The Power of Doubt

In a recent article on his Web site, Kevin Hogan wrote:

Doubt is the birthing place of careful, concerned and critical thinking.

• You must doubt your plan.
• You must doubt yourself.
• You must doubt those around you.
• You must doubt the vehicle you are taking to achieve.
• You must doubt the entire process.

Then go through each piece…analyze and become crystal clear on what is going to happen when things go wrong.

Now, I purchased a copy of the movie, The Secret, the first week it came out, because I enjoy Joe Vitale's marketing and PR materials. If he was involved in the project, I was interested.

I am a big believer in focus and staying open to possibilities. But do I think that's all I need to do? That if I focus on something, the universe will come into alignment and my desired outcome will manifest? That if I let doubt and "negative" thinking in, that I'm dooming my chances of success? No way!

I once attended a planning meeting for an event. At one point, the group chose to devote several minutes to visualizing the event filled to overflowing.

I thought that time would have been spent better developing a printing schedule for flyers, developing a list of venues to post the flyers, assigning people to post them, building a calendar of complementary events to distribute flyers... you know: a PLAN. With assigned tasks.

So I got up and left. I went home to work on my plan for filling those seats.

I love The Secret because I need to be reminded that the more passionate and detailed my goals, the better my chances of achieving them. (In NLP, it's called having a "well formed outcome.") But do I think there's some unseen force at work that works to attract stuff to me?

Nope.

I don't see anything in The Secret that isn't described in clearer, more measurable terms with NLP's concept of well-formed outcomes.