The Science Behind the Secret
Dr. Diane Kramer
President, PeakSkills Learning Systems
Founder, Extraordinary Self® Development Programs
What is the claim of The Secret?
The Secret is all the buzz about how to attract what you want most in life. The concept, as well as the book and film detailing The Secret, became overnight phenomena when Oprah featured it on her show. What makes The Secret so attractive to people? What does The Secret claim? It claims that if you focus on something you really want, visualize it and then talk to yourself as if you already have it, feeling the feelings that go along with getting it, you will attract and get it…so long as you align your thoughts behind this goal. And that is an attractive concept in itself.
As an example, lets say that I want two new corporate clients this quarter. Following the suggestions of The Secret, based on the Law of Attraction, I tell myself that I have two new corporate clients. I visualize myself in possession of the checks from those clients and feel the feeling of satisfaction. I also pretend as if I have training dates to meet with those clients and imagine going there and performing my services. I imagine the responses I get as feedback from the training afterwards.
Next, my job is to keep my thoughts aligned with this goal, again maintaining the idea that I have already gotten it. So I am saying to myself: “I got the corporate gig with x company. Soon I am going there to conduct a training. They bought into my eight-session program. This is great!
Does The Secret Really Work? What are the two problems with the claim of The Secret?
- Almost all of us would love The Secret to be true. Just visualize it, feel it, and make the achieving of your goal real, as if you have already gotten it. Sounds great, but for those skeptics in the world, it raises a question. How often does following this method work? Does everyone get exactly what they want when they follow the method? What are the limitations to this wish fulfillment?
There is no real answer to this question. While the claim of The Secret is compelling, it has not been systematically measured. We do not know how often it comes true and how often, even when people are following its methods, it does not come true.
We hear about the people for whom it has worked. We do not hear about the people for whom it has not worked. What about them? When the method doesn’t work, it is easy for the leaders in The Secret movement to claim that it is because the individuals did not apply the method enough. They did not get their thoughts into alignment enough.
The truth is that those people for whom The Secret works share some unique characteristics. Most are very aware of themselves and have been on the path of personal growth and self-development for many years. Perhaps it is something about their self-development that allows the Law of Attraction to work for them.
- The second problem with The Secret is the method itself. The method for attracting what we want is not spelled out in detail. There is no one telling us how we get all our thoughts in alignment with our goal that we are pretending has already happened. How do we train our brain not to think negatively? What do we do with the skeptical parts of ourselves? Our Doubting Thomases? Do we have to have total control over our thoughts to make The Secret useable? We know that thinking the thoughts we want and not thinking the thoughts we do not want is one of the most difficult of human enterprises. How do we do this so that we can make The Secret come true for each of us?
Alternate explanations for The Secret
Whether or not The Secret methods work reliably is a key question that has not been answered. Another key question is how we can apply our brains so that we make The Secret work for us, since it works at least some of the time.
I don’t know about you but I have been writing out and visualizing my goals for a long time. I looked and looked for a handy-man special on the Long Island Sound to fix up. I did not reach my goal for two years. Finally I got inspired and wrote out the details of the house I wanted. I faxed the description to local real estate agents. The next day, one called me and took me to the house I wanted. Did I get the house because of The Secret or because I set down my goal very specifically and then sent it out to those who could find me the opportunity?
In a similar vein, I found my husband by writing out the specific goal of the kind of man I wanted. I held onto that goal for seven years. In that time I met many ‘almosts’. During that period I kept refining my goal so that I got clearer and clearer about three issues: what I wanted, what I did not want, and what I had to change inside myself to attract what I wanted. When I was extremely clear and when I had worked on myself sufficiently, the man of my dreams appeared. Was it the magic of The Secret or all the hard work I had put into changing old patterns?
For those for whom it works, how does it work, in terms of a science? What is the research behind this?
Let's look at The Secret from another perspective. Let's assume that when we define a goal clearly and align our thinking behind it, we get what we want much of the time. Is that magic? Or is there some other explanation that can account for the result.
Yes, there is another explanation. All we need do is consider the work of Albert Bandura, world-famous psychologist. His work on Self-efficacy Beliefs has spurred thousands of research projects in psychology, all with similar results. And those results explain the success of The Secret when it works.
What does the term, self-efficacy, mean? It refers to our belief in our ability to reach a specific goal. High self-efficacy refers to a high-level (strong) belief that we will reach a specific goal. Low self-efficacy refers to a low-level (weak) belief that we will reach a specific goal. Research demonstrates that the level of our belief predicts how likely we are to reach that goal. So, a strong self-efficacy belief predicts that we will most likely reach the goal, and a weak self-efficacy belief predicts that we probably will not reach the goal. Why? Because when we keep our belief strong about reaching the goal, even when we do not know how to proceed or what to do when we fail, we stay open to the possibility of learning what we need to learn in order to succeed. When our belief is weak about reaching the goal, when we get confused or we make some mistakes, we give up.
So when The Secret works for the leaders of the Law of Attraction, it may be that they are maintaining strong self-efficacy beliefs, thus leaving themselves open for learning and, for new possibilities and opportunities that will lead them to their goal. For those for whom The Secret does not work, it may be because they give up too soon and close off the possibility of learning and of following up on opportunities so they do not reach their goal.
Why does The Secret not work for everyone? Are there other reasons beyond the issue of self-efficacy?
So far we have questioned how often The Secret actually works to get people what they want. And we have looked at a possible scientific explanation for why it works when it works. There is yet another issue to consider in terms of why it works or doesn’t work for specific individuals. That issue revolves around our complexity as human beings. Our physical body is composed of organs that interact to keep us going – heart, lungs, kidneys, etc. Just so, our mind is composed of different parts that interact to keep us going. There is the part that evaluates us, the part that keeps us safe, the part that motivates us, the part that holds our memories, the part that creates our future, etc. These parts often contradict and conflict with each other. Have you ever been in internal conflict, gotten stuck and could not move forward, heard negative voices in your head or felt judged? These situations are all examples of our different parts in conflict.
According to the Law of Attraction, we are supposed to set our goal and then align our thoughts. Well, because of our complexities, unless you are an expert in sorting out your parts, their underlying beliefs and differences, it will be hard to align your thoughts around a specific goal. Most of the opposition and self-sabotage is automatic and comes from unconscious processes. Only when we deal with those underlying parts and align them will we be able to align our thoughts all in the same direction.
How can we get it to work for us?
So now we are coming up with a recipe for making The Secret or the Law of Attraction work for us. We need to get specific about our goal and pretend as if we are already reaching it. We need to maintain a strong self-efficacy belief in our ability to reach the goal in order to take advantage of the learning we need to do and opportunities we need to find in order to reach our goal. (The Secret calls this strong self-efficacy belief “trusting the Universe.”
We also need to align our Parts and get them all working together toward the goal. That is a big challenge and often takes a lot of work with a professional.
How can we train ourselves to make the principles of The Secret work for us?
The program that my company offers, The Extraordinary Self Development Program, brings a research-based scientific foundation and cultivates skills needed to make The Secret work for you
Participants learn how to set a specific goal and pretend that it is happening while also learning how to maintain a strong self-efficacy belief about it. Participants also learn how to discover the different Parts of the Self that need to be brought into alignment for success and to get those Inner Parts to work together to produce aligned thoughts, capable of transforming thinking and behavior, and shifting their world.
Please contact Dr. Diane Kramer, President of PeakSkills Learning Systems and founder of the Extraordinary Self Development Programs to learn more. dkramer@peakskillslearning.com or 631-630-0570 x20.