If we harbor negative thoughts, either consciously or subconsciously, we cannot use law of attraction to manifest desirable conditions in our lives. Negative beliefs also affect our abilities to make clear and productive choices, to set positive goals and certainly to achieve these goals. They affect our beliefs in our own abilities and skills, the way we view the world, and what we believe life holds for us. We can cross our fingers and make a wish, but our intentions will remain outside the realm of possibility as long as our beliefs limit us.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s say birth is the beginning. At that time, you began to learn and form core concepts for how you would view and deal with the world, by gathering information from experiences, environment and conversations. As the needs of an infant are, at first, the very center of its existence, whether or not those needs are answered in a balanced way begins to teach optimistic, or pessimistic, expectation. Whether or not desire and effort are rewarded with "manifestation," or futility determines their expectancy of future gratification. Were your needs met in a healthy and balanced way? 

As you grow and develop, life experiences serve to further instill that early learning. Do you have expectations of success? Or do you find that you give up on your goals or resolutions before succeeding, certain that you will fail? Can you find a theme, or pattern, running through your life that might suggest some deep, and very early learning of futility, hopelessness, or powerlessness? Perhaps over time, your parents or other authority figures told you that you wanted too much, were too demanding, or dreamed too much, perhaps to compensate for their own inability to provide what you needed or wanted.

You later relegated the learned early knowledge to the subconscious to free the conscious mind for new skills and ideas. What you learned at six months, at one year, three years and so on, was no longer recognized as acquired knowledge. Those thoughts became automated. You don’t need to stop and think, you just know. This habitual thinking serves as our default thinking on a conscious level. Subconsciously, negative programs developed that direct thoughts, perspectives, choices, actions, and interactions with others. Essentially, this forms our rule book for life on this planet, totally unique to each of us. While life is a continuum of learning, you can instill positive and effective programs that can counter any negative beliefs you learned .

All of your experiences, starting at birth, set an undercurrent in your mind, regardless of what you believed you consciously desired as an adult. Your subconscious mind had installed core programs that either provided unlimited access to the world, or a small box that you kept banging your head on when you jumped too high. Too many of us feel the lid of a very small box! When, later in life, we chose our attitudes, beliefs and thought processes, we often chose those with which we felt most comfortable. Unfortunately, in this case, comfort due to old familiarity led to the same small box. Choice remains a powerful tool that requires wise and careful use. You chose the thoughts on which you focused. Choice allows you to change that, now!

While we may combat negativity by re-learning, people rarely put in the conscious effort to change themselves so completely. They have created a strong identity and spent a lifetime validating those beliefs through experience. We like validation and we’ll take it any way we can get it. This applies to negative, as well as positive experience. You probably know of people who relive their negative experiences by sharing them with anyone who will listen. Why would people choose to re-experience an event that caused them pain the first time? They provide validation to themselves, and seek validation from others. With each person they tell the story, they say "see I was right." If the person confirms that idea, all the better! We all do this. And there’s a time and place for it–in the wake of some events, we need confirmation and support. We need to feel that people care, sympathize, and understand our perspective. But if we would work toward a new perspective based on new judgments and beliefs, we would then see life circumstances differently, and begin to experience a new reality. You must consider the possibility that you have been wrong–about men or women, about bosses or employees, about money, the government, the system, love, others and/or yourself.

Through the process of self-healing, buried subconscious programs will rise to the conscious level. These beliefs and thoughts will often be uncomfortable. Strive for honesty with yourself. Everyone has their own "junk," whether irrational or ugly. Simply allowing that junk into your conscious mind begins the healing process. With your full acceptance, forgiveness, and non-judgment, these thoughts release. Each time you recognize some underlying issue that corresponds with your experience and acknowledge responsibility in creating it, you further the ongoing process of revelation and healing.

You can see how the two levels of creation, both active choice/action and passive law of attraction, interplay in creating every life situation. The process of healing reshapes yor thinking, and then your life. Begin to ignore your default thought patterns, until positive thinking and productive choice-making becomes habitual. As you attract new and more positive experiences through law of attraction, opportunities for success will present themselves. You will learn to seize the options that are most productive. You will form new relationships that support your goals. When all your actions are congruent with the goals and visions you have set in place, you will be unstoppable!

If you let go of those core and limiting programs you learned from day one, and the experiences that validated those beliefs, you will experience transformation. It is NEVER too late to let go of negativity and false beliefs, and that is all that stands in the way of the life you want.

While many people who have heard of law of attraction hope to use this powerful concept to attract better financial conditions, others feel that it is wrong or even evil to want money. Is there a right and wrong way to view wealth?

Remember the saying “money isn’t everything?” Well, let’s consider that. You can’t live without money. We’d like to think relationships and our health take priority over money, but it’s really pointless to debate. Without money, we can’t live in today’s society, much less maintain health or an optimal love relationship, so the argument is rather circular.

Money plays a huge role in modern life. Until we start bartering fruits and vegetables for land, shelter and other necessities, that will remain the case. Our well-being, health, and relationship possibilities and stability, not to mention basic survival needs, all depend on our financial condition. Yet many don’t know how to manage their money. While companies no longer take care of even long-term employees’ retirement, few know how to invest for the future. Today we know we cannot lean on Social Security for retirement, and unfortunately, even if you become unable to work prior to retirement through disability or illness, it will be difficult to collect SSD insurance to cover your economic needs while you are unable to work. Ask anyone who has applied for SSDI.

Let’s refer to Wallace Walles’ philosophy on wealth, in The Science of Getting Rich:

"There is nothing wrong in wanting to get rich. The desire for riches is really the desire for a richer, fuller, and more abundant life; and that desire is praise-worthy. The man who does not desire to live more abundantly is abnormal, and so the man who does not desire to have money enough to buy all he wants is abnormal.

“There are three motives for which we live; we live for the body, we live for the mind, we live for the soul. No one of these is better or holier than the other; all are alike desirable, and no one of the three—body, mind, or soul—can live fully if either of the others is cut short of full life and expression. It is not right or noble to live only for the soul and deny mind or body; and it is wrong to live for the intellect and deny body or soul.

“We are all acquainted with the loathsome consequences of living for the body and denying both mind and soul; and we see that real life means the complete expression of all that man can give forth through body, mind, and soul. Whatever he can say, no man can be really happy or satisfied unless his body is living fully in every function, and unless the same is true of his mind and his soul. Wherever there is unexpressed possibility, or function not performed, there is unsatisfied desire. Desire is possibility seeking expression, or function seeking performance."

Today I agree with Wattles, although that was not always the case. I once believed that money did not have the power to affect my level of happiness in a particular moment in time. Because of life experiences, I now have the view that the more money available to you at that moment in time, the easier it is to maintain inner peace and happiness. And the optimum life provides for more than mere existence. Abundance will enhance your life and open the possibility of many positive experiences. So while you seek freedom in the spiritual realm, you may reasonably seek freedom in the physical realm. Inner peace and serenity is the by-product of your spiritual growth and transformation, and abundant conditions in the outer world will complement and enhance your inner sense of freedom.

Prosperity is a common desire and intention for students of law of attraction. When they fail to manifest prosperity, they may believe that law of attraction does not work for them. Sometimes conditions may even worsen. While law of attraction undeniably works and we easily manifest in other areas, we’re often left struggling with the issues most important to us, such as money.

The law of attraction states that all thoughts, conscious and subconscious, draw matching circumstances, and not just our positive intentions. This tells us that we are responsible for attracting our conditions, whether they are conditions of poverty, or conditions of wealth. So, examination of our beliefs should reveal that although we desire abundance, we don’t believe we can have it for one reason or another.

We can usually trace our beliefs regarding money back to ideas learned in childhood. While we routinely see images of the fun, comfort and luxury a life of wealth brings, most of us received conflicting negative messages, instilled a long time ago, both about acquiring money as well as having it. The set of learned concepts, along with our life experiences, provide the foundation for a set of  beliefs that form  "wealth consciousness" or "poverty consciousness." This determines the extent to which we can manifest prosperity in our lives.

If we observe children in action, we see that they usually believe they can have, and do, anything. They know what they want and usually believe they will get it! Any parent can testify to this. Instead of nurturing this zest for life and passionate desire for attainment, many parents, and later the school system, tend to quash it, to prepare the child for the "real world." Taught to work hard and not expect too much in return, the individual is well-trained for a lifetime of unsatisfactory labor!

Think about the messages you received as a child. Did you receive positive messages about work or career? Did your family treat work simply as something you had to do as a distasteful necessity? What about the alternative? Your mentors could have encouraged you to explore your interests and find your native gifts so you could enjoy your life’s work while getting paid.

It isn’t really those who work the hardest who acquire wealth, but many believe that a secure life necessitates hard labor. Limiting fears of not having enough keep them from finding and exploring their true passion, or purpose, thinking that it could not afford adequate income.

Purpose is the activity you would want to do whether or not it earns income. Since you need money to live, you are able to invest time doing that which brings you happiness. But, for many, natural interests and talents fell behind in childhood. Notice that the hobbies and interests you might have felt drawn to at one time provide someone else an income. While people continually resist exploring natural talents out of fear they cannot bring in a sustainable income, you can always see someone else making a living doing it!

Now, think about other messages you received about money. Did your church or your parents discuss the sin of wealth? Did you receive any messages about the value, integrity, or goodness of a person who was well-off? In what type of environment did you grow up? Did you have to clean every crumb off your plate? Were you warned not to leave a light on when you left the room? Did you worry about the supply of heat, water, air conditioning or electricity? While economic conditions within the family may have demanded budgeting, many people receive so much unnecessary negatively-charged information about money, they are set up for life to struggle with financial issues.

Unless you have put conscious energy into changing those default thought patterns, you probably have manifested a reality that matches those ideas. To stop your thoughts from creating a financially difficult life, you must gain control over your belief system. We cannot turn off law of attraction! It’s at work, whether we like it or not.

Many people attempting to manifest money easily find signs of money, read about money, or perhaps find small money, such as change. Few actually succeed in using law of attraction to change the big picture. Money encompasses many conditions, making it difficult to intend. If you received a large amount of money, your life would undergo vast improvement. Much stress would be removed and your freedom would increase substantially. Current law of attraction teachings neglect this, saying "there is no order of difficulty in the universe."

You may have to work on numerous issues before you see an improvement in finances. If it is part of your soul plan to work on other issues in order for you to grow, desirable conditions will not manifest that would remove those challenges. That means you’ll need to deal with painful issues that need resolution before you succeed in manifesting your financial abundance. In this way, law of attraction will not rescue you.

You must dedicate time, effort, awareness and energy to change your current beliefs. You need to examine what beliefs, conscious or subconscious may interfere with your ability to draw abundance. For some people, using tools like subliminals and affirmations, might suffice. If money really challenges you, you might have to do deeper work to look at the underlying issues surrounding areas of life relating to money.

I do not agree with current teachings that advise you to spend freely to pretend that you have already manifested prosperity. This may work for some, but it will not work for most. It will be destructive if it does not work, because you will have spent money frivolously you may later need, putting you in a state where you feel more deprived and fearful. "Believe it and you will see it" is a motto that must follow “know thyself." Know what you can achieve with your belief systems, and with some honest and aware scrutiny, your abilties, before spending resources you may need. If it doesn’t cause financial hardship, and the items you invest on provide you with motivation, then do it. Do not do this blindly, on someone else’s advice, or because they tell you that it will work. While a few testimonials may tell you this method worked, thousands more can tell you it did not.

I believe that it’s far more important to attain the prosperity mind-set or wealth consciousness, regardless of what is in your bank account, what clothing you wear, what car you drive, or whether or not you can afford a vacation. True healing and resilient change comes from within. In other words, you must feel lovable before you will be truly loved, you must feel capable and healthy before you will heal, and you must feel deserving and rich inside before you will attain wealth. Deeper healing requires removing feel-good illusions. Illusions often prevent people from authentically having what they desire.

Be prepared to commit the time necessary to change a lifetime of beliefs. With patience and awareness, you will get there. In the process of doing so, free yourself of restricting concepts that keep you from true inner freedom. When you’ve accomplished the inner work, your outer manifestations will be that much sweeter and more enjoyable!

Your choices and actions work with the law of attraction to form what you see around you. While you state your desires via affirmations, visualization exercises, and vision boards, you must support your intentions through your choices and actions. This is how you convey your serious intent to others from whom you seek help or opportunity, as well as from the Universe.

When you begin your holiday shopping for your children, you ask them for a wish-list. You verify their list to observe their real interests, before spending money on something that might just sit in the closet. When you look for validation, you’re really looking for serious intent. You can observe their real interests by watching how and where they spend time and energy. This is the same way you relay your intentions to others. This is the same way you communicate serious intent to the Universe, when you attempt to manifest using the law of attraction.

Once you have set a goal, you need to do your part by following through in ways that support that goal. Praying for, or affirming an outcome, only to spend time negating that affirmation is counterproductive, and you will not see positive results. Use your valuable resources to move you closer to your vision. Commit to your goals through action.

This requires developing unbiased awareness. Awareness allows you to you to look objectively and non-defensively at yourself, removed from your normal perspective. What motivations do your choices and actions suggest? Through this unbiased lens, you can see the negative or destructive underlying programs or belief systems that have been driving your choices. When you move out of habitual pattern and begin to make conscious choices, you will be empowered to make truly positive changes.

Do you allow negative thinking to dominate your mind? Do your thoughts and spoken words support your conscious vision or contradict it? Do you share negative conversations with friends, perhaps to catch them up on your day? Affirmations are a method of conveying your desires of intention, but if you speak them only a few times a day, and spend the rest of the day contradicting them, you will not yield positive results.

Do you invest in yourself, in your vision, or spend money perhaps opposing that same vision? As an obvious and easy example, say you affirm for energetic and vibrant health. Then, you purchase cigarettes. Even worse, you smoke the cigarettes. Perhaps you ask to develop your own inner guidance and then put money into psychics.

Where do you expend your effort and energy? If you have affirmed for a healthy and fit body, but do not expend effort into the exercise required or make unwise choices on diet, you aren’t serious about that goal. Perhaps you have a goal of self-employment. You need to research your interest, network with others, and learn what you need to make it a part of your world. Eventually, you will take proper action, armed with guidance and opportunity that the Universe supplies as you move toward bringing that goal into manifestation.

With whom do you spend your valuable time? Simply do not put time into events, people, situations, or activities that have no place in your vision. Begin to cut negative or unsupportive affiliations. It may sound harsh but you need to remove people who are critical or unsupportive. By the same token, if people from your past do not fit, you need to think about limiting time spent with them, or letting go altogether. For example, if you want to strengthen your significant relationship, but you hang out with single or non-single friends who spend their time at bars looking for opportunity with the opposite sex, you might find that counterproductive to your intentions. Find friends who have or share similar goals.

When you give some thought to this, you might see how you contradict your own intentions. Realize that you affirm intentions by the spoken word, but also by action. You can see from the relationships in your life, that people relate their needs and desires to you in just this way. Would you assist someone that asked for help, if you saw them resist your efforts? Or worse, not make any effort to help themselves? When you declare your serious intent in all ways, the Universe will respond by providing opportunity and success.

Your personal success on any level requires taking action. Recognize that you have to ask to receive, but you also need to be serious about what you want, and commit to your own success, before you will receive. You simply cannot hope for the law of attraction to bring the changes that you want without your cooperation. Rubbing a lamp does not count! If it lightens the mood and keeps you happy and entertained, it certainly has value, but you’re in the driver’s seat when it comes to your success.

Become more conscious of the choices and actions you make on a daily basis that shape your life circumstances. Imagine the positive changes that will begin to take place with only a change in your own behavior and choices. Then imagine how much you can accomplish by using the power of law of attraction. 

Focus on the desires you want to manifest. Develop the commitment, wisdom of choice, action, and self-discipline to effectively utilize your resources to support your goals. Remain mindful of the spoken and written word. Talk about what you want, not what you don’t. Do not spend time, energy, effort, thought or money in areas that will not help you reach your future goals. What has no place in your ideal future vision, should not be included in your present in any way whatsoever. Consciously practice this until it becomes automatic and ingrained. And it will, with committed and diligent practice.