of our needs along the way.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. – James 1:2-4

That’s my take on how faith relates to the Law of Attraction. Asking and believe are foundational concepts. Now, let’s shift gears back to step two, visualizing what we want…

Elite athletes have been using visualization for decades to reach peak performance. NBA superstar Michael Jordan spent time visualizing himself making shots before big games. Hall of Fame NFL receiver Jerry Rice has described how he played tapes in his head of himself making catches and moving past defenders. Olympic gold medal skier Lindsay Vonn visualizes all her runs, turn-by-turn, before every race. Following their examples, achieving our goals needs to include visualization. We need to imagine and see in our minds how we’ll do the work and what it will feel like to achieve what we want, which leads me to what’s missing in The Secret and the Law of Attraction…

What’s missing is the work.

We need to do the work!

If all we’re going to do is ask, visualize, and believe, we will spend the rest of your life sitting on the sidelines, wondering why we never reached our goals. By not spending time on our need to do the work, The Secret and the Law of Attraction have become popular. “Think it and be it” removes any accountability or the need to get our hands dirty. They’re safe, and they’re easy. Unfortunately, they’re also spreading the myth that reaching our goals will be comfortable, easy, and pain-free, when the reality is that achieving what we want will require us to step into the uncomfortable, do hard things, and stretch ourselves.

Let’s use the example of becoming physically fit. We can and should ask, visualize, and believe. That said, unless we show up in the gym, go out for a run, or do the work, we won’t get fit. Reaching that goal requires us to move our bodies, adjust our nutrition, and potentially get up early to make it happen. Asking, visualizing, and believing aren’t enough to create the transformations we want. We need to break a sweat and change some patterns in our lives. We need to do the work.

As you move into the coming year, here’s the real secret we all need to hear…

    1. Ask
    2. Visualize
    3. Believe
    4. Do the Work

To get what you want, you need to do all four, not just the first three. Doing the work, the part that sometimes sucks, is where the real secret lies.

Ready for more?

Follow me here for more insights just like this one as you begin working on your goals! You can also listen in to my Grit Meets Growth podcast here or on your favorite podcast platforms. Episodes are also available on YouTube.