There are a lot of approaches to personal growth, but most of them seem to fall into the same category. They are focused on altering the outward expressions of the self one by one rather than allowing the inward self greater freedom to express itself through the outward being. They teach us how to change things about ourselves rather than to reorient our perspective in order to allow change to happen according to the expression of our most authentic self. Essentially, they rest on the belief that change occurs slowly and through hard work. But with so much attention being given to the law of attraction for changing one's life, I wonder why we are still teaching the same methods for changing one's self?
One reason I think is because we are a very achievement-oriented society. We look to the sum of individual achievements to gauge the achievements of our society. We admire those who know what they want and work hard to get it. At least...once they’ve succeeded. We value "getting things done," and in fact have developed countless systems for doing just that. Most of this involve taking personal inventories from a particular perspective, from which lists are created of things to improve.
While not everyone is strictly goal-oriented, most everyone does this at least occasionally. In American culture this typically happens at least once a year -- I believe in a post-New Year’s hung-over condition, because I’m convinced that traditional goal-setting is about the only elective experience more unpleasant than a hangover. Yeah, some people have a knack for structuring their life around goals, but it’s not for everyone. And I reject the suggestion as purely a cultural bias that it is inherently better or more effective to to do so.
Especially in light of the law of attraction, which teaches us that the details are not ours to worry about. All we can do is get in the way. At least, that is, when we are trying to attract things. But why should it be that attraction only holds true when it comes to attracting the conditions of our life, and not our existence itself? Are we not able to get far enough past our materialist nature to value the substance of the person above the content of its home? Does this mean that we give up on goal-setting entirely and just sit on the sofa and visualize ourselves as better than we are? Not at all; in fact, I think that the law of attraction implies a different goals rather than a categorical rejection of them. Let’s explore the different perspective of attraction-based achievement.
Change From the Inside Out
One problem with the inventory model of setting goals for self improvement is that it is easy to bring into focus what we want to change rather than what we want to be. It’s our nature to be much more aware of our faults than our potential. And if we build a structure around reminding ourselves of our perceived shortcoming, then we will only attract more of the same into our life. In other words, goals done wrong can have the exact opposite of the intended effect. Maybe it’s good that most people give up their New Year’s Resolutions before January’s out!
Now, you might say you’ll just change the wording of your goal -- flip it around so that it says the opposite of what you want to change. Good. While you’re at it, set your clock ten minutes ahead so you won’t be late. Your mind tracks reality; you can’t fool yourself. The law of attraction works on intention and attention, not on words. As long as your intention is to change something, no matter how you word it, your attention is drawn to the thing you want to change, so you’re attracting more of it. No wonder so many goals end up in failure.
Another problem with traditional goal approaches is the overwhelming number of things we can come up with to improve. Some of our modern goal management methods like David Allen’s Getting Things Done provide clever approaches to limiting and prioritizing the list, but at the end of the day it’s still a long and ever-growing list. It's like trying to keep dry by catching the rain in a bucket: Your bucket up will fill up really fast chasing raindrops and you'll still get soaked. But if you open an umbrella, you can keep yourself dry without ever having to worry about where the raindrops are falling. This is what I call the “outside-in” approach to personal transformation.
Outside-in means you try to change the inside person by altering the outside aspects -- the thinking, speech and behaviors -- of the person. I’m not suggesting this can’t work, but I will propose that the reason this works is not because the exterior facets of the person directly change the person. Rather, it’s because in the best case, it inclines the attention towards the interior change that is desired and thus invokes the law of attraction to manifest that change. In other words, the very reason we are able to change through making changes is because of the law of attraction. At least, when you are engaged, positive and successful; when you are negative or struggling with your goal, you cannot attract anything greater.
That’s a pitfall for some, but even if you are very good at making exterior changes, you are still focusing on the details that the law of attraction says the universe should take care of. It may even be that every goal accomplished is a result of the goal being approached in a manner that attracts the result. So while you may accomplish greater interior change, it may not be the most effective route, and it may not even be the interior change you really wanted. So why not cut straight to the chase?
The One Thing Needful
Our goals come from one of two sources: either the egoic identity or the authentic self -- the soul or divine. If we are pursuing egoic goals, they will always be a reflection of exterior aspects, and so they will attract stronger ego identification. Exterior improvement may certainly be accomplished, especially owing to the tenacity of the ego and its attachment to self-gratifying outcomes. But it does not enrich the inner self. If our goals come from the authentic self, then we might as well give the details to the authentic self to work out. Most people don’t know or trust their inner self enough to allow this to happen, so how can we approach this without first attaining some level of self-realization?
Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, and Indian sage from the early twentieth century, saw that our external pursuits can lead us away from that all-important knowledge of the divine self; instead our external pursuits should flow from our inner realization:
To find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual truth and the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable and all the rest is nothing without it...That is, first of all to transform one's limited consciousness into Divine consciousness, to live in infinite peace, light, love, strength, bliss, to become that in one's essential nature...We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us...As we grow in the inner consciousness...our life and action must indeed flow more and more from that, be one with that. But to decide beforehand by our limited mental conceptions what they must be is to hamper the growth of the spiritual Truth...To hold up a mental ideal or principle and impose that on the inner working brings the danger of limiting ourselves to a mental realization or even falsifying by a halfway transformation the true growth into the full communion and union with the Divine...The realizatino of the Divine is the one thing needful...Churches, theologies, philosophies have failed to save mankind because they have busied themselves with intellectual creeds, dogmas, rites and institutions...as if these could save mankind, and have neglected the one thing needful, the power and purification of the soul.
This leads to a fundamental realization: attracting personal change cannot be simply the pursuit of improvement. It is the search for the true expression of the authentic self. That is, it is the same as the spiritual journey described by the traditions. It involves the challenges of ego reconciliation and intuitive development. In fact, this may be a better way of describing spiritual growth in a post-rational context than the traditional religious models because it doesn't impose any particular metaphysical interpretation of the forces at work. It is simply harmonizing one's interior presence with the universe, the same way that attracting the life conditions you want is harmonizing one's exterior existence with the universe. This leads to a deeper understanding of the law of attraction as a motive force for transforming our lives at all levels, not just our material circumstances.
So in this model, what actually would it mean to attract personal growth? The law of attraction teaches us to focus our attention on the desired outcome, not the path to achieving it. Most of our goals aren't even about the outcome. We focus on the changes we want to make rather than the reason for the changes. I worked hard to stop biting my fingernails when I was young, but that did nothing to address the chronic anxiety that trailed me around well into my adult life. So start by figuring out why you want to change something and make that your intention.
Then open it wide and evoke the experience and emotion of that deeper change. Imagine how your happiness would increase and your life would improve from that transformation. If you want a beach front home, then visualize yourself looking out your beach front window enjoying life rather than thinking about all the different ways you might or might not acquire that house. So rather than focusing on specific behaviors or characteristics you wish to change, imagine yourself living the life that those qualities would lead to. If I want to be more confident and articulate in my interactions with others., I will visualize myself in social situations, expressing myself with clarity and presence, I feel the satisfaction of knowing that I have communicated and connected with those around me. This signals to my higher awareness and the universe what I desire to become. I don't need to worry about how I'm going to achieve that.
That covers the first two steps in the process of attraction: aligning your thoughts and emotions; so what comes next? Harmonize yourself with that intention in order to receive it. The law of attractino never exempts us from action, but just as with attracting things, we need not concern ourselves with the details. Our faith lies in knowing that the universe will create the opportunities and situations that will bring about our desired result. So when we are attracting personal growth, we must keep our desire in our awareness in order to notice and act on those opportunities when they arise. In fact, even more than when manifesting circumstances, manifesting personal growth requires us to maintain an often-challenging perspective of continuously wanting the change. If I want to be a more effective communicator, I need to take the opportunity to speak and interact when it arises and allow that quality to grow within me, even if I don't feel like I want to or can at that particular moment. It requires possibly even more trust in the universe that the beach house because my desire for the beach house is unlikely to change based on my mood.
Allowing Change
Maybe the hardest part about attracting personal growth is allowing change to occur. Our identity gets very fixated on our current composition of strengths and weaknesses, and it doesn't let go easily. Especially when our desires are not ego-centric. When we are attracting personal growth, we may find that behaviors change without thinking about them until we notice they have changed. It can create a sense of fear or loss even though it was a wanted change.
And since this pursuit leads us first to discover the authentic self then to give it expression, we avoid one of the pitfalls of the goal and planning approach to growth. That is working really hard at something that only makes a superficial difference. I worked hard to stop biting my fingernails when I was pretty young, but that didn't address the anxiety that caused that behavior, which I carried with me well into my adult life.
It is often said that to be happy is a conscious decision. I think more likely it is a conscious intention that manifests with greater frequency and strength the longer and more consistently the intention is held. Personal growth works exactly like that. If you can hold true intentions for positive change and allow it to happen with the trifecta of aligning our thoughts, feelings and actions around the change, then you will transform yourself in ways you didn’t imagine. This doesn’t mean we have to give up on goals; in fact, the law of attraction it provides a better way to achieve our goals by relying on the creative power of the universe to create change within rather than trying to force change in from the outside.
