Understanding and Using "The Secret"

The Secret is a book and DVD written/promoted by Aussie Rhonda Byrne; it is basically a dramatic distillation of everything learned over the past 100 years or so in the burgeoning area of what is generally known as "positive psychology."

What happens with the basic tenets of "The Secret" is that everyone puts it through their own "filter" and interprets the premise of The Secret in ways that make sense to them (here I wish to give a big nod to VN blogger DuffyM, who wrote about the phenomenon of "filtering" in one of her recent blogs).

What I have noticed is that people either love The Secret or hate it. I actually support the philosophy and use The Secret and its principles in my life and professional coaching work. Where things go off the rails, and cause people to dismiss or trash The Secret, is the complete failure of book/DVD to adequately stress the ACTION (i.e., hard work!) side of the formula.

The Secret has mistakenly been characterized as just "putting out there to the universe" whatever it is you want (a "vibration" so to speak), and then sitting back and waiting for it to be delivered to you on a silver platter. The DVD inadvertently reinforces this erroneous message, especially in the segment where a little boy is shown focusing on a brand new bicycle that he wants. He focuses on it, cuts out and regularly looks at a picture of his object of desire and, lo and behold, one day opens his front door and there sits the bike of his dreams! Bad message in my view.

In my opinion, the DVD should have shown him taking the action necessary to warrant "attracting" the bike into his life - he certainly could have the photo on the wall in his room and tell his parents/grandparents his goal is that bike, and then he could deliver papers, mow lawns, do chores, or even enter contests where a bike is the prize - anything that would show he was actively working towards the desired goal...then it would make sense to have someone in his life bestow the bike on him as a well-earned reward, or he may have earned enough to buy the bike himself. But this aspect of The Secret gets skipped over time and time again, leading people to dismiss it as a stupid philosophy for lazy, materialistic, and "magical thinking" people.

The Secret is really about goal setting - something most people are terrible at. Fact is, most people WISH positive (which makes for vague, far-off goals) and THINK negative (they are distinct and concrete about what they dislike). Most people are great at telling you in detail what they DON'T want, but totally lousy at describing in detail what it is they DO want. And because we tend to get what we focus on in life, if you tend to be really clear about what you don't want, the chances are you will get and/or notice more of it in your life.

The neuro/brain science behind this is something referred to as the "Reticular Activating System" or RAS. This is our method of filtering and only noticing that which is important to us. For example, have you ever noticed that when you've bought a car, say a blue Volvo sedan, that all of a sudden you see blue Volvo sedans likes yours everywhere? Yesterday there were none in sight, and now it seems there are lots of them around? That is your RAS at work. Or, you've decided to buy a new refrigerator and you open the paper and spot a great sale on refrigerators and think "How lucky, just when I need one there's a sale on!" Well, the chances are there were appliance sales advertised in the paper regularly in the lead up to your decision, but you simply never noticed them until it was important to you and, therefore, the ad made it past your filter. Once again, that is your RAS.

The Secret is just an approach for activating your RAS effectively. You have to be clear and specific about what it is you desire AND, most importantly, you have to TAKE SUSTAINED ACTION that is aligned with achieving that desire.

If you have this goal clarity and an action plan that you implement, The Secret calls this putting out a "vibration" that will "attract" your desire...this is just a fancy way of saying you are more likely to step up, take chances, put yourself out there, ask for what you want, and consistently put yourself in the place of most potential for the thing you want to manifest itself in your life - be a partner, a job, or a material possession.

I do not subscribe to the "genie in a bottle" aspects of The Secret (i.e., I don't think the universe hears me and responds with "Your wish is my command - relax, have a mani/pedi while we deliver a six figure income to you). Nor do I think people who suffer catastrophic bad luck have brought it on themselves with wrong thoughts. What I do believe in and use is this acronym "TURA" (The Universe Rewards Action).

What I believe is that having goal clarity, a crystal clear focus, and a game plan-of-action aligned with achieving my goal is a recipe for huge gains and progess, if not outright success and complete achievement.

Todo bien. (It's all good.)