This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading.
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Have you read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne? How can you apply the lessons in the book to your personal and work life?
At the heart of The Secret is the concept of the Law of Attraction—use your thoughts to attract the things you want. If you focus on thoughts about who you want to be or what you want in life, you will attract those ideas and things back as your life experience.
Below, we’ve put together some The Secret book club questions for you to consider.
Book Club Discussion Prompts
Everyone has something they want to either change or improve in their life. Maybe it’s a better job. Maybe it’s more security. Maybe it’s love. Changing your life may feel impossible. Where would you even start? With the principles of The Secret, you will learn to use the power of your mind to make what you want a reality. Through practical steps and guidance on how to shift your feelings and behaviors to a stronger, more positive place, you will learn how to harness the Law of Attraction to create a better, happier life.
Here are The Secret book club questions, followed by a quiz about the book’s concepts.
Taking Control of Your Thoughts
Changing your thought frequency may seem like a difficult task. But becoming aware of negative thoughts and their power helps you understand what you can do to change them.
- Think of a persistent negative thought you live with. Maybe it’s something you’ve been thinking for years or something that’s come up recently. What is the thought?
- When you look at your life, can you find examples of ways in which that thought has manifested? What are they?
- How can you restructure that thought to turn the negative into a positive? Like with a television, tune your thinking into the channel that you want to watch. What positive images does it show you?
The Power of Your Thoughts at Work
Understanding that your thoughts are powerful is only half the challenge. Knowing how certain thoughts lead to certain outcomes can help you gear them toward what you want.
- If you found a bottle with a genie inside, what is one wish you would make?
- Now let’s try to convert your wish into positive thoughts. What positive thoughts relate to your wish?
- If you think these thoughts, what is a possible experience you might attract back? What opportunity might appear, what positive outcome might happen?
Love to Love You
It’s easy enough to say, “I love myself.” But what does that mean? What does self-love look and feel like? By being intentional about how we think about ourselves, the path to self-love will become more clear.
- Do you hold a grudge about something from the past? Do you think about it often? Describe what the resentment is about.
- Remember that thinking negative thoughts about the past is only hurting yourself. How can you turn this thought into a positive one or reject the negative thought?
- What was something you did recently that made you proud? Why did this thing bring you joy or make you feel good about yourself?
Use the Creative Process to Get What You Want
Now that you can be, have, or do anything you want, without exception, it’s time to get clear on what that is.
- What could you ask for that would make your immediate life better? Be specific.
- Take a minute to believe that your thoughts have power and that what you’ve asked for will be yours. Don’t worry about the how, just believe. What thoughts come through your head?
- Now prepare to receive. What does it feel like when you’ve gotten what you’ve asked for? Describe the sensations vividly.
Turning Your Frown Upside Down
We all have crummy days when something happens that dampens our mood. It can be hard to shake things off when we’re feeling low. Getting in touch with our feelings and intentionally changing them is a good habit to begin.
- What’s something that happened in your life recently that caused you to feel bad? What were your thoughts surrounding what happened?
- How could you have changed your thoughts about what happened? What would those positive thoughts be?
- How do those new thoughts change the way you feel?
- Write down three thought lifters that make you happy. You should be able to draw on these when you’re feeling down and feel perked up.
Using Your Thoughts to Shape Your Day
We are never stuck with the way things are. If we don’t like how something is going, making small adjustments in how we envision the day ahead is a good start to changing it.
- Think about your day. Was there an event or situation you wish had gone differently? What was it? What was wrong with it?
- If you could reimagine how that experience went, what would it look like?
- Think about your day tomorrow. What do you expect to happen? What thoughts will help set the expectation for those things happening the way you want them to?
- Now, imagine there are no limitations to what you can do tomorrow. Do your answers change? What else would you add to have the most desirable day?
Visualize Your Ideal Life
Since visualization is more than just a static picture, you can think of the act of visualizing as making a moving picture of your life.
- Think of something you want really badly. Create a picture of that thing in your life. What does it look like, in detail?
- Go beyond images, and think about the sensations in your visualization. What do you feel, using your five physical senses? How do you feel internally?
- Now “act as if” you already have this thing in your life. What can you do today to make room to receive what you want?
Write Your Dream Check
You know that acting as if bolsters your thoughts. When money is involved, acting as if can be very powerful. On the website for The Secret, Byrne provides a blank check from the universe. The check is for you to make out to yourself with the amount of money you want to receive.
- What amount of money would you fill out to cover everything you needed?
- How would that money help you? What would you buy?
- Now, what amount would you fill out if you could have any amount you could dream of?
- What would you buy with all that money? What sensations do you feel as you see yourself buying these items?
Think Positive About Relationships
Think about relationships with positivity, and you’ll get positive relationships in return.
- What are three things your partner did recently that made you feel happy? If you don’t currently have a partner, what are three things your ideal partner would do to make you happy?
- What do those things say about your partner?
- Think of a negative thought you have about your partner or your current love life. What is it? Now try to convert that into a positive statement, instead, of something you want. What is it?
The Meaning of The Secret in Your Life
Now that you have the power of The Secret in your mind, consider how you think and feel about what you’ve learned.
- What aspect of The Secret most resonated with you? Why do you think this is?
- If you had to explain The Secret to a friend, what would your description sound like? Did anything new come up from your own summary?
- How can the tools you’ve learned in The Secret help your immediate life? How will you use it to create your future?
Quiz: Follow the Thoughts
Question 1: Imagine you found out your rent was going to be raised. All you can think is, “I can’t afford anything else.” Afterward, when you do find a place that is affordable, you worry someone else will take it before you have a chance to. What outcome would you expect?
- A friend offers to let you stay in their apartment rent free.
- You came into some money and could afford a nicer place.
- You got the first apartment you looked at and could afford it.
- All of the apartments you found were too expensive or already taken.
Answer explanation: In the book, the Law of Attraction is described as taking your dominant thoughts and reflecting them back to you. Your dominant thoughts were of not being able to afford another apartment or losing a good one to someone else. There was no other outcome that could come from those thoughts.
Question 2:Your friend is running for city council, a life-long dream, but her opponent is popular in town and has held the position for almost a decade. Your friend knows The Secret and used the Creative Process during her campaign. She asked to win, believed she would, saw herself sitting in council meetings, and felt the joy of holding that office. Whenever someone wished her good luck, she said, “Thanks. I’ll need it.” When the results of the election came in, she didn’t win. What did your friend do wrong?
- She didn’t ask for more votes.
- She doubted she would receive.
- She pictured the wrong meeting.
- She didn’t talk to enough voters.
Answer explanation: The book states that actions must match our thoughts. Your friend did everything right in working through the Creative Process. Her failing was in acting in a way that didn’t reflect receiving. By acknowledging she was going to need luck to win, she communicated that she didn’t truly have faith in the Creative Process.
Question 3:Day in and day out, you worry about money. You have credit card debt coming out your ears, you barely make rent on time, and you still haven’t paid off your student loan. You get a new job that pays a high salary, but you still can’t get out of debt. It seems like as soon as you pay off one thing, something else comes up you owe money for. What was the thought that likely created this scenario?
- My job doesn’t pay me enough.
- I always have so much debt.
- If I can pay off these debts, I’ll be able to save money.
- I have more than enough money.
Answer explanation: You might think that the first thought is what caused the scenario, but if you look at the end result, you’ll see that the picture reflected back came from a thought frequence regarding debt. The result wasn’t a low paying job, it was more debt, so the dominant frequency revolved around always being in debt.
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Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best summary of Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret" at Shortform .
Here's what you'll find in our full The Secret summary :
- How to visualize the future you want to increase your success
- Why visualization works, according to the laws of the universe
- Why thinking about negative things sabotages your success
