We’ve cut to the chase for you so you can start benefiting from The Secret and similar self-help methods right this minute.

Instructions

• TIP: Every time you add a picture to your wish album, include a notation that is positive and forward-looking. For example: “I love this dress, and I know I’ll wear something just like it on my wedding day.”
• Step 1: Expect good things and banish negative thoughts. If you go to a club, go with the assumption that you’re going to meet someone great, not be surrounded by losers.
• Step 2: Don’t expect miracles. Positive thinking may bring great things into your life, but it probably won’t deliver George Clooney.
• FACT: The Secret’s motto is “ask, believe, receive.”
• Step 3: Start a wish scrapbook: Tear out pictures that represent what you want – a beautiful wedding, a yacht moored in Saint-Tropez, a lovely home – and paste them in an album that you view often.
• TIP: Writing down your blessings daily enhances the power of this strategy.
• Step 4: Behave as though you already have what you want to bring into your life. If you want to get married, for example, buy a double toaster and start making room for a mate’s toiletries in your medicine chest.
• Step 5: Stand in front of a mirror at least once a day and say, “I am available to more good than I have ever experienced, realized, or imagined before in my life.”
• Step 6: Be grateful for what you have, and more blessings will follow. For example, if you’re drowning in debt, stop thinking, “I’m going to end up a bag lady!” and start thinking, “I’m so lucky to have a roof over my head!”
• Step 7: The main premise of The Secret is that positive thinking attracts good things to your life, and negative thinking brings on the bad stuff. So, starting today, make a conscious effort to think only good thoughts.