A Snowball Theory of the Law of Attraction

If you study coaching, you will eventually come across the Law of Attraction. The law states that like attracts like, that positive thoughts manifest positive results and that negative thoughts manifest negative results. Sometimes, the law is even explained in terms of cosmic energies that our thoughts resonate with and attract to themselves. I’m not sure about all that, but I have a theory of how the thoughts that we focus on impact our results.

We are wired for consistency and we love to be right. Once we have a thought, we go and look for evidence to prove it. Somewhere in his writings, C.S. Lewis gives the example of the Marxist who sees evidence for his Marxism everywhere he looks. Psychologists have discovered a similar tendency called the availability heuristic. Perhaps you’ve experienced it when you’ve bought a new car. All of a sudden, you start to notice that lots of other people have also bought the same make and model that you have. The truth is that those cars were already on the road before your purchase. It’s just that the mental image of your newly purchased car is at the forefront of your mind and so you more easily spot the other vehicles that reinforce your concept. 

This pattern can happen with the thoughts we choose to focus on as well. If you regularly think, “Meetings are awful,” your mind hunts for all of the things that confirm this thought. If you think, “Meetings can be valuable,” you are much more likely to notice the ways in which they can be. Beware that I am not saying that your negative thoughts aren’t true. Rather, I am inviting you to explore how your thoughts act as a filter on what you notice. The thoughts we choose to focus on tend to snowball and accumulate evidence.     

What is the ecosystem of your thoughts like? What recurring thoughts do you have? In what way do these recurring thoughts filter what you see? For the thoughts that are negative, what new, true positive thought could you choose to focus on instead? What types of evidence is this positive thought likely to accumulate as it snowballs? 

God Bless,
Dan