The Law of Attraction states that our lives are a result of the things we think about. But how much control do we really have over our lives? If we are all in complete control of our lives, then the Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp was also in complete control of his life, right? So is the Law of Attraction saying that his suffering was his own fault? How does the Law of Attraction explain tragic events such as The Holocaust? Let’s start by asking two of the leading experts on the Law of Attraction-

The Secret’s Answer- It’s All Their Fault

Rhonda Byrne (author of The Secret) explains tragedy and human suffering as “thought frequency being on the same frequency as the event”:

Often [people] recall events in history where masses of lives were lost, and they find it incomprehensible that so many people could have attracted themselves to the event. By the law of attraction, they had to be on the same frequency as the event. It doesn’t necessarily mean they thought of that exact event, but the frequency of their thoughts matched the frequency of the event. If people believe they can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they have no control over outside circumstances, those thoughts of fear, separation, and powerlessness, if persistent, can attract them to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

According to Byrne’s view of the Law of Attraction, people facing tragedy, on some level, willed their own suffering.

Steve Pavlina’s Answer- It’s All Your Fault

Steve Pavlina explains that subjective reality answers our question about tragedy/suffering and the Law of Attraction. Subjective reality is the belief that 1) there is only one consciousness, 2) you are that consciousness, and 3) everything and everyone in your reality is a projection of your thoughts.

According to Pavlina’s view of the Law of Attraction, people are facing tragedy, on some level, because you willed their suffering. The more you think about tragedy, the more you’ll see it expand in your subjective reality.

Could the Experts be Wrong?

Neither answer seems correct- both are still basically saying “If a tsunami kills thousands of victims, it’s either your fault or the fault of the victims.” Both answers perpetuate a blame-the-victim or blame-yourself mentality, and make people feel responsible for events outside of their control. Let’s take a closer look at the case for and against the idea that we each have complete control over our lives.

The Case Against Complete Control: Shit Happens

In the words of J.H. Holmes, “The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent.” Natural and man-made disasters happen all the time. Fires. Tornadoes. Floods. Diseases. Murders. Wars. These are tragedies of which we often have little control over. While it is important to do as much as we can to prevent these tragedies from occurring, we shouldn’t expect that our efforts to change external conditions will immediately improve our lives.

Footage from the December 26, 2004 Sumatran Tsunami:

The Case For Complete Control: Our Thoughts Do Impact Our Health, Lifespan, and Success

Research has shown us that positive thinking works. Dr. Martin Seligman, the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, and author of Learned Optimism, has studied optimists and pessimists for 25 years. His research has found that positive-thinking optimists:

• Get better results than pessimists in most areas of life
• Live longer
• Are healthier
• Do better at work and in school
• Have fewer depressions
• Have more friends and better social lives

By contrast, negative-thinking pessimists:

• Thinking style leaves vulnerable to depression
• Produces inertia rather than activity in the face of setbacks
• Feels bad subjectively–blue, down worried, anxious
• Self-fulfilling; pessimists don’t persist in the face of challenges and thus fail more frequently (even when success is attainable)
• Is associated with poor physical health
• Even when pessimists turn out to be right, they still feel worse than the deluded optimists

Compromise: We Don’t Have Complete Control Over Outside Events, but We Do Have Control of Our Inner Experience of Those Events

After looking at the evidence for and against complete control of our lives, a compromise is what provides us with the right answer. You don’t have complete control over outside events, but you do have control of how you experience those events. For example, you cannot choose whether or not you get in a car accident. But if you get in a car accident, and are injured, you can choose how to respond to that injury.

Victor Frankl, holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, explains:

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you respond to a situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.

So you can’t choose for a negative or positive situation to happen to you- but you can choose how to respond to the situations which you are given in life.

Changing Our Mindset about The Law of Attraction

The current Law of Attraction mindset promotes a blame-the-victim mentality, and makes people mistakenly believe they are responsibility for events that are out of their control. If we are to continue to experiment with and tell others about The Law of Attraction, we first need re-define it:

The Old Law of Attraction: Our lives are a result of the things we think about.

The New Law of Attraction: Our responses to life are a result of the things we think about.

Sure, the idea of having complete control of our lives gives us a sense of security, as we are led to believe that we are able to exert control over the great forces of the universe. But is that sense of security not a false one?

Help Popularize The New Law of Attraction

The Law of Attraction helps us visualize our responses to life. It helps enable positive thinking and personal growth. But the current popular thinking about it is wrong. If you are in agreement that it is time to change our mindset about The Law of Attraction, and would like to tell others, please use the Share This button below. If you have a blog, please share this post with your readers.

photo credit: Mädchen aus Ostberlin, grave-digger

You must daily have the courage to risk making mistakes, risk failure, risk being humiliated. A step in the wrong direction is better than staying “on the spot” all your life.

-Maxwell Maltz

There are some activities and jobs in which people must fail every day in order to succeed. Think of the insurance salesman who is turned down 9 times in a row, just to have one success. Or the skateboarder who must fail at performing a new trick many times before he is able to perform it successfully one time. We can learn a lot from these extreme failing individuals- they seem to view failure as a temporary setback, or a learning experience.

Learning from Extreme Failing: Skateboarders

As a high school student, I loved skateboarding. The nature of skateboarding involves a lot of failing- my skater friends allowed themselves to fail much more often than I did, and in doing so, they became great. I’ve pulled together some footage from my high school skateboarding days to give you a visual of extreme failing:

What if a skateboarder fell one too many times, and thought of his failure as a defeat, wallowing in its permanence and pervasiveness? What if he decided he wouldn’t try the same trick again, for months? I can tell you that he wouldn’t get very far in skateboarding with that mindset. To be successful at skateboarding, you must pick yourself up after a failure and immediately start trying again. You must look at a failure as a challenge, or a temporary setback to achieving your goal.

The Extreme Failing Mindset Can be Applied to Any Type of Setback

The extreme failing mindset isn’t just for insurance salesmen and skateboarders- it can help anyone overcome a setback in their life. One example would be if you recently broke up with someone- If you tell yourself “This is only temporary, I will find someone else”, you will be on your way to a fast recovery. But if tell yourself “This person meant everything to me, I’ll never find someone else like them”, you are setting yourself up for depression and pain.

Similarly, if you recently lost your job, and explain it to yourself as “I lost my job because I am lazy and incompetent- no other employer will want to hire me”, you most likely won’t recover and get a new job for a while- the negative mindset will be self-fulfilling. By contrast, if you tell yourself “The economy is not doing well right now so my employer had to make some cutbacks- I tried my best, and now I will find a new job even better than the last”, you will be on your way to finding a great new job.

Three Dimensions of Explaining Setbacks to Yourself

Based on years of research from psychologist Martin Seligman (explained in his book Learned Optimism), there are three dimensions of explaining setbacks to yourself: Permanence, Pervasiveness, and Personalization. On each dimension, you can explain a setback with either the extreme failing (optimist) mindset, or the pessimist mindset:

Permanence: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is permanent or temporary? Extreme failing individuals believe the bad event is temporary.

Breaking up example: Tell yourself “I will find someone else”

Pervasiveness: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is universal, or specific? Extreme failing individuals believe the cause of a bad event is specific.

Breaking up example: Tell yourself “My relationship was only one part of my life”

Personalization: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is your fault (internalize), or other people’s fault (externalized)? Extreme failing individuals believe the bad event is external to themselves.

Breaking up example: Tell yourself “My ex was not the right person for me”

Do You Have the Extreme Failing Mindset? Take the Test

How do you perceive failures in your own life? Take the test to find out how well you handle setbacks, and how much of an extreme failing individual (optimist) you are.

Taking Responsibility

A comment was recently posted by Brandon (see below), with concerns over how the Martin Seligman’s optimism test, and the Personalization dimension of explanatory style. The test seems to encourage us to not take responsibility, and instead blame external events/people. Here is a quote from Dr. Seligman’s book to help answer Brandon’s concern:

I am unwilling to advocate any strategy that further erodes responsibility. I don’t believe people should change their beliefs from internal to external wholesale. Nevertheless, there is one condition under which this usually should be done: depression . . . We want people to change, and we know they will not change if they do not assume responsibility. If we want people to change, internality is not as crucial as the permanence dimension is. If you believe the cause of your mess is permanent, you will not act to change it. If, however, you believe the cause is temporary, you can act to change it. If we want people to be responsible for what they do, then yes, we want them to have an internal style. More important, people must have a temporary style for bad events- they must believe that whatever the cause of the bad event, it can be changed.

According to Seligman, we should use the external explanation only in situations where we are at risk for depression. Additionally, the Permanence dimension (temporary/permanent) is the key to change, not  Personalization (internal/external).

photo credit: I Love Trees

Be miserable or motivate yourself. Be helpless or in control. Blame someone or take responsibility. These are examples of two ways you can see your life. One way leads to happiness, the other to dissatisfaction.

I’m working through this weekend with my project team to complete an approaching deadline. At one point in time, I would have seen working the weekend as “This isn’t fair, my free time is being used to benefit the company I work for.” Now, I take responsibility and see it as “This is a rewarding opportunity to push my limits, learn and grow.” I chose my career knowing that it would involve lots of travel and the potential for long hours and weekend work. There is no reason to cope in your career (or anything else)- either change your mindset about it, or change it.

Optimism versus Pessimism

What this really comes down to is optimism versus pessimism. When you see your life pessimistically, this leads to helplessness. When you see your life optimistically, this leads to control. Optimism can be learned, but it isn’t an easy path for those accustomed to a pessimistic mindset. The easy path is to quit at the first sign of failure or negative feedback. The less-traveled path is to see negative events as temporary setbacks, or learning experiences. You will gain much more from life taking the optimist’s path versus quitting at the first sign of failure or coping.

It’s Your Choice

All you have is the now. You can spoil it by being miserable and feeling helpless- or enjoy it by motivating yourself and taking control. It’s your choice.

photo credit: vimoh