There’s a lot of debate in the LOA community about what exactly is my job, and what is the Universe’s job?
I’ve always made this very simple statement: your job is to emotionally be at the end of the path, and the Universe / your subconscious will fill in the gap.
But I think this has been hard to understand for some, so today I want to give more of an explanation about how exactly this works. How do you live at the end of your path, and how will the Universe fill that in for you?
What Does It Mean to Be at the End of Your Path?
LOA basics time:
The law of attraction works from the inside out. Nothing you get in life comes without you having it on the inside, first.
Many people I work with are focused on getting the goal. But if you are focused on getting the goal, then you don’t have the goal.
I learned this dichotomy first with the Sedona Method. The way they described it was that if you’re wanting it, you can’t have it.
However, the way I understood it at the time, and I think the way many of them teach it, is that you can’t have a desire for your goal, or else you can’t have it. Obviously that sets up an impossible paradox, because it would mean you could only get things you didn’t want. ?
But no, the meaning is much deeper than that. It’s all about your inner feeling about the goal. Is your feeling around the goal one of wanting and lack, or one of having?
I’ll discuss this topic in a future post, but there is definitely a difference between desire and the feeling of wanting.
Anyway, if you can have that goal within yourself, then you can have it in reality, too.
Therefore when I say that you must be at the end of your path, I mean that emotionally, you must place yourself in the position of where you want to be when your goal is achieved.
Want to increase your income? Be at the place of having the increased income within yourself first, then the rest can follow.
Want a new relationship? Be at the place of having that relationship within yourself first, then the rest will follow.
When you can be at the end of the path, then the path itself is filled in.
But when you mind the path itself, then you are sabotaging the whole process.
So, the art of creating the pathway to your goal is by being at the end of the path, in the place of having that goal, before you even start.
Tension Must Be Resolved
This is where creative tension comes into play.
The subconscious mind likes consistency. When your reality says one thing, and your focus and emotions say another, the subconscious doesn’t like that so much. That’s tension.
This is why it is so important to be at the end of your path. The bigger the disparity between where you are and the reality you are focusing on emotionally, the higher that tension, and so the faster the potential shift.
Tension is the agent of change in creating the path to your goal. Without tension, no change can occur.
But, you don’t have to do anything to try to create tension. This has been my biggest realization of late: tension is a natural byproduct of creating that differential state within.
The only thing you have to do is to not try to dispel the tension once it arises. Let it be what it is, and let that tension naturally create the path to your goal for you.
When you hold the tension, then your subconscious mind has no choice but to resolve that tension by altering your reality to match your inner state.
But if you drop the tension prematurely, then it has been resolved by your act of dropping it, so the subconscious can keep things as-is.
So, no matter how much tension is built, it is vital that you hold to the practice of remaining at the end of the path emotionally, so that reality is forced to catch up with you.
What happens when you do this?
Essentially, your subconscious will find the path of least resistance to bring reality into alignment with your inner state. It will start to align outer circumstances to get you to your goal in the quickest, most efficient way possible according to your deeply-held subconscious beliefs.
For example, if I hold a goal that I want to increase my income by 50%, and I steadfastly remain at the end of the path emotionally, then my subconscious mind will start arranging external events to get me physically to my goal as quickly as possible.
Perhaps I’ll get more clients, or some other source of income will make itself available.
Either way, the path has to be created, because tension is present and I am remaining at the end of the path.
And therefore, I will naturally be led to traverse the path as it is created, step-by-step.
The Story of Lightning
Part of what caused me to write this post is that I really wanted to come up with a useful analogy that would sufficiently explain this concept.
And as I thought about it, I realized that lightning, or even electricity in general, gives us the perfect foundation to build upon for our understanding of how all of this works.
There are two major types of lightning: lightning that stays in the sky, and lightning that strikes the ground.
All lightning comes from an electrical charge buildup within the clouds. There are all sorts of reasons this happens, but we don’t need to cover that here.
But essentially, as it starts to build up, just like any electricity would do, it starts to look for a way to escape and rebalance itself.
When the charge isn’t that great, it’ll just escape to another part of the cloud, or to another cloud entirely (current level goals, anyone?).
But, when there is a significant charge, it starts to seek a more drastic path out, and the path of least resistance which makes itself available is, well, the ground.
Now here’s the cool part: as the negatively-charged surface of the cloud seeks to find a way out, it turns the ground beneath it into a positive charge. And just as happens in any electrical system, as those two polarities become further and further apart, the negative charge flows towards the positive, and this is what we see as lightning.
What’s this have to do with the law of attraction?
Almost everything.
Imagine this: you have a big next level goal.
Following the advice in this post, you ensure that you remain at the end of the path of that goal emotionally.
What does this do? It sets up a disparity between your emotional state, and your external reality.
When that cloud turned negatively charged, it didn’t care what was going on underneath of it. Its concern was finding a way to its goal.
And so as you keep up that focused inner state, it starts making changes to your external reality. It starts priming your external reality to receive the vision of your goal.
And likewise, as that charge in the cloud becomes greater and greater, it creates an equally great positively-charged patch on the ground below it, priming it for the flow of electricity that is about to come.
Finally everything is set, your path is created and you flow generally pretty quickly towards your goal. Usually the actual path itself doesn’t take very long: what takes the longest is forging that path.
Similarly, when the ground is ready, the cloud releases its charge and lightning strikes, near instantaneously.
In both cases, the driving force behind the whole thing is the disparity in charges—i.e., the difference in your inner state from outer reality. The bigger that difference becomes, the more your subconscious seeks to rebalance things, either by dragging you back down to current reality, or, failing that, transforming current reality to match your vision.
How the Path Is Formed
I somewhat glossed over how the path is actually created, and partly that’s because it’s really not our concern.
But even here, the analogy of lightning has a parallel.
Just because it has the positive charge beneath it, doesn’t mean that it can immediately flow in that direction.
Atmosphere is actually rather a good insulator. It prevents the charge from just going anywhere.
That’s why it takes such a great charge to overcome that resistance in the first place and actually make the connection to the ground.
But it finds a way. Once it overcomes the resistance of the atmosphere, it starts to create a pathway through the air. It does this by ionizing the air around it—separating it into negative and positive components through which it can easily flow.
A full and complete pathway to the ground actually has to be created before the lightning can ever strike.
But it doesn’t do it all in one go. It does it in small steps, sometimes going one direction, and sometimes another, based on the path of least resistance. So these little pathways moving towards the ground are called stepped leaders.
The cool thing is as these negatively-charged stepped leaders approach the ground, little positive streamers start to reach up from the ground, or objects on the ground, attracted to the negative charge coming down from above.
And once the negative and positive meet—well, you can guess what happens.
The pathway is fully formed, and the lightning can now strike.
I hope that I explained that clearly enough, but feel free to read the above again for more clarity. Also, this article explains it rather well.
So how do we tie this to the law of attraction?
As usual, quite easily. 🙂
As you maintain your focus on the end of the path, that energy has to go somewhere, because as mentioned, your subconscious hates tension.
But it only does so once you’ve built up a sufficient charge, so to speak. Just as I said about the atmosphere being a good insulator, so reality doesn’t change at the drop of a hat. It takes a significant disparity of state to force this process to take place.
Once you’ve gotten the attention of your subconscious mind, it’ll start creating that path immediately. However, it can’t do it all at once. The path usually isn’t that easy.
So it’ll find the path of least resistance, sometimes in multiple parts.
For example, let’s say you want to buy a new car. You hold that emotional state in mind and so your subconscious has to create the path of least resistance to that goal.
Generally if the goal is big enough though, it’s not going to happen all at once.
Perhaps first you’ll start seeing your desired car more and more around you. That’s the first “stepped leader”, so to speak.
Then perhaps you see a good deal on a car that’s similar, but not exactly like the one you want. That’s another stepped leader.
And so on down the road. But eventually, you get that perfect car, exactly matching what you had envisioned.
But again, none of this is your job. Your subconscious mind creates the path in front of you before you’re ever even aware of it.
If the path of least resistance is you getting a big windfall to be able to buy that car at a local dealership, that’s what’ll happen.
If the path of least resistance is buying a used car in great condition, but for a much lower price, then that’s what’ll happen.
And there are lots of other ways it can happen, too. But none of it is your concern.
The point is, as you steadfastly remain at the end of the path emotionally, the subconscious starts to create a direct pathway to your goal in the background.
Sometimes it’ll reveal part of that path to you. But other times, the entire process will occur in the background, and you won’t know until the final path opens up and you traverse it near instantaneously.
Your only job is to keep that differential state: the difference between where you focus emotionally, and where your reality actually is in relation.
The subconscious will do all the rest, because it has to.
Your Job Is Simple
I know that was quite a lengthy explanation, but I hope it clarifies how this whole process works.
To summarize, your one and only job is to hold the vision of what you want, and be at the end of the path emotionally.
I say this simply, but it’s not always so easy to do. Again, your subconscious will try to pull things back into alignment.
A cloud only keeps its charge through constant bombardment of differently-charged particles. It’s quite a violent process, really.
And that’s why I spend so much time trying to dispel this harmful myth that the law of attraction is all fields of roses and happy kittens and puppies.
It’s a violent process, insofar as it takes a lot of focus to maintain your grasp on the desired goal.
If you just go with the flow, that disparity will never be built up, and the path will never be created to your goal.
In a very real sense, the path to your goal is only created through stress, or tension. It’s created under pressure.
That doesn’t mean you should feel stressed, as that’s usually a manifestation of resistance. But it means that reality will fight back against your new focus, and you have to have the wherewithal to maintain it in spite of reality.
Once you do that, the path will be created, and you’ll traverse it very quickly. Before you know what happened, it’ll be done and you’ll have achieved your goal.
How About You?
Now it’s your turn. Does the above explanation help you to understand how to achieve your goals with the law of attraction? How will you make that decision to be at the end of the path emotionally? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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Nice post. I like the mention of “stepped leaders,” because that’s a concept that is sometimes glossed over–the initial “close-but-not-quite” variations of your manifestation. A lot of people jump for the very first thing that kinda-sorta looks like their manifestation, when actually if they waited a bit they’d find something much more like what they wanted originally. I find that temptation in my own life.
Nice post. I like the mention of “stepped leaders,” because that’s a concept that is sometimes glossed over–the initial “close-but-not-quite” variations of your manifestation. A lot of people jump for the very first thing that kinda-sorta looks like their manifestation, when actually if they waited a bit they’d find something much more like what they wanted originally. I find that temptation in my own life.
“But when you mind the path itself, then you are sabotaging the whole process.” Oh boy do I know about that … That’s a good way to end up on an endless staircase of resistance and things that feel like progress … without any actual progress. If your thought process goes, “I’m making the decision to have this! … How do I get this? … Why don’t I have this?” then you might be me 😛 For real though, it’s such an easy loop to get stuck in. But the answer to “How?” is just to apply the principles. Be at the end of the path. And believe that it will work out for you. Something that was huge for me was realizing that I could shift from feeling like I didn’t think something would happen, to having confidence that it would. Not overnight and not 100% of the time, but enough to make a difference.
I’ve got a fun example of this, actually. I have a fee waiver for the GRE (nasty, graduate school version of the SAT) that I totally forgot to send off until the last week in June. It expired at the end of the week. I sent it off thinking there was no way in hell that they’d accept it, how am I going to spend $200 to take this stupid test, even if they do accept it how would I sign up fast enough for it to matter … general resistance. Eventually I decided that, well, I spent $20 to express mail the stupid thing and it had to work out (I also visualized it working out). 2 weeks later, I got an email saying they received it and it is valid for an entire year because they changed how they handle fee waivers. Let me rephrase that … the organization that handles the test re-wrote their fee waiver policy just in time for it to totally save my butt. There is no way I could have planned that one out!
So, to me, being at the end of the path is being able to feel what it’s like to have your goal, having the willpower to choose it in the face of resistance, and the confidence to know it will happen (faith, trust, belief … ). I used to get real hung up on how I could create tension if I wasn’t either focused on my goal 100% of the time or focused on how it wasn’t here 100% of the time (these are great ways to sabotage your manifestation). Applying your will and having confidence are what seem to get things moving.
Sorry for the very long comment! This is all stuff I’ve had kicking around in my head for a bit.
Hey @Chaucer,
Thanks so much for the comment. And your example was awesome! 😀
I totally agree though. It’s very easy to get caught up in that cycle. I think I haven’t had that issue for a while because I’ve just seen it work so many times. But it definitely was an issue for me once.
Something that really helps me when I’m stuck obsessing is what I call the transforming statement. I think I’ve alluded to this before in another post. But basically you ask yourself, “What is it I’d like out of this situation?” It automatically puts your focus on the wanted, instead of obsessing about the unwanted. You get that clarity of what it is you want, and just keep your focus there.
I got the idea from Richard Dotts’ book, Spontaneous Manifestations from Zero. It’s worked for me very well.
“But when you mind the path itself, then you are sabotaging the whole process.” Oh boy do I know about that … That’s a good way to end up on an endless staircase of resistance and things that feel like progress … without any actual progress. If your thought process goes, “I’m making the decision to have this! … How do I get this? … Why don’t I have this?” then you might be me 😛 For real though, it’s such an easy loop to get stuck in. But the answer to “How?” is just to apply the principles. Be at the end of the path. And believe that it will work out for you. Something that was huge for me was realizing that I could shift from feeling like I didn’t think something would happen, to having confidence that it would. Not overnight and not 100% of the time, but enough to make a difference.
I’ve got a fun example of this, actually. I have a fee waiver for the GRE (nasty, graduate school version of the SAT) that I totally forgot to send off until the last week in June. It expired at the end of the week. I sent it off thinking there was no way in hell that they’d accept it, how am I going to spend $200 to take this stupid test, even if they do accept it how would I sign up fast enough for it to matter … general resistance. Eventually I decided that, well, I spent $20 to express mail the stupid thing and it had to work out (I also visualized it working out). 2 weeks later, I got an email saying they received it and it is valid for an entire year because they changed how they handle fee waivers. Let me rephrase that … the organization that handles the test re-wrote their fee waiver policy just in time for it to totally save my butt. There is no way I could have planned that one out!
So, to me, being at the end of the path is being able to feel what it’s like to have your goal, having the willpower to choose it in the face of resistance, and the confidence to know it will happen (faith, trust, belief … ). I used to get real hung up on how I could create tension if I wasn’t either focused on my goal 100% of the time or focused on how it wasn’t here 100% of the time (these are great ways to sabotage your manifestation). Applying your will and having confidence are what seem to get things moving.
Sorry for the very long comment! This is all stuff I’ve had kicking around in my head for a bit.
Hey @Chaucer,
Thanks so much for the comment. And your example was awesome! 😀
I totally agree though. It’s very easy to get caught up in that cycle. I think I haven’t had that issue for a while because I’ve just seen it work so many times. But it definitely was an issue for me once.
Something that really helps me when I’m stuck obsessing is what I call the transforming statement. I think I’ve alluded to this before in another post. But basically you ask yourself, “What is it I’d like out of this situation?” It automatically puts your focus on the wanted, instead of obsessing about the unwanted. You get that clarity of what it is you want, and just keep your focus there.
I got the idea from Richard Dotts’ book, Spontaneous Manifestations from Zero. It’s worked for me very well.
Yes I like this one. I love lightning , and this is one of the best explonations I’ve seen.
Yes I like this one. I love lightning , and this is one of the best explonations I’ve seen.
I read this article a few days ago, and I deeply enjoyed it. Now I reread it, and I can’t stop thinking how wonderful life is, and what a “lucky bastard” I am to have all this knowledge and information.
I would just like to ask you, Brandon, to compare a goal of getting a car, to a goal of reaching fluency in a language from scratch. I feel like it’s more or less the same thing, but I’d really like to hear your view on this, with your current understanding of things. Receiving a car happens at once, but receiving fluency in a language can’t happen at once, it happens constantly, progressively. I guess, the same way as receiving one’s health back.
So, I guess that if I would apply these same principles to reaching fluency in a language I don’t know, then instead of having one big lightning strike, I’d have many smaller ones striking periodically, progressively, right? Like, after several days, a smaller lightning might strike, in a form of a TV show I had never heard of before, but that I will deeply enjoy and learn fast thanks to it? And then maybe in several more days, I meet a native speaker with whom I have things in common, and can practice speaking?
I’m still interested in your reply on this. 😛 Maybe you could share your experiences with learning German so far? Have you been actively focusing on that goal every day?
Hi @Z, I guess I just don’t understand the question, really. I don’t see a difference between those two goals, fundamentally.
I read this article a few days ago, and I deeply enjoyed it. Now I reread it, and I can’t stop thinking how wonderful life is, and what a “lucky bastard” I am to have all this knowledge and information.
I would just like to ask you, Brandon, to compare a goal of getting a car, to a goal of reaching fluency in a language from scratch. I feel like it’s more or less the same thing, but I’d really like to hear your view on this, with your current understanding of things. Receiving a car happens at once, but receiving fluency in a language can’t happen at once, it happens constantly, progressively. I guess, the same way as receiving one’s health back.
So, I guess that if I would apply these same principles to reaching fluency in a language I don’t know, then instead of having one big lightning strike, I’d have many smaller ones striking periodically, progressively, right? Like, after several days, a smaller lightning might strike, in a form of a TV show I had never heard of before, but that I will deeply enjoy and learn fast thanks to it? And then maybe in several more days, I meet a native speaker with whom I have things in common, and can practice speaking?
I’m still interested in your reply on this. 😛 Maybe you could share your experiences with learning German so far? Have you been actively focusing on that goal every day?
Hi @Z, I guess I just don’t understand the question, really. I don’t see a difference between those two goals, fundamentally.