January 17, 2007

The Power of Intention - Attraction via Attention

What did you focus on today?

No, what did you REALLY focus on today?

Does your answer to that question sound something like “I thought about work” or “I focused on the project I was working on” or “I had my hands full taking care of my family?”

Or maybe you would say something like “I didn’t have time to focus on anything. My day was just hectic! I can’t even remember most of what happened because it was such a blur.”

If your answer was similar to either of the 2 paragraphs that you just read, consider these details from what *I* focused on today. These aren’t just random musings, but the actual thoughts that I focused on several times today.

I thought about visiting my kids who live in Seattle (I live in Florida) and we went shopping at this huge mall that they have there. We spent large sums of money on food, clothes, toys, and at least one trip to the local Starbucks for a round of very unhealthy drinks. We also took a ferry ride, and ate at our favorite restaurant on the coast of Whidbey Island.

I also thought for quite awhile about standing on the back porch of my beach house in St. Augustine, on the east coast of Florida. I watched the kids play in the sand and we also hung out in the shade of the porch and listened to the ocean. I kicked back in the hammock for awhile with a very over-priced PDA and answered a few emails and read through some of my favorite blogs.

I also spent some time visiting my family who live in upstate New York. I had a blast playing in the snow, and then laughed when I got back to Florida and put my winter jacket back in the long-term storage closet.

I took a relaxing train ride to visit some friends in Texas. During the trip I alternated back and forth between working on my laptop, handling some minor business tasks on the PDA, and then I spent the rest of the time sleeping, reading, or just staring out the window enjoying the scenery.

I went to Daytona Beach and stayed at a favorite hotel right there on the coast. Not because it was the most expensive or the least expensive hotel, but because it was the one that I wanted to stay at.

I also visited one of my friends who lives in Key West, Florida, and stayed on for awhile to enjoy the summer weather, even though it is January-cold everywhere else.

I spent a huge amount of time driving around in my favorite Mustang, which happens to be brand-new, and is now parked in my driveway next to my SUV, my motorcycle, and the trailer that has my boat on it.

Have you figured this out yet?

None of these things actually happened today. In fact, most of them have never happened at all, at least not with the amount of free time and cash to spend that I had while I was thinking about them today.

What those last few paragraphs describe is my “dream life.” It is the life that I will lead (sooner, rather than later, thank you very much) once I have attracted everything into my life that I want to attract.

I don’t know how I am going to get the time and the money to do all of that stuff, but I do know that it is going to happen, because it is my Intention.

Sure, I have some business ideas and other financial concepts that may or may not power the lifestyle that I described. However, being an avid user of the Law of Attraction, I know three things that are critical to the process of attracting the life that I want:

1) I know that in order for me to get what I want, I must state very clearly my Intention to get those things.

2) I must focus on the things that I want on a daily basis, and I must practice those visualizations as powerfully as possible, and always in the present tense.

3) I do not focus on “how” it is going to happen. “Reality” has programmed my subconscious far too efficiently for me to be able to envision the path that will take me from where I am now to the lifestyle described above.

You see, the problem that a lot of people have with their self improvement efforts or their dreams of success is that they try to come up with some “master plan” in order to make it all happen, and then they just focus on the drudgery of the multitude of “tasks” that their plan calls for.

Who wants to focus on tasks? That’s like getting up on a Saturday morning and saying “I can’t wait to clean out the garage today! In fact, I think I’ll scrub the kitchen floor with a toothbrush while I’m at it, and then I’ll go clean up my teenager’s bedroom just for good measure!”

Could you get excited about doing all of those things? Okay, maybe there are a few of you who could (freaks! :) ), but most people have no desire - or ability - to get excited about the tasks that they have to do in order to accomplish something.

However, using the same examples from above, if someone were to tell you that by Saturday night all of those things would somehow get done without you doing them, you’d get pretty excited about that wouldn’t you??

That is the way that the Universe works whenever you use the Power of Intention to get what you want. Your job - as Mike Dooley1 puts it, is to “always and only focus on the end result!”

Your job is not to decide how something is going to get done. Your job is only to state the intention that you want it to be done.

Is that to say that the Universe will work some magic and you will never have to lift a finger to attain your goals? Maybe or maybe not, but there is no way to tell for sure.

The Universe will show you the doorways to your dreams via inspired thoughts, but you have to walk through those those doorways by taking inspired action.

By consistently and powerfully focusing on and visualizing the things that you want - from a parking space up through world peace - you set the Intention, and you will then attract whatever it is that you need in order for your Intention to become a reality.

Here’s the “rub,” though. You have to believe it. If you sit around saying to yourself that the notion of some “miraculous” force coming to show you the path to your dreams is a bunch of rubbish, then you’ll be 100% right.

Why? Because that is what you are focusing on!

Flip that around to say something more along the lines of the fact that your faith in the delivery of your dreams is only a matter of when - not if - they will arrive, and you will once again be 100% correct.

Always remember the golden rule about life in general - YOU are in charge. Whether you want to be in charge of your life, or whether you believe that you are does not matter. You are creating your life, and you are doing it with your Intentions.

Footnotes:

Mike Dooley - Thoughts become Things