This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Source" by Tara Swart. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What are the Law of Attraction principles? How does the Law of Attraction dictate your future?
Many people are familiar with the Law of Attraction as a spiritual or faith-based concept, but Tara Swart explains that there are actually neurological reasons why this law works. We’ll highlight two of the most important Law of Attraction principles.
Let’s look at which principle is considered most vital for neurological purposes.
Principle #1: Abundance
In The Source, Tara Swart explains that the first step to utilizing the Law of Attraction principles is to take on an abundance mindset. An abundance mindset is one that perceives the world and the universe as having enough resources to support all who inhabit it, and thinking this way leads you to think positively and behave generously. This is opposed to a “lack” mindset, which is one based in the fear that there’s not enough to go around and that you have to work hard to avoid losing what you have.
(Shortform note: While Swart explains how an abundance mindset changes your behavior, leading to positive changes in your life, Rhonda Byrne in The Secret suggests that such a mindset changes the world around you so that the universe will provide you with what you need. Both of these perspectives focus on making internal changes to improve your life, but Byrne’s more spiritual approach asserts that these changes are a means of communicating with the universe and that the universe will respond to that communication with changes in your life.)
Swart notes that the brain focuses twice as much on losses as it does on gains, which means our natural tendency is to go to much greater lengths to steer clear of a loss than we do to achieve a gain. This aversion to risk blocks our ability to change. To take on an abundance mindset, you have to reconsider how you view failure. Failure doesn’t mean you should give up so you don’t lose anything. In fact, failure is vital for success. It’s what propels improvement, and an abundance mindset helps you make improvement an intrinsic motivator.
(Shortform note: Some writers suggest that how you view failure is closely tied to how you view your natural talents and the concept of success. In Mindset, Carol Dweck argues that the belief that your talents are inborn and can’t be changed leads to a fixed mindset (similar to the Law of Attraction’s lack mindset), because if your talents are purely natural, then success is all about being validated by others, which means failure is final and unacceptable. However, a growth mindset (similar to an abundance mindset) views talent as changeable and failure as a means to positive change, encouraging you to take on risks to help yourself grow.)
Principle #2: Manifestation
Manifestation is when your desire and your intentions line up in a way that allows you to attract the things you want in life. Swart emphasizes that this is an action-based concept. It’s not just about thinking happy thoughts and waiting for what you want to magically appear, but rather about focusing on what you want so you can more easily take the actions needed to make it a reality. She writes that manifestation relies on two neurological processes: selective attention and value tagging.
Selective attention is when you focus only on important information while filtering out irrelevant or extraneous information. The brain is constantly receiving massive amounts of information, and it can only focus on a small amount at any given moment. If you devote your limited attention to the things you want in life, you’ll soon find yourself noticing those things more and more because you’re priming your brain to watch out for and alert you to them.
The second neurological process of manifesting is value tagging. This refers to ascribing emotional value to the information you take in. As explained above, emotion heavily influences our thinking and motivates our actions and decisions, so associating a strong, positive emotional value with things that help you progress toward your goal will gear your behavior toward achieving more of those things.
For example, if you enjoyed going on walks with your family as a child, you’ll probably have a positive emotional value assigned to walking or outdoor areas that resembled where you used to walk. If your goal is to spend more time outside or get more exercise, this positive value can help you progress toward that goal. Alternatively, if outdoor walks were a stressful event for you, you may have an aversion to them—so it may be easier to focus on other activities that have more positive associations for you.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Source summary:
- How to get the most out of your brain by tapping into its immense power
- How to use the major principles of the Law of Attraction
- The four-step process to change your life
