Fresh out of a breakup in my freshman year of college, I started writing self-improvement goals on a dry-erase board in my dorm because, well, that’s just something breakups make me do. My roommate’s best friend walked in the room and saw my goals, then suggested I watch a movie called The Secret, because she thought it would really help me.
So that summer I watched it and it was… interesting. This 2006 documentary encouraged positive thinking based on the “Law of Attraction.” The Secret is that if one believes that they will receive a positive outcome and they repeat this belief in their head and only have positive thoughts about it, this positive energy will attract the item, person, or achievement desired. But does the Secret really work?
Here are the first 20 minutes of the film, in which the featured authors, philosophers, and scientists of the documentary do a far better job than me in explaining the Secret:
I definitely agree that positive thinking is the first step to reaching a goal. Henry Ford put it best: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can‘t - you’re right.” And, I’ll admit that when I first saw this movie, I was so inspired by it. I couldn’t wait to think my way to success. But I just watched it again the other night I found it kind of silly.
The documentary proposes that the energy used to think about something has a physical effect on whether or not that thing is attracted to you. I’m not denying that thoughts have energy, or that this energy varies with mood. But I don’t think that it’s useful to depend on a connection with the universe, whether or not it exists, to fulfill our desires. Though the movie doesn’t necessarily suggest sitting around and doing nothing, it seems to place all the proactive power in the universe. They suggest you wait around for a sign while conducting life as though you already have what you want. You don’t take any action until the universe does. But in my opinion, being proactive is the first step to achieving your goals quickly.
Also, the movie ruins this wonderfully simple advice by including all this scientific jargon about the relationship between our thoughts and the universe, which is difficult to believe and unnecessary. Plus I think it’s kind of funny how they make the Secret seem like this ancient key of wisdom and use all these weird cut scenes of “historical” reenactments, and whispered recitations of quotes by powerful people such as Abe Lincoln. Definitely effective from a cinematic perspective, but from a more critical angle, I had to laugh at some of these clips.
Despite everything I just said, I do highly recommend this movie to anyone looking to achieve big goals or turn their lives around. I still found it inspiring the second time, even if I also found it cheesier. Just don’t take their advice, or the Secret, too literally. Think positively, but take stuff into your own hands too.
What do you think of this movie? Have you ever depended on positive thinking alone to reach a goal?
guest
There are a couple of catches to The Secret.
1. If what you want takes a high level of skill and juice from influential people only wishing, visualizing and believing won’t be enough. You’ll have to learn the necessary skills and build the necessary network of social relationships over a long period of time.
2. As much as is possible, resentment and negativity have to be driven out of the morrow of your bones. That takes a lot of diligent hard work for people who have felt those things on a regular basis and have habituated to them.
daffodil / 1615 posts
so dumb. you don’t get anywhere in life by simply wishing it would happen, you have to go out there and work for it
guest
Sounds like a cult recruitment video to me.
guest
I actually learned about this whole positive thinking phenomena in my motivation and emotion class. It’s bullshit. Simply thinking about the outcome has very little to no effectiveness in how the situation will turn out. Simulating, rather, HOW a goal will be reached and the steps a person will take to reach a goal is more effective in impacting the outcome. Of course, it requires STEPS and ACTION, not just passively sitting by.
guest
Hell no. Then everyone would be having a happy life. But things don’t always go as you want, hence the existance of disappointment!!! I wish it was true but sadly, it isn’t. However thinking positive and hoping for the best will definitely improve your mental and physical health. So there’s that to look forward to.
guest
No.
guest
Fixation, in and of itself, means little… but it is nigh impossible to be completely fixated without eventually turning to action. And even small actions can have profound effect, especially to the eyes of the beholding actor. On that level, “The Secret” is merely “A good first step”… but ambition without action, or action without Will, is usually meaningless. I could trump all of that up with exciting diction and passive voice and thumb through my copy of The Voice of the Silence for suitably inspiring and oblique quotes, but that seems pretty pointless. There’s thousands of ways to achieve your success… and thousands more ways to measure your success, or the success of others. Reconciling a method that works for you, and an evaluation standard you can live with, is more the secret than any one particular method.
guest
It’s not just dumb, it’s kind of offensive to those who have it bad as well. “You just don’t want it bad enough” is something marginalized groups hear enough already.
sunflower / 332 posts
Never read the secret and from the looks of it, I don’t think I should waste my time.
sunflower / 405 posts
maybe for some people.
for me there are times when I’m pessimistic and things turn out better. and i read an article about this successful man who always thought that this is the day i’m gonna screw it up and get fired (or something like that) every morning coming to work which got himself working really hard.
guest
It’s a transparent scheme to make money out of gullible fools.
Yes, positive thinking is great, but it’s only part of the picture. A mere ingredient in a big cauldron of things – all of which have to cooperate towards a goal.
orchid / 159 posts
This isn’t really all that different than the basic premise behind magic/spells/witchcraft.
Which isn’t all that different from prayer either…
I also had a friend who called the process “setting your intent”.
guest
I think what it does isn’t exactly supernatural or natural force. It’s more of a placebo effect. Makes people believe in themselves by enforcing the “secret force”. So it seems like you’re believing in something amazing and magical and the universe conspires to get what you want when really, you’re just subconsciously believing in yourself and actually start working or doing something about what you want since you feel so motivated and think there is a great power. I think if it works for some people, cool. But it certainly doesn’t work for me since everything they laid out in the book are things I am already aware of such as the fact that you do have control over your life. They are things people should already know but I hate how they make it seem like it’s some outworldly power when all you really need is the confidence and the drive and not the ‘secret’.
guest
My former best friend has the “s” seal from “THE SECRET” tattooed on her wrist. She made me read the book, I think it’s complete and utter bullshit.
orchid / 119 posts
I’ve always been a generally optimistic, happy person. I remember even when I was as low as a person could go depressed I still was always smiling and stuff even though I nearly killed myself. It’s possible it’s been white washed into my brain that that’s how a person is supposed to act (my family isn’t really allowed to express emotions. :/), or it’s just my personality type – I don’t really know, but now that I’m an adult and everything’s going a lot smoother, I’m especially a cherry, happy-go-lucky person. I had it set in my brain that this attitude would make me happier and a better person and have a better life… but no such luck. Still nothing goes right, and my whole world is falling apart half the time, I just can’t get a break! However, I’m very good at getting over it and moving on… so I guess that’s good?
I’ve never watched the secret or read the books, but I have a hard time believing in it. I remember seeing a clip of it and some lady was saying how it worked because she desperately wanted this piece of jewelery, so she went and looked at it everyday and surprise! her husband bought her it, “thanks to the secret”. Seems like balderdash.
guest
@ossumisu@xanga - Yes-This!
peony / 1 posts
To be fair its the same premise as Christianity today you pray (wish), worship god (sending the universe positive thoughts) you get “taken care of” & dont you dare think against God bc then you’ll go to hell (cant think anything negative cause then you’ll get those things). of course Christianity is much more evolved and therefore is more believable. However does the secret work? in a way yes & in a way no.
Yes: the notion that cognitive behavioral therapy is based on thoughts influence your behavior which influences your experiences which influence your thoughts and the cycle continues. Also, self fulfilling prophecy (real thing) basically the whole idea behind all of this is that if you truly believe you cant do something you wont. however if you believe you can, you will simply because your everyday actions will follow suit. for example if your going to search for gold & you don’t believe you will find any, will you really get out of bed & put in the same amount of effort in searching as someone who truly believes with all their heart that they will find gold? No you won’t. there was a study conducted during my time as an undergrad at LSU (in psyc) we had replicate. It was middle schoolers who were instructed to write an “A” at the top of their tests before taking the test vs. middle school students who were not instructed objective was to see who performed better if there would be a difference at all. The results were as expected based on the experiment we were replicating, those who wrote that A performed 11% better on average on the test than those who did not.
No: The secret takes it to an obsessive level, that absolutely EVERYTHING in your life is controlled in this manner. No it isn’t, however psychologically it is understandable why the book is written with such extreme examples. Its difficult enough for people these days to think positively about every problem they are faced with. Thus by getting people to obsess over the process over time their neg vs. pos. thoughts will balance out they will have a more positive nature over all.
While yes I also learned in my thinking & dec. making course that the best way to reach a goal is not by focusing on the end result but rather the individual steps leading to the goal, part of those individual steps is having positive thinking if the whole time your thinking negatively like (i cant really do this) even if you are focused on the steps in-between, guess what you’ll eventually give up.
if you decide to read the book the take away are few pages that describe the process not the ridiculous countless pages of quote from people in history the author includes in attempt to establish “proof”.