Put the Action in Attraction

When activated, the Law of Attraction can make it effortless to achieve your dreams. But many people are missing a key ingredient that negates all of the important inner work they do – action!


Law of Attraction teachers Esther and Jerry Hicks, speak often about the importance of the inner journey and the action journey, explaining that one hour of internal work has the same impact as seven hours of taking action in the outer world.

The problem is that many people spend so much time on inner work, that they fail to spend adequate time in action. Balance between inner and outer work is essential.

Here are 5 ways you can move into action – starting today:

1. Develop a strategic action plan. By creating a detailed list of every action steps that you need to achieve each goal, you’ll find it easier to move into action. You won’t waste time wondering what to do – you’ll see it clearly laid out before you. In addition to creating action plans to achieve your goals, identify steps to take to overcome every one of your obstacles – both inner and outer.

2. Follow the trail. Identifying what action steps you need to take doesn’t have to be difficult. After all, other people have blazed a trail for you to follow. If you want to shorten your learning curve, find someone who has achieved the goal you’re pursing. Ask them what steps they took to achieve success … then follow their lead.

3. Rule of 5. When Mark Victor Hansen and I published our first Chicken Soup for the Soul book, we were overwhelmed with possibilities and ideas for making the book a best-seller. A wonderful teacher, Ron Scolastico, shared a powerful piece of wisdom. “If you would go every day to a very large tree and take five swings at it with a very sharp ax, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down!” From that lesson came the Rule of 5, which simply means that every day, you must do five specific things to move your goal toward completion. (Daily utilization of our new Top 5 Action Cards is the simplest way to ensure that you are taking meaningful, daily action to achieve your goals.)

4. Involve others. If you’ve developed a habit of spending too much time involved with inner work, it’s easy to let yourself slip when it comes to taking action. Sharing your specific commitments with another person can be powerful in ensuring that you follow through on what you vow to do. An accountability partner is someone who meets with you daily by telephone to share your commitments for the day – and to hold you accountable for meeting your goals. A coach can also help to hold you accountable, as well as help you explore what might be fueling your behavior when you don’t keep your commitments. Finally, a business partner can be a tremendous support. I am blessed to be business partners with Patty Aubery, holds me accountable, as well as motivates and inspires me when I’m feeling funky. I do the same for her. We each have unique skills and talents that we bring to our partnership, and we keep each other in action.

5. Check your beliefs. Many of us have beliefs that limit our success – including beliefs about our ability to take action, about our capabilities, and about what it takes to succeed. Take time to identify any negative beliefs that might be impeding your desire or ability to take action, such as If you find that you have negative beliefs regarding action – such as “It doesn’t matter what I do, it’s not going to work anyway.”

Chapter 33 of The Success Principles includes powerful exercises to shift limiting beliefs.

In addition, I’ll offer you something that I use myself: A small sign on my computer that says, “So what? Do it anyway.” So what if you’re afraid? So what if it’s expensive? So what if you’ve never done it before? So what if you don’t have all the information? Do it anyway, because once you take action, you’ll get feedback, and feedback tells you how to do it better.


Eemember, the last six letters in the word “attraction” are “action.” If you want to achieve results, you cannot only work on your internal world. You must also take action!

Jack Canfield

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