The Secret: does it really work?

[davoscat]

This is what I love about group blogs. Wise Bread actually has two dueling articles on the homepage giving two different views about The Secret:

Making your own luck is no secret

The prosperity game: play the game and find new money, for real

So does The Secret really work? Has anyone tried it? George Bailey always asked for a million dollars, but he didn't exactly get it now did he?

[Will]

A race car driver once told me that race cars always goes towards where the driver is looking at. He called it "target fixation." If you're looking at a tree, you're going to hit that tree.

I think The Secret is pretty much the same thing. If you're focused on having good things happening to you, you will have more confidence, be more open minded, and have a greater focus on success rather than failure.

[rstlne]

The Secret is a slick repackaging of some of the wacky ideas of the 19th Century New Thought Movement. It's scary to see how many otherwise rational people are getting sucked into the myth that positive thinking alone will enable them to succeed. I know a few people for whom The Secret didn't work and was in fact damaging because their optimism blinded them towards financial pitfalls that put them deeply into debt and even into bankruptcy in one case. The irony is I heard about The Secret from one of them. If you follow The Secret, know this: Positive thinking alone is not enough. You also need to plan for the future, exercise caution in matters of finance, and put in the effort to prepare for opportunities that come around.

[Tightwad]

'The Secret' is dangerous because it is a pop culture re-packaging of ancient philosophies and even self-help books of the '80s. If you concentrate your efforts and focus your thoughts, you will have a better chance of reaching your goals. GENIUS!

If you want a solid, readable book on this topic without all the fluff and hocus-pocus, read this. It's free:

http://www.wishcraft.com/

To read some of the plagarized sources for 'The Secret', Google these folks.

Catherine Ponder
Norman Vincent Peale
Buddha
The Bible

[dapooh1]

I think it's partly a matter of being open to opportunities and assistance (and some good old-fashioned prudence and preparation as the Calamity Jane parable illustrates).

When I was in graduate school, I was very unhappy becuase I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I finally decided to commit to a particular path, and when people (professors, graduate students, lay people) asked me what I wanted to do when I graduated, I started telling them, "I would like to teach at a community college." Lo and behold, some professors started providing me more opportunities to talk about, learn about, and practice teaching. Thanks to one of those professors, my teaching assistantship was increased from 1/3 time to 1/2 time (with a greater stipend). I was nominated for and received a student teaching award (with a small cash prize), and I was offered a student lectureship where I was THE teacher for two lecture sections per semester (again, more money). While my income continued to grow, I lived on the same amount of money as before. I managed to save enough to pay back a student loan I'd had to take out, saved enough to buy new! furniture when I got my first "real" college teaching job and moved to a new state, and I started my new job with a small emergency fund in place.

Did I attract that success? Maybe, partly by having a positive attitude and attracting the interest of some good people who really wanted to see their students succeed. There was definitely some luck involved. I took that same positive attitude into my first college teaching job and quickly got squashed by certain tenured faculty who relied on bullying tactics to maintain order and control in their classrooms.

I'm in a much better place now, however, surrounded mostly by colleagues who share attitudes toward teaching that are similar to my own. I am hopeful that the positive and engaged approach will work for me again. In the meantime, I continue to save and live as prudently as possible.

I do wish that there was a "dating game" similar to the "prosperity game".

[Night Runner]

This is the beauty of "The Secret" - nobody can either prove or disprove it beyond the shadow of doubt.
Personally, I don't subscribe to any philosophy or religion - I just live my life on a daily basis, trying to make the most of my best years of life and constantly reminding myself that I am, in essence, happy because I don't have any outstanding loans, I'm in great health, and I have fantastic friends - and any problems I may have at the moment are temporary and easy to solve...

[iarenoob]

Basically you want to develop a drive to get to where you want to be and thats the mentality behind the book. Think it and be it and you will BECOME what you want. Positive thinking will get you to success!

[USCGamecocks]

That's part of the secret that some fail at. When they are at the brink of bursting through and finding the secret and reaping the rewards they lose faith. The secret, it works. That's my vote.

[shayob]

For the most part I think the Secret works, but I don't know that I consider it that big of a secret. If you are aware of your thoughts and feelings and desires you are certain more likely to attract to you what you are thinking about. How many times have you met someone who says "I only attract jerks" and low and behold those are the people they have in their lives.

Affirmations and mediation can get you in the right place to not only attract positive things into your life but also recognize them when they show up. My issue with the secret is that some people take it to the extreme and they think all they have to do is think good thoughts and everything will come to them. It just doesn't work that way, you also need action, you must be an active participant in your own life.

There are also those who state that everything that happens in our lives we cause, and they use the Secret as their backup. I do believe that we can attract bad things to us, but we don't control other people, they make choices too and some people are destructive and evil and there are times when those people hurt others. I once heard someone say (after watching the Secret) "there are no victims, there is no such thing as murder or rape because people bring that to themselves" I was shocked to hear someone saw something like that and I just told her I thought she was way off base and full of it.

So, try it, see how it works for you. Believe that you can bring great things into your life and you are worth it but don't judge others or yourself when things go wrong. Deal with the bad and move on, know that you have the strength to be able to move on.

[beansac]

Rstlne is exactly right. It can't be proven true or false, but if you are a 'believer' you don't need to have it proven true to 'know' it works. I think some of it is common sense, like "working harder results in better success." Duh. But getting checks in the mail because you thought about them is, without a doubt, the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I can't understand how people can hear that and think it isn't ludicrous.