Letting go of your attachment to an outcome is so important to your success with any goal. That’s why I’ve devoted chapter 12 of my book to this topic. Those who let go of their attachment to the outcome of a situation can still be focused on intention and ready to take necessary actions.
My friend and colleague, Robert MacPhee, has written a wonderful book, Manifesting for Non Gurus: How to Quickly and Easily Attract Lasting Results. In his book, he provides a list of six signs that help you determine if you have an attachment to the outcome of a situation:
1. Needing to know how. If your self-talk is saying that you “should” do something a certain way or by a certain time, or that you should take a specific step in order to “get” what you want, you are attached. Perhaps you have a belief that you cannot start working on a goal until you have figured out how to do it. That belief stops many people from ever getting started.
2. Needing something now. Being attached to having something right now is not very helpful. I learned this lesson the hard way when I tried to push a prospect into signing up before the end of the month. I wanted to win an incentive award, and I needed one more person to sign up in that last twenty-four hours of the month. Although my prospect had told me he was planning to become a distributor on the ninth of the following month, I asked if he could sign up that day so I could win my contest. (After I did that I felt awful!) To this day, he still has not signed up. I believe it’s because I was focused on what was best for me instead of what was best for him. I have vowed to never do that again.
O3. Hooking into the judgments of others. There’s nothing wrong with considering the advice and opinions of others. If you feel driven by their opinions, then you are hooked into what they think. If those you spend the most time with would not be supportive of your intentions, perhaps it is time to consider whom you invite into your inner circle. You become like the people you spend the most time with.
4. Hooking into your own opinions of others or yourself. If you spend a large portion of your time and energy focused on judging others or yourself, your attachment to these judgments will get in the way of you manifesting your intentions. This is a tremendous energy drain. I experienced this myself when I had a disagreement with the way someone decided to do something I was involved in. Rather than focusing on my own intentions, I kept my focus on my judgments about what the other person was doing “wrong.” My judgments and my need to be right cost me about a week of productive work time.
5. Hooking into guilt. When our behavior does not match what we believe a good person would do, we feel guilty. To let go of the guilt, we must either change our behavior or change our beliefs about what it means to be a good person. For example, if you were raised with the belief that “money is the root of all evil,” and that belief holds you back from doing what you know will create massive wealth, here are three possible options:
- Sabotage your efforts so you don’t make so much money.
- Do your best to manage the guilt as your income goes up.
- Change your belief and recognize that money itself is not evil. It’s when we sacrifice who we are being for the sake of having more that we get into trouble. We can also choose to do good or evil with the money we create.
6. Hooking into fear. When we are afraid, we set negative goals. We imagine what we don’t want, and then we put all sorts of energy into tapping the emotions that accompany that fear. What you focus on, you get more of. In other words, you manifest exactly what you don’t want. To overcome fear, tap into the emotion that accompanies what you do want instead of focusing on the emotion that accompanies what you are afraid of. If you fear failure, search for the emotion that accompanies your perception of success. By focusing on your intention, you’ll establish a stronger connection to the feelings and emotions that will attract the results you desire.
Our attachment and need to control what someone else does (or doesn’t do) can actually create resistance that prevents things from changing. As a parent, I recall many times when I wanted my daughter to do something. The more I focused on what I wanted her to do, the more resistant she became to doing it. My attachment (and the ensuing power struggles) actually fueled what I didn’t want.
Which of the six areas listed above are creating attachment issues for you?
One way to determine if you are attached to the outcome is to ask yourself, “Am I giving to give, or am I giving to get?”
