Goal-Setting
"Once you've chosen your quest, you need a map to your destination. Most people use an inefficient process for this, known as goal-setting."
"What's wrong with setting goals?" Zac asked. "I like setting goals."
"I didn't say there was anything wrong with setting goals. I merely said that traditional goal-setting is inefficient."
"How come?"
"Because it works under the illusion that your results come from rearranging matter in your external reality, and they don't. For example, let's say you embark on a quest to start a successful business that serves your community, while also giving you more flexibility and time to spend with your family. Traditional goal-setting encourages you to focus on external markers of progress. For example, your first goal is to launch and make your first dollar. Your next goal is to make two thousand dollars per month, then five thousand, then ten thousand, and so on. Goal-setting then encourages you to look out into your external world and rearrange physical matter to achieve those goals. It tells you to register the business, create products, send emails, do marketing, go to networking events, and all these other 'doing' activities."
"What's wrong with that? You need to do those things to start a business," Zac said.
"Again, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not a very leveraged strategy. Here's why: changes in your physical reality are not caused by doing; they're caused by being. Everyone thinks their actions are changing their reality, as if their external results manifest through linear cause-and-effect. This is an illusion. Actions do not change your reality. Actions change your beliefs, and your beliefs change your reality. That's why hustle culture can result in a lot of action and not much progress. Action for the sake of action isn't effective."
"So you're saying I should just sit on my couch and envision having a successful business, and then a successful business will materialize?"
"Oh, come on, Zac. Don't be ridiculous. Of course I'm not saying that."
"Then what are you saying?"
"Okay," I sighed. "Remember when I told you that everything in our physical reality is a symbol that represents an idea?"
"Yeah," he said. "Like, a car is a symbol of traveling."
"Yes. When you get in your car at location A, then drive to location B, your consciousness gains 'permission' to believe it is now in location B. Therefore, location B manifests in your external reality. If you believed you were in location A, but location B suddenly manifested in your external reality, you would be surprised — which is why it doesn't happen.
Every action you take creates a permission slip, like the car. It gives your consciousness permission to believe something new about itself. For example, until I physically register my business, I don't believe that I am a business owner. If I were to receive a notice in the mail confirming my registered business, that would be surprising if I'd never actually registered my business — and the whole system is designed to minimize surprise. Therefore, I can't change my belief to, 'I am a business owner' unless I perform the action of registering a business. The action is necessary to change my belief, which in turn changes my reality. But the action in and of itself is only effective to the extent that it changes my mathematical model of Self. Do you see what I'm saying?"
"I think so…"
"As another example, if I sit in my basement making products, but never show anyone those products, I'd be surprised if sales suddenly flooded in. It would be like water breaking through a dam wall, without the wall having a hole in it. Water doesn't flow through a solid dam wall because doing so is unparsimonious. Similarly, sales won't flow into my reality when no one knows about my product, because that would be unparsimonious. Hence, getting the word out about my offering gives my consciousness permission to believe that sales can increase.
But here's where the nuance lies. You think your sales increased because you physically rearranged matter in your external reality by taking action. Your sales actually increased because rearranging matter in your external reality changed your mathematical model of Self. Reality is just manifesting a physical experience of your mathematical model of Self. Increased sales are a symbolic representation of a conceptual idea about yourself.
You have to understand that everything outside of you is just a prop that assists you in creating and experiencing Who You Really Are. Therefore, you can execute a great marketing campaign and increase your sales, but if you express a belief that you are stressed and overworked, reality will continue to generate props and circumstances and everything you need to have a physical experience of being stressed and overworked. If you allow clients to treat you like shit, you've just expressed a belief in your lack of worthiness. Therefore, reality will manifest props and circumstances and new clients that give you a physical experience of being unworthy. You can take as much action as you like, but your results are not caused by doing — they're caused by being. Linear cause-and-effect is a convincing illusion.
As another example, let's say you desire to be a successful actor, but everything you do expresses a belief that you are a struggling actor. You believe 'I am struggling,' so reality says 'Okay, you are.' You get invited to shitty auditions, and manifest all the people and props and terrible jobs required to experience yourself as a struggling actor."
"So, in that case, I'm supposed to be delusional?" Zac asked. "Am I supposed to fake it till I make it?"
"It's not about faking it. It's about choosing it. Consciousness moves first, then reality follows in response — like a dance. As long as you think it's the other way around, you don't know how to play this game. If a man is salsa dancing with a woman, he needs to lead. She is waiting for him to lead, and she'll follow wherever he goes. But if he thinks that she is supposed to lead, they'll end up in a static loop, treading water on the dance floor. She is waiting for him, and he is waiting for her, so they both end up waiting forever.
Anyone who pays close attention to their life should have a sneaking suspicion that this is true. In fact, that 'sneaking suspicion' has a name: 'The Law of Attraction.' This surprise-minimizing algorithm is a mathematical explanation for that mystical phenomenon. Here's God explaining it…"
Do I understand You to say that it is out of the state of beingness I select that my worldly success (I am still trying to talk about my career here) will be determined?
I am not concerned about your worldly success, only you are.
It is true that when you achieve certain states of being over a long period of time, success in what you are doing in the world is very difficult to avoid. Yet you are not to worry about “making a living.” True Masters are those who have chosen to make a life, rather than a living.
From certain states of being will spring a life so rich, so full, so magnificent, and so rewarding that worldly goods and worldly success will be of no concern to you.
Life’s irony is that as soon as worldly goods and worldly success are of no concern to you, the way is open for them to flow to you. Remember, you cannot have what you want, but you may experience whatever you have.
I cannot have what I want?
No.
You said this before, very early in our dialogue. Still, I don’t understand. I thought you’ve been telling me I could have whatever I want. “As you think, as you believe, so shall it be done unto you,” and all that.
The two statements are not inconsistent with each other.
They aren’t? They sure feel inconsistent to me.
That is because you lack understanding.
Well, I admit that. That’s why I’m talking with You.
I will then explain. You cannot have anything you want. The very act of wanting something pushes it away from you, as I said earlier, in Chapter One.
Well, You may have said it earlier, but You’re losing me — fast.
Fight to keep up. I’ll go over it again in greater detail. Try to stay with it. Let’s go back to a point you do understand: thought is creative. Okay?
Okay.
Word is creative. Got it?
Got it.
Action is creative. Thought, word, and deed are the three levels of creation. Still with Me?
Right there.
Good. Now let’s take “worldly success” as our subject for the moment, since that’s what you’ve been talking about, asking about.
Terrific.
Now, do you have a thought, “I want worldly success”?
Sometimes, yes.
And do you also sometimes have the thought, “I want more money”?
Yes.
You can therefore neither have worldly success nor more money.
Why not?
Because the universe has no choice but to bring you the direct manifestation of your thought about it.
Your thought is, “I want worldly success.” You understand, the creative power is like a genie in a bottle. Your words are its command. You understand?
Then why don’t I have more success?
I said, your words are its command. Now your words were, “I want success.” And the universe says, “Okay, you do.”
I’m still not sure I follow.
Think of it this way. The word “I” is the key that starts the engine of creation. The words “I am” are extremely powerful. They are statements to the universe. Commands.
Now, whatever follows the word “I” (which calls forth the Great I Am) tends to manifest in physical reality.
Therefore “I” + “want success” produces you wanting success. “I” + “want money” must produce you wanting money. It can produce no other thing, because thoughts, words are creative. Actions are, too. And if you act in a way which says that you want success and money, then your thoughts, words, and actions are in accord, and you are sure to have the experience of this wantingness.
You see?
Yes! My God — does it really work that way?
Of course! You are a very powerful creator. Now granted, if you had a thought, or made a statement, just once — as in anger, for instance, or frustration, it’s not very likely that you’ll convert those thoughts or words into reality. So you don’t have to worry about “Drop dead!” or “Go to hell,” or all the other less-than-nice things you sometimes think or say.
Thank God.
You’re welcome. But, if you repeat a thought, or say a word, over and over again — not once, not twice, but dozens, hundreds, thousands of times — do you have any idea of the creative power of that?
A thought or a word expressed and expressed and expressed becomes just that — expressed. That is, pushed out. It becomes outwardly realized. It becomes your physical reality.
Good grief.
That’s exactly what it produces very often — good grief. You love the grief, you love the drama. That is, until you don’t anymore. There comes a certain point in your evolution when you cease to love the drama, cease to love the “story” as you’ve been living it. That’s when you decide — actively choose — to change it. Only most don’t know how. You now do. To change your reality, simply stop thinking like that.
In this case, instead of thinking “I want success,” think “I have success.”
That feels like a lie to me. I’d be kidding myself if I said that. My mind would shout, “The hell you say!”
Then think a thought you can accept. “My success is coming to me now,” or “all things lead to my success.”
So this is the trick behind the New Age practice of affirmations.
Affirmations do not work if they are merely statements of what you want to be true. Affirmations work only when they are statements of something you already know to be true.
The best so-called affirmation is a statement of gratitude and appreciation. “Thank you, God, for bringing me success in my life.” Now, that idea, thought, spoken, and acted upon, produces wonderful results — when it comes from true knowing; not from an attempt to produce results, but from an awareness that results have already been produced.
Jesus had such clarity. Before every miracle, He thanked Me in advance for its deliverance. It never occurred to Him not to be grateful, because it never occurred to Him that what He declared would not happen. The thought never entered His mind.
So sure was He of Who He Was and of His relationship to Me that His every thought, word, and deed reflected His awareness — just as your thoughts, words, and deeds reflect yours…
If, now, there is something you choose to experience in your life, do not “want” it — choose it.
Do you choose success in worldly terms? Do you choose more money?
Good. Then choose it. Really. Fully. Not half-heartedly.
Neale Donald Walsch