Steve Pavlina has written quite a bit about the Law of Attraction on his blog, and some of his material makes interesting reading. In particular, what he says about the number one mistake people make when using the Law of Attraction.

Why The Law of Attraction Fails

This seems to be, in Steve’s opinion, all about intention.

He refers to two components of intention: first of all, the content. Second, the energy you bring to it.

Obviously, the content is simply information. It’s about what you have decided you want.

This might be, for example, a new career, a better relationship, or a specific amount of money.

But what about the energy, the second part of your intention?

Generally speaking when you read about Law of Attraction, it’s described as emotion. Often strong emotion. People talk about the need for passion, or gratitude. And they seem to imply that these are the kind of strong emotions which can send your intention out into the universe.

Steve Pavlina, however, says that the feelings or emotions you have are a result of the energy you bring to your intention.

It’s an interesting viewpoint, and one we should consider.

Before we do that however, we’ll just review what Steve has to say about the experience of failure when trying to manifest using Law of Attraction principles.

There’s no question that lots of people fail to get anything when they use the Law of Attraction. And a lot of people seem to use techniques that don’t work over and over again.

Others try it once and give up when their desires fail to manifest.

And plenty of people don’t even try, but just dismiss the Law of Attraction as nonsense right from the start.

All of these approaches are flawed.

The basic problem when Law Of Attraction doesn’t work seems to be that people aren’t energizing their intention correctly.

In other words, people think an idea (the content of their intention) is a complete intention.

But the truth is that energy is also an essential component of every intention.

This isn’t surprising, because if you think about it, anything in the world that changes form, or moves from one place to another, requires some form of energy to make the change happen.

Similarly, any manifestation using the Law of Attraction requires energy.

Now it’s absolutely true that most people who talk about law of attraction say that the strong emotions you bring to your intention are what makes your desires manifest.

But, like I said, Steve Pavlina’s view is that the emotion you feel is the result of the  thought energy you bring to your intention.

He reminds us how children bring energy to their desire for something they want. They ask for it, they jump up and down, and they’ll drive everyone crazy expressing their desires. And generally, they don’t give up very easily.

Now is that just thought energy, or is it emotion? Certainly when a child manifests what it wants (usually because somebody gets it for them) they feel strong emotion – gratitude, joy or happiness. (Or maybe disappointment if the wrong thing’s manifested.)

So have we really all got it wrong? Are our emotions not the fuel for manifestation, but simply the product of the energy we need to bring to the process?

Well! It looks like an important question, doesn’t it?

If everyone out there talking about the Law of Attraction who is telling you that you need to bring emotional energy to your intention, and they are wrong, we need to know!

Currently we’re all trying to feel gratitude and happiness by visualizing outcomes before they’ve happened. If this is wrong, yes, we really need to know!

Steve’s explanation is that you get energy into your intention by using the concept of increased thought energy.

He makes the point that a thought like “I feel joy” doesn’t necessarily hold any emotional energy or fuel.

But if you close your eyes, and smile, perhaps move around a bit, sing a happy song, that kind of thing, you immediately begin to feel the emotion of joy. In short, it’s possible to add energy to a thought process to make it more intense. You can try this for yourself.

You can try this for yourself.  Read Steve’s article by clicking on the link. And you can read the first part of his article here stevepavlina.com.

In summary, Steve’s suggesting that an intense emotion like passion does not fuel or motivate action or manifestation.

Passion, he says, isn’t the real source of drive and motivation, but merely a by-product of high levels of thought energy.

To put this another way, the ultimate cause of manifestation using the Law of Attraction is always the original intention.

When it’s backed up by high levels of energy, that is to say high levels of thought energy, you will experience more intense emotional feelings.

When these intense feelings are mixed with direct action, as well as the art of passive manifesting (asking and letting go of expectation), manifestation is simple and easy.

What does this mean in practice?

I think it means that if you hold low-energy thoughts, even with great content, they will manifest virtually nothing.

That’s perhaps one reason why affirmations are sometimes not very successful: they hold great content, but there’s no energy behind them.

On the other hand, if you hold thoughts with poor content and high energy, you feel a surge of motivation and passion which leads you to pursue them as goals. You probably recognize both these possibilities for yourself.

And very interestingly, when you hold a powerful intention that is loaded with lots of thought energy, other people can begin to pick it up and respond to it long before physical manifestation of your intention has taken place.

Finally, it’s worth reading what Steve says about developing the skill of directing energy flow. It isn’t something that happens overnight. But instant results are probably what most people who hear about the Law of Attraction expect and want to happen.

Like anything else, to make Law of Attraction work, and to learn the techniques that will allow you to manifest whatever you desire, you have to develop your skill at creating and sustaining energy flow.