The Psychology Behind The Law of Attraction: Why evolution has taught us how to get what we want.

September 13th, 2008

From Sep 13, 2008

The greatest difference between those who live the lives they wish versus those who live a life of constant struggle is the attitude with which one acknowledges their hardships.

Those who recognize hardship as an opportunity to learn will consistently change the behaviors that aren’t working and strive to find those that will.

Yes, there are certainly things that are outside of your control.  Bad things will happen.  This is because we live in a dynamic world filled with millions of other people– thousands of which we interact with on a nearly daily basis. Because every other person has also been given the choice of attitude, their attitudes and actions can and will interfere with what you’ve got going on, on at least some level.

The difference between someone whose plans are obliterated by another’s interference– or even interference not directly stemming from another person but another thing or experience (mechanical failure, natural disaster, etc)– and someone whose plans only grow into something stronger or evolved is that those who withstand the interference tend to have the flexibility and persistence to continue in spite of the barriers between them and their ultimate goal.

What I’m saying is that in order to get (create) what we want, we have to be flexible.  We have to be tenacious.  We have to continue working towards something regardless of what blocks our path.  If we are not any of these things, we become brittle and easily shatter against any rock upon which we throw ourselves.

Evolutionary Psychology: Plasticity

The human brain contains an amazing feature which allows it to overcome brain damage and trauma.  This phenomenon is called plasticity.  This means that if something happens to one part of the brain (as an example, something happens to the motor cortex that controls movement),  with sufficient rehabilitation and practice, the brain learns to overcome the damage by allocating new parts of the brain to contain that function.  This feature of plasticity can even be transferred to the very nature of evolutionary theory.  We can learn a lot from this theory of evolution.  It states that those creatures with the characteristics suited for survival continued to survive because they were able to continue to procreate (theory of survival of the fittest).  At this day, we do not necessarily need our focus to be procreation in a literal sense.  Procreation has been ensured by the advent of medical technology and medicine. Instead, the focus can merely represent the ultimate desirable outcome: our goal.  Those creatures who are flexible or “plastic” by nature are able to adapt.  Adaptation is possibly the most important skill that any creature has ever needed in order to survive the experience of living on earth.  All other characteristics beyond behavioral, emotional, and psychological adaptation are related to the genetic disposition of the creature.  At this point in human existence, genes are a characteristic you cannot control.  However, adaptation is well within our proverbial tool box and it allows us to continue to survive within the  elements of human/worldly existence.

Still with me?

Those people who contain this plasticity relative to their hurdles are the ones who can and will continue to bust through walls and barriers to reach their goal(s).

Plasticity is the primary difference between those who are stopped at every roadblock (those who will never reach their goals) and those who will.  Though, I might add, the word ‘never’ is used here relatively because even in presenting the same non-working behaviors over and over and over again, we are STILL plastic by nature and can eventually choose to evolve into someone who is more flexible.

So, what does that mean for us?  If we are brittle in our means of handling objections and distractions, we will never make progress.  The good news is that by nature we are capable of changing our perspective and attitude.  There is hope.  Will this be an easy change?

Not likely.  In order to create new habits, we must repeatedly and continuously behave in ways that habituate new ways of doing things.  It takes practice, persistence, and dedication.  Much like rehabilitation, we must gradually and consistently re-work those associations we have with the old attitude and constantly replace non-working thoughts and inclinations with the new adaptable behaviors and inclinations.  It takes energy.  It takes the confidence and self-esteem necessary to believe that you can really, truly, actually change the non-working things that you’ve come to know as your own BE-ing over this lifetime.

For me, it took a significant effort to realize this.  It required the support of some good-hearted people who surrounded me at the time I was going through these changes.  It wasn’t easy, and a lot of times I had to fake the self-esteem part in order to get to where I was going.

Thoughts Become Things.

In a relatively short amount of time, however, I began to see results.  My self-efficacy began to improve and with it my confidence grew greater in knowing that I was on the right path.   To many people, my change in spirit and practice of embracing of the Law of Attraction was a lot of who-do voodoo, and there was very little I could do to explain myself.   To many people, the “Thoughts Become Things” attitude was simply another surface fad that leads ignorant and suffering people into a spiritual faith in themselves.

However, the theory that what you think about, you bring about falls in quite well with the metaphysical belief system, and there appear to be significant amounts of literature expressing variations of the same thought (i.e. Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, bits of Eastern philosophy or even Wiccan teachings).  For many, these connections alone left an unfavorable flavors in their spiritual mouths.   However, unlike those seeking a surface variety of beliefs, I saw through it to a deeper level.  For me, it is not so much about the spirituality of it (though that’s nice, I think), but the psychology behind getting what you desire.

It comes down to the same basic law of evolution that I’ve just described here:

Those who live the lives of their dreams are the ones with the flexibility to overcome the road blocks that fall between them and their goals.

It doesn’t take strength.  It doesn’t take a whole lot of smarts.  It really doesn’t even take a whole lot of worldly or life experience.

It just requires that you view the hurdles as learning opportunities and continue to plug away towards that which you are desiring.

The Law of Attraction only places this process into a pretty little Victoria’s Secret bag so that those who would otherwise not give it a second thought might be interested in taking a peek at how those Who Take The Easy Path In Life are able to get what they want.