Creating an Effective Personal Ritual

As more and more of us discover and create our own personal spirituality, more and more of us also struggle with how to create and perform personal rituals that will be meaningful and create genuine psychological healing and change.

A lot of people think of rituals as invoking "magic." Somehow, if you say the right words and do the right things in the right order, you'll magically get what you want out of thin air.

The truth is that while rituals do work, there's nothing magical about them. Like affirmations, meditation and even just writing down a list of your goals and putting it where you can see it everyday, a ritual is first and foremost a tool for focusing your concentration on what you want. We're more likely to take actions and behave in ways that get us to that goal if that goal is uppermost in our mind, and a ritual is a good way to keep things uppermost in our mind. It's that simple.

These days, the shelves of even the big chain bookstores are full of books with pre-written, pre-planned "canned" rituals (aka, "spells") for everything from getting over a divorce to burying your dog to getting the job of your dreams.

But the good news is that the best rituals are almost always the ones you create yourself. The trouble is, many of us are intimidated at the idea of creating a ritual. After all, that's something that only priests and other really religious people who write all those books do, right?

Wrong. Creating meaningful personal rituals is something that anyone can do, regardless of your religious background, experience or beliefs. And the good news is, oftentimes, the simpler a ritual is, the more effective it will be.

Here are five ways to create an effective, meaningful and personal ritual:

1. Have a single, specific purpose. Like a meditation or an affirmation, the most effective rituals allow your mind to focus on one simple idea. By focusing on one simple thing, you'll make it easier for your subconscious to keep the purpose of your ritual in mind. Instead of, "I want more money," for example, try a ritual for getting a promotion, becoming more confident during sales presentations or choosing a good financial advisor.