Many people misunderstand the role of action in creating the results they are getting in their lives. Those that are unaware that their reality is a construct and that it is dynamically generated from the essence of their own thoughts and beliefs (and more), generally think that action is the ONLY thing that is causing the results they are getting.

But of course, there's a lot more going on under the hood, and I'm going to explore it in this article. This isn't the first time I've written about this topic, check out Action Speaks Louder Than Words for more about the role of action in manifestation. The reason I'm revisiting this topic is to take a look at it from a new angle that I think will be very helpful in understanding and mastering deliberate creation.

So without further ado, let's dive in.

Action, Results, and Cause and Effect

As I have said, those who are unaware of The Law of Attraction believe that the ONLY way to get results is through action. And there is no denying that action causes results. Taking a certain action in a certain situation produces a certain result — the action DIRECTLY causes an effect or result — this is what is known as Linear Cause and Effect.

But action also INDIRECTLY causes effects via the Law of Attraction, in the same way as your thoughts, desires, and intentions do — a process that might be called Non-linear Cause and Effect. And the indirect effects of action are not produced by the action, per se, but by the desire and intention that inspired the action.

Action Amplifies Your Desires and Intentions

Taking action serves to amplify the root desire and intention that sponsored the action. And then, by the Law of Attraction, the strengthened intention more powerfully attracts circumstances that will facilitate the attainment of the root desire. This is why I often say "action is the strongest form of intention."

Every action is inspired by or sponsored by, a root desire and intention, and thus action represents a powerful concrete expression of the sponsoring desire and intention. And this adds substantial energy to the root desire and intention which then more powerfully attracts events, circumstances, people, information, and things that can serve as opportunities to the fulfillment of the desire.

An Example of the Non-Linear Effects of Action

So here's a recent experience that I think poignantly illustrates how action can indirectly manifest results via the Law of Attraction. I shared the complete story of this expereince in a recent article, which you may find interesting and helpful to read, but I'll share the gist of it (that pertains to the point I'm trying make) here.

Manifesting a New Apartment

Recently I was forced to find a new apartment. And I had reason to believe, and was worried, that I might have a hard time finding one (but I won't get into the reason why here). I knew that it would be important to do some deliberate creation work to neutralize my fears and focus on what I wanted. So I envisioned the apartment of my dreams, and I affirmed reasons why it should be easy to find multiple times over the course of a week.

After searching for about a week, I had visited four or five apartment prospects but hadn't submitted an application for any of them because, for one thing, they weren't quite what I was looking for. Then the first passable prospect showed up — not my dream apartment, but I could live with it — and so I filled out the application and submitted it to the property manager. This is the action that I am using for this example.

Now, of course submitting an apartment application, by linear cause and effect is going to result in either an acceptance or rejection of the application. You either get the apartment, or you don't. So if my application was accepted and I got the apartment you might say that my action of submitting the application caused the final manifestation of the apartment.

But I didn't get a chance to find out which outcome of that action would come to pass because within seconds of submitting the application, and before the apartments property manager could have even seen it, a completely different apartment prospect unexpectedly appeared that was the absolute perfect match to my desires! Taking the committed action of submitting an application instantly triggered the manifestation of my dream apartment, essentially out of the blue.

I was stunned and delighted, and immediately seized the opportunity by calling the owner, and I closed the deal miraculously quickly — I had the keys to the new place in my hands less than 1 hour after submitting the application for the other apartment! And only one and a half weeks after starting my apartment search which is dramatically faster than any other apartment search I've done in recent times.

This was very close to a best-case outcome, and this is the kind of result you can expect when you master deliberate creation!

Action Isn't the Only Thing that Amplifies Your Desires and Intentions

And of course, it isn't just your actions that can add energy to and amplify your desires and intentions — your thoughts and words (and emotions) also can. If your thoughts and words are congruent (e.g; aligned) with your desires and intentions, then you are amplifying them and hence their attractive power. But if you think and say things that are incongruent with (or contradictory to) your desires and intentions then you are reducing their attractive power, and hence they are less likely to manifest — in fact, you might completely negate them and completely block their manifestation.

This point is echoed in the following statement made by Abraham:

And believe it or not, this is happening all the time because most people's thoughts and words are contradicting their desires and intentions alarmingly frequently — and they aren't even aware of it! Have you noticed most people are habitually pessimistic? Most people chronically worry, anticipate problems, expect the worst, focus on what they don't want, etc. — and this is all very mis-creative.

Action Is Not the Primary Tool of Manifesting

Action is an essential ingredient to powerfully manifesting your desires and intentions, but it is not the primary tool or the only tool. It's also not the first step in the manifestation process. The best way to understand the role of action in manifestation is that it is just one of many ingredients that we must apply correctly to powerfully manifest our desires.

The mistake that most people make, those that are not aware that they are creating their reality with their thoughts, is that they ONLY use action to create and they don't realize that their thoughts, beliefs, etc. are paving the way for all their manifestations.

If you believe that the only way you get results in your life is through action and you don't pave the way with clear desires and intentions and positive expectations, then getting the results that you desire is going to require far more effort than if you understand that your thoughts are paving the way.

Your thoughts are far more important than the action you take — they are what is setting the stage — one that is either highly conducive to the fulfillment of your desires or one that is not. Part of the reason for this is that your thoughts (and beliefs etc.) are active every minute of every day and therefore a constant point of attraction whereas your actions are just short lived momentary events.

This point is echoed in the statement below by the non-physical being Abraham (through Esther Hicks):

What you DO is miniscule in comparison with what you choose to THINK, because your vibration is so much more powerful and so much more important.

When you pave the way with your thoughts, you will find (if you are paying attention) that circumstances will appear, through synchronicity and serendipity, that will facilitate the attainment of your desires and intentions. And this generally means that far less effort will be required. Action is still an essential ingredient, but there will be more inspired action and less brute force action.

How Much Action is Required

How much action is required for optimal results? Well, that depends, because not all manifestations require the same amount of action to bring them to fruition. Certain desires will not need very little action for them to fully manifest. Others will need many actions to fully manifest. It depends on whether the desire is trivial or non-trivial to manifest.

In this regard, it is useful to distinguish two major categories of manifestation; (1) single-step manifestations and (2) multi-step manifestations.

Single-Step Manifestations

Single step manifestations are relatively simple and require only a single action step to fully attain the desired result. A typical example is when you've been strongly desiring a certain thing then the perfect opportunity to have that thing appears, and the only action that is required might be to make the purchase, or to accept the gift, or call the person that has it, etc. and then you've got your end result.

Sometimes it might even appear that there was no action involved at all. For example, let's say the shirts in your wardrobe collection are all wearing thin and you've frequently been thinking about (strongly desiring) getting some new ones. Then unexpectedly, and for whatever reason, a friend gifts you with some shirts that they found on sale. Virtually no action was required, only accepting the gift!

Here's a personal example of a single-step manifestation.

Example of Single-Step manifestation

Recently a friend of mine visited me to do some ice climbing and backcountry skiing. We had four days, and we thought we might do three days of ice climbing and one day of backcountry skiing. The weather wasn't cooperating very well. We were having a heinous warm spell which was affecting both the ice and snow. We did manage to find enough intact ice to enjoy, but the snow conditions were abysmal — very unpleasant skiing conditions — and probably not worth going skiing.

But I had never skied with my friend in Montana, and I was really looking forward to showing him a good time skiing. Also, I didn't want to ice climb four days in a row — just two tiring and monotonous. So I had a very strong desire to go skiing, and during every one of the first three days as we were ice climbing in the back of my mind I was repeatedly thinking "Gosh I really want to go skiing I really want to show my friend a good time out in the snow."

But the conditions were completely abysmal for skiing, and there was absolutely no prognosis from the forecast that that situation would change — no new snow in sight. So there was the appearance that skiing was out of the question. But I just kept wishing for it in the back of my mind and low and behold at the end of the 3rd day of ice climbing the forecast changed unexpectedly to some snow moving in late that night. Of course, I say "unexpected" with a grin on my face because things go my way unexpectedly a lot. So I just smiled and said to my friend "It looks like we're going skiing tomorrow, hallelujah!"

That evening before going to bed the snow hadn't started yet. But I just stated my desire again to go skiing in reasonably good conditions, imagined ourselves doing luscious powder turns and set my intention to assume that the skiing was going to be good and just get up in the morning and put the skis in the car and go.

And of course, when we woke up in the morning there was a bit of fresh snow on the ground in town which meant there'd be enough new snow up in the mountains to have fun. So we took the committed action of putting our skis in the car, getting in, and driving to the trailhead in the mountains. And of course, the snow turned out to be good and the skiing thoroughly enjoyable! Slam dunk!

So as you can see this manifestation took only one action step — simply seizing the opportunity when it arrived. And manifesting many of your desires, especially the smaller stuff, will be this simple. But others will not and will require consistent and persistent application of deliberate creation techniques as well as action. This is the subject of the next section.

Multi-Step Manifestations

Like I've said, certain non-trivial desires will require a series of steps and more than one action to fully manifest. A typical example of this type is the manifestation of your big dreams and desires.

To powerfully manifest these kinds of desires the best approach, in terms of action, is to take many small action steps on a consistent basis. Not only will these action steps create results via linear cause and effect that will bring you ever closer to the full manifestation of your desire or dream. But they will also amplify the root desire and intention and hence attract, via the Law of Attraction, circumstances, people, information, and even inspiration and knowledge straight from divine intelligence that will further facilitate the attainment of your desire or dream.

And here's the good part. It doesn't really matter what actions you take as long as they are heading in the general direction of your desire or dream. Just start taking baby steps, and the Law of Attraction will bring you the information, inspiration, and guidance that will help you adjust your course.

Realize for every little step you take, you increase, exponentially, what the Universe can do for you. — from the book Playing the Matrix

You just start taking action to demonstrate in the strongest possible way that you are serious about attaining your desire or dream. The universe will then provide the guidance that will eventually lead you to its full attainment if you (1) have trust and faith, (2) pay attention for the opportunities and guidance that it will send your way, and (3) act on them.

Here's a hypothetical and typical example of this type of manifestation — the attainment of a big dream.

Example of a Multi-Step Manifestation

Here's a hypothetical example. Let's say your big dream is to be a Rock Superstar. You're not going to go from someone who doesn't know how to read music and doesn't know how to play the guitar to rock superstar by taking only one action. Nobody is going to call you with a big record contract without some intermediary steps to acquire the pertinent skills.

In the case of wanting to become a Rock Superstar the first action, you'll probably want to take is to learn how to read music. Then perhaps the next action is to learn how to play the guitar. And perhaps the next action we'll be to find some gigs performing at some small local venues. You get the idea.

With consistent actions, however small, in the general direction of your dream serendipitous opportunities will appear that lead you to hit the big time. The more that you can clearly envision, feel, and believe in your destiny as a Rock Superstar the sooner it will come.

And it will likely unfold in the form of curious unexpected and fortuitous events leading eventually to a major opportunity that when seized takes you all the way to your desired end result — being the Rock Superstar you always knew you would be.

At this point, you might be wondering why it is relatively difficult to manifest our big dreams and desires — they tend to take many steps over a significant amount of time. Why can't we just manifest our big dreams more quickly? The short answer is that it's by design — we wanted to experience journeys of becoming.

Journeys of Becoming

In the non-physical, we can manifest anything, however simple or complex, in a single step by thought and desire alone. In the physical this is not the case — physical reality is a time and space construct and that implies motion and action. In the physical, we wanted to experience action and we wanted to experience journeys of becoming, and all the qualities associated with that — such as perseverance, determination, courage, etc.

And hence we designed this reality construct to allow ourselves to experience highly formative and rewarding journeys of becoming — and they are unlike anything that we can experience in the non-physical realms of existence. We are completely responsible for creating those journeys and what we want to become but anything that we can imagine, believe, and demonstrate consistent strong intention for we can become!

This truth was elquently expressed by the British philosophical writer, James Allen, when he said:

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.

We wanted these journeys to be somewhat challenging to manifest because we didn't want to rob ourselves of the important qualities we could learn from them, or the exhilaration we could experience from them, by making them too easy. The higher non-physical aspect of yourself has access to all the knowledge, skills, and wisdom of Source already and wanted to experience having to gain them through desire, effort, persistence, and courage.

In the higher realms, we already have access to all the knowledge and skills needed for whatever we can imagine. In the higher realms, we can manifest whatever we can imagine with only our thoughts and do it instantly. We didn't create this reality construct to be easy — we created it to be interesting and challenging — and hence formative.

If you have a strong enough desire to become something, and you are willing to take congruent action, and to believe in yourself you can become anything! Why? Because you will summon all the skills and capabilities you need from Source — from divine intelligence! Your strong desire and committed actions are part of what brings forth the knowledge, skills, and capabilities that are available within Source. Source is within you and wants to express your dream through you!

But this requires substantial desire, substantial belief and faith, substantial intention and the strongest form of intention is action! That's why one of the six rules of success offered by the great achiever Arnold Schwarzenegger is "Work like hell!" And even though you should use your thoughts to pave the way to any successful manifestation this rule of thumb from Arnold definitely has a lot of validity for achieving one's big dreams.

Here's an inspiring motivational video that emphasizes that we creators and that we can have, do, or become anything we desire. Most of the narration in this video is an excerpt from the book Conversations with God, Books 2 & 3: An Uncommon Dialogue which is a highly recommended read.

Arnold's Six Rules of Success

With all the success that Arnold Schwarzenegger has achieved he's clearly a very powerful deliberate creator. So, it might be smart to pay attention to his advice about success and attaining your dreams.

Trust yourself Break some rules Don't be afraid to fail Ignore the naysayers Work your butt off Give Something back

Self-Creatorship Mantra

Since we're on the topic of becoming here's an affirmation that can help you to transcend your limiting self-concepts and become a more powerful self-creator. It is a bold, even audacious, affirmation that reminds us that we are not only creating our reality but also ourselves, with our every thought, word, and deed. And it reminds us that we are all expressions of Source consciousness and can tap into the knowledge and wisdom that it holds to become whatever we can imagine and believe.

I am a creator. I'm not only creating my reality with my thoughts and beliefs but I'm also creating MYSELF. Not only can I HAVE anything I desire but I can BE anything I desire. I can BECOME whatever I can imagine and believe. With sufficient desire, intention, and action I can summon everything I need from Source to become ANYTHING I choose. I release all limiting self-concepts because I KNOW that with persistence and faith Source will express through me any and all knowledge and skills required for me to become whatever I desire.

This affirmation and everything I've said about "becoming" might seem a bit pie-in-the-sky, but keep in mind that I'm not saying becoming anything you desire will be easy. Of course, becoming something extra-ordinary will require extra-ordinary desire, clarity, mental discipline, and effort. I'm just saying it is possible to become whatever you can imagine, believe, and strongly desire.

There is nothing limiting yourself but yourself — your own beliefs, attitudes, habits, etc. Of course, becoming something extra-ordinary will require an appropriate mindset and habits. For some practical advice on how to develop the mindset and habits to become your extra-ordinary self, I highly recommend the book High-Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become that Way by the best selling author, Brendon Burchard. Brendon has made it his life work to understand and teach the most effective self-development practices, and the teachings he delivers via his books, courses, and videos are deeply spiritually inspired yet very practical.

Summing It All Up

So to sum it all up here are the key points. Action is but one of many ingredients for the powerful manifestation of your desires. Action is essential to the manifestation of your desires, especially your big dreams, yet it is far less important than your thoughts (and your attitudes and beliefs). Your thoughts are creating your predominant point of attraction and hence are paving the way for the manifestation of your desires and hence should be considered the primary tool of manifestation.

Yet for manifesting everything except trivial (simple to manifest) desires the best approach is to consistently take small actions (baby steps) in the general direction of your desire. Doing this moves you closer to the fulfillment of your desire by linear cause and effect and also amplifies the sponsoring desire and intention behind the actions and hence more powerfully attracts (via non-linear cause and effect) circumstances, information, people, and inspiration that will facilitate the fulfillment of your desire. And always be on the lookout for the opportunities that you manifest and seize them!