Last night, Barry and I did our interview with Patrick Combs that I referenced a few days ago.
We got to ask him lots of questions about manifesting his dreams, the power of not giving up, and his #1 secret tool for getting what he wants: taking action.
Some of the listeners writing in questions from the webcast — and in fact, some of the community members who send us emails — have a tough time understanding the context of the term “taking action”. They tend to see it as being the opposite of “allowing” things to come to us.
They also have trouble putting together how they can “focus” on what they want to manifest, and yet “allow” it by not being attached to it.
And in fact it’s such a prevalent complaint that, coincidentally, as I started writing this, Barry was posting a similarly-themed article over on the LWL Worldwide blog.
(And no, I don’t believe in coincidences, only synchronicities.)
But if I was going to boil the process down into a nutshell version (which I also did on the call, to sum up what Patrick was saying) it’s not a bunch of contradictions that are happening at the same time; it’s a process, a sequence of events, and all the parts need to be in place:
1. Focus on what you want by thinking about it, emotionalizing about it, visualizing it, singing about it, writing out a list of goals, or however you like to do it.
2. Let it go and allow it to come when and how it wants to (in other words, don’t be attached to exactly what the result has to look like… and, Patrick doesn’t advocate dream boards or vision boards because they tend to make it more difficult to let go).
3. Take action towards that outcome, and action could mean any variety of things including picking up the phone and talking to someone, looking for ads, checking your finances and saving up for what you want to buy, or getting out to a party.
4. (And, as Patrick added, the cycle continues as you go back to focusing again as required.)
And if you’re worried about taking action BEFORE you know what direction you should be taking action in; Patrick suggests always taking small action steps.
That makes it easier to do, and also, in my opinion, easier to switch directions if need be.
This is where standard physics meets metaphysics.
Patrick pointed out that once something is in motion, it takes six times as much force to stop it as it did to put it into motion. This is the power of momentum.
And it reminds me of my favorite law from our good friend Newton, the king of standard, real-world, teach-it-in-school physics:
A body in motion stays in motion.
A body at rest stays at rest.
You can prove this to yourself with a marble or a toy car. Put it on a flat surface, and it sits there. Give it a push, and it starts to roll; the harder you push, the farther it goes.
Is this woo-woo stuff that’s hard to put our heads around?
No… we learned it in one of our very first science classes as little kids. It’s very real!
And yet, even though Newton is looked up to as a master of real-world physics, his principles very much apply in the metaphysical world too.
But since we tend to forget that as we go through our complicated day-to-day lives, let’s just pretend we’re kids again learning this for the first time. Just for fun.
A body in motion — working towards an intention, vision or goal — stays in motion. And a body at rest — sitting on the couch, waiting for what it visualized to magically appear — stays at rest.
Now, the other thing to take a look at here is the different types of action.
What if you shove your marble or toy car in the wrong direction, and it rolls right off the table onto the floor?
Not good.
But if before giving your push you had seen a long tube that would take the vehicle safely down the steep incline, like a ramp, and zooming along the floor at the bottom; well, sending it that way instead of straight off the edge would have been inspired.
And that’s the difference between blind action and inspired action.
I hardly ever recommend blind action; but I simply and completely LOVE inspired action. That’s when an idea comes to you, and you just know you have to do it. Sometimes it’s a subtle, “Hey, why don’t I try that?” and other times it’s a full-force whack-on-the-head ah-ha moment that says, “Holy cow, I just HAVE to do that!”
But either way, it’s a beautiful process that usually only comes after you’ve already done your focusing on what you want (be it visualizing, goal-setting, or however you want to do it) and then letting it go and allowing it.
And that, my friend, is the time to take action towards your dreams.
However, if you’ve already started blind action and discover you’re going in the wrong direction; well, just listen to your heart (or your gut, as I told you yesterday) and if you’ve only taken baby steps as Patrick suggested, you’ll be able to switch gears quite effectively.
After all, remember… a body in motion stays in motion and a body at rest stays at rest.
So if your toy car is headed towards the edge of a table, it’s a lot easier to deflect it back in a slightly different direction than it was to start it in motion from a standstill.
And… you probably learned a lot more from that short journey towards near-disaster than you would have sitting and waiting for a sign to go.
Keep Unwrapping the Mysteries of Life!
