A few years ago The Secret took the personal growth and change world by storm. It claimed that the world is your catalog. Visualize what you want and poof! It will appear Vision boards became the rage. People scoured magazines for images of their dreams to glue to poster board and and waited for the Universe to deliver their every desire. For most people life continued on unchanged as the glue gave way and the images of their dream life peeled away as their vision board gathered dust. Lately I’ve notice a second wave of discussion about manifesting one’s desires. The conversation this time is that envisioning is only half of the formula to manifesting your desires. The other half is action.  Bryan Franklin and  Maren Kate have covered how to put action behind your desires.

Ok, not this kind of vacuum. Images of the other kind are hard to find.

I’m here to tell you about the 3rd essential step to drawing in your desires – the vacuum. Nature is said to abhor a vacuum. This is a poetic way of saying that where there is an empty space something will fill it. What if instead nature adores a vacuum because a vacuum creates the opportunity for growth, advancement and development?

How to Create a Vacuum

1) Take Out Physical The Trash

Get rid of anything that is not in alignment with what you say you want. When I left teaching I got rid of all my teaching clothes. Even though some of them would have functioned in my new career in business. Every time I put them on I felt like I had one foot back in the classroom.

Get rid of anything that represents relationships that do not match what you say you want.  I knew a guy who had a collection of gorgeous cashmere sweaters. Gifts from his ex-girlfriend. He looked great on all his first dates. Second dates weren’t a problem.  He got rid of them because no matter how good he looked wearing them was like bringing his ex along on the date.

Ruthlessly purge anything you don’t absolutely love or haven’t used in a year. What is clutter in your house may be the very thing someone else trying to manifest. Follow the sage advice of Desert Pete and prime the pump to start the flow. Get that stuff back into circulation. You’ve got to give until you get.

2) Take Out the Mental Trash

Often when I start working with a client who wants to create change in their life they tell me, “I’ve been doing affirmations, but they haven’t really been working.” Just a few minutes of listening to them talk I know exactly why those affirmations aren’t working. Their language (and so their thinking) is over flowing with the negative. Chanting positive affirmations is like trying to put flowers on top of an overflowing trash heap.

Most people think that thinking happy positive thoughts is the most effective way to change. The problem is most people also have such pervasive negative thought habits that it creates a Teflon layer and the positive thoughts slide right off.

You cannot claim to want to draw in abundance and prosperity and then in the next breath talk about how you can’t afford this or that or talk about how bad the economy. You cannot claim you want to draw in a loving partner for a relationship then in the next breath talk about how all men are pigs or how your ex- is a complete psycho.

Think of it like waves. When two opposite wave patterns connect they cancel each other out. No more wave. No movement. No change.

The good news is the brain is as changeable as the body. You can be a couch potato for years and as soon as you start consistently exercising and eating right muscle will replace fat. You could be the Scroogiest of them all for years and as soon as you make a habit of noticing and interrupting your negative thoughts your brain will rewire. The key is to notice and interrupt the negative wave before inserting the positive.

3) Dare To Use the Resources At Hand

This is the other side of the “get rid of the physical trash” coin. Useful things that are in alignment with your desires can block flow just as effectively as the other. Often people fail to use and appreciate the abundance that is already in their life.

The gifted fancy treats or lotions and soaps sit in their cupboard shelves and their “good clothes” sit in their closet waiting for that special occasion that never comes. The food expires, the soaps go hard, the lotions separate into liquids of disturbing colors and viscosities, the clothes go out of style. None used up for their purpose. None having the opportunity to create the experience of abundance and prosperity they were meant to. Why would more be manifest when the abundance that has already been sent has not been used and appreciated?

Others who claim to be manifesting abundance and prosperity and are really driven by a scarcity mentality. They store up resources “for a rainy day”. They say, “I know all is going to be manifest, but I’m going to hold onto this – just in case.” They say they want to create prosperity and abundance, yet they are reluctant to use the resources at hand for fear they will be used up gone.

Sir Richard Francis Burton said, “Broke is a temporary condition, poor is a state of mind”.  A poor state of mind is like salted earth to abundance and prosperity. A prosperous mind fearlessly uses the resource at hand.   Start small use up what you can from a place of appreciation and gratitude.

What is often lost in the translation in books about manifesting is that it’s not about ordering everything you want from the Universe R Us catalog. Manifesting your greater good is actually an evolution. Setting into motion an upward spiral of your life. To reach each next level you must dare to fearlessly use the resources of the previous level.