The Power of Productive Thinking
Thought → Belief → Desire → Action
I.
You Are Not Your Mistakes
“I’m a big dummy.”
Those were the last words I heard from my father-in-law before he left Reno the other day. I handed him his cell phones through the open passenger-side window and countered, “No you’re not!” as Hunter sped off.
Ben had left his phones (work + personal) charging in our guest bedroom and didn’t realize it until he and his son had arrived at the airport. They’d spent the whole drive talking, savoring the last few moments they’d have together before being separated, yet again, by 1,800 miles and six states. When Ben realized his oopsie, Hunter called me, I grabbed the phones, hopped in another car, met them halfway, and made the handoff on the side of the road. It was No Big Deal. It felt good to take action and avert a crisis. And I was more than happy to do it.
But, those words.
When Ben and Hunter initially left the house, we had already exchanged our formal farewells—“goodbye/thank you/bon voyage”—and I basked in the glowing aura of gratitude one feels after family and friends travel across the country to visit. So when the phone rang, I welcomed the unexpected chance to actually demonstrate my appreciation for the man who makes the necessary sacrifices to visit us several times a year. I was high on my own gratefulness supply up until I heard those words.
“I’m a big dummy.”
It hit like a wet fish across the face. Aura, poof. Gratitude tank, busted. I’m cringing now as I reread those untrue, unforgiving, thoughtless words. How could Ben say that about his own self?
I wondered why those words struck me so intensely. And then I realized that I had heard them before—from Ben’s own mouth. Rather than saying, “I made a mistake” or “I did a dumb thing,” he’ll sometimes say, “I’m a big dummy.” But he’s not. He’s at least half the reason why my husband is the smartest person I know.
When Ben said what he had said, I was struck by the weight of the deeper self-criticism he carries. And it reminded me of the deeper self-criticisms we all carry. Instead of acknowledging a specific action as wrong (e.g., “I failed at this task”), we’ll sometimes wrongly identify ourselves with our undesirable actions (e.g., “I’m a failure”). In psychology, this is called mistaking guilt for shame. And most everyone is guilty of this. We’ll say things like “I’m not good enough” or “I’m defective” or “I’m unworthy” or “I’m unlovable” or “I’m disgusting” or “I’m not deserving” or “I’m bad” or “I’m destructive” when we believe we’ve made the wrong decision or taken the wrong action. But making mistakes, and feeling a sense of guilt, plays a vital role in refining our behaviors over the long run. That guilt reminds us not to make the same mistake twice.
Shame, on the other hand, occurs when we believe our mistakes transpire because we are fundamentally flawed in some way. When we feel shame, we’ll say unkind things about our own self, the only self we’ve got. Our worthy, capable, lovable, delightful, prosperous, creative, brilliant selves. We can be our own worst critics and our own worst enemies. When we make an ordinary mistake, like leaving something behind, no one else worries about it as much as we do. But no one else learns from it as much as we do, either. Rather than perceiving that mistake as part of our identity, we can change the way we speak to ourselves. We’re all guilty of doing dumb things sometimes (hello—we’re all human here), but we’re not dummies.
II.
The Future Starts in Your Mind
I’ve read several “woo” books that insist on the legitimacy of a Law of Attraction. Some of those books include The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, and The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn. The Law of Attraction is proposed as such: Your beliefs shape your reality. What you think about, comes about.
As someone who perceives themselves as more pragmatic than their New Age counterparts, I find it challenging to get on board with a concept—let alone one deemed a “Law”—that cannot be proven via the scientific method. From an analytical standpoint, it seems like wishful thinking, but from an intuitive sense, there does seem to be something to it.
Before I began writing, I believed myself to be a writer. Before Hunter proposed, I secretly called him my “future husband.” Before earning a Director-level title at my last job, I imagined getting that title. Before I quit my job, I journaled about quitting my job. Before I met Richard Branson, I visualized meeting him (and even promised myself I’d get a selfie to prove it).
None of these things happened in reality without first happening in my mind.
While the Law of Attraction cannot be proven using the same tools that we use to measure physical anomalies, we do have empirical evidence of its existence. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream of racial equality. Jeff Bezos envisioned an online “everything store.” Tim Berners-Lee imagined linking hypertext with the Internet to create the World Wide Web. What these people thought about, they brought about.
When we set our minds toward a future outcome, we consciously and subconsciously move toward that outcome. This isn’t woo voodoo, it’s mental priming. Our repetitive thoughts form our beliefs. Those beliefs shape our future desires. And those desires guide the actions we take. And the actions we take determine how receptive we are to opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed.
The universe doesn’t attract a specific outcome to us; rather, we gravitate toward the outcome we are most familiar with. When we envision a goal, believe in our ability to achieve it, and put in the necessary work, we increase the likelihood of making that vision our reality.
III.
Becoming Your Beliefs
At my most recent prenatal visit, while discussing postpartum expectations, my doula asked if I had a history of anxiety and depression. I replied, “I’ve experienced symptoms of depression in the past and know what to look out for, but I do not consider myself to be a depressed person.”
That response was very much intentional.
In the past, when I experienced depression and was subsequently medicated for it, I labeled myself as a “depressed person.” And the more I identified with that label, the deeper I sank into negative thought spirals that reinforced my belief. It wasn’t until I started saying “I experience depression” when I recognized that those harmful patterns were entirely separate from me and susceptible to breakage.
When we view our struggles as something we experience, rather than fundamental aspects of our identity, it becomes easier to break free of our undesirable patterns. Our thoughts not only shape our external reality by influencing our actions and awakening us to opportunities we might otherwise overlook, but they also shape our identity. For example, if we constantly tell ourselves that we are destructive, we are prone to subconsciously take destructive actions. Our minds and bodies trust in our thoughts and move in the direction that aligns with our deep-seated beliefs. If those beliefs are untrue, unforgiving, or thoughtless, then it is up to us to challenge them, rewrite them, and correct course.
IV.
Law of Action
After writing about the Law of Attraction, I’ve realized what bothers me most about this concept—the “attraction” part. So, I move that we rename the Law of Attraction to the Law of Action.
Any seconds?
In Idea #2, I referenced a few books that advocate for the Law of Attraction, but I deliberately left out two: Think And Grow Rich by Napolean Hill and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (which is also a documentary). What I dislike about these two resources in particular is that they exploit the human desire for prosperity by selling the idea that the secret to wealth is: Ask and you will receive. Desperate people cling to the promise of “attracting” money just as they gravitate towards MLMs, stock rallies, and other get-rich-quick schemes. But the only thing humans are capable of “attracting” into their lives is problems. That’s precisely why I think the Law of Attraction must be renamed the Law of Action.
Nothing happens without action. We can think all we want (and Lord knows we do), but our thinking will lead us nowhere without the domino effect of Thought → Belief → Desire → Action.
Once we’ve begun taking action toward a desired outcome, our minds shift into high alert—recognizing and pursuing opportunities that can accelerate our progress. This heightened awareness may create the illusion that we’re “attracting” success, but we’re not. The truth is, those opportunities were likely always there. We just failed to notice them when we refused to act.
V.
Action Breeds Optimism
From Man’s Search for Meaning:
The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? “No, thank you,” he will think. “Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.”
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (1946)
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