Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Wattles' Acting in the Certain Way
Fill the present with the vision by acting NOW, where you are, doing all of today’s work efficiently and completely — making ‘each act a success in itself’ rather than waiting on, or hurrying toward, the future.
Thought brings, action receives. Act NOW, only where you are. Do today’s work fully and well — drop yesterday, don’t reach for tomorrow — and make each act a success in itself: efficient, complete, unhurried. Hold the vision; move it forward through the present task.
What it is
Wattles is unusual among manifestation teachers for insisting that thought alone is not enough — the picture must be received through action. This entry isolates his action discipline, separate from the combined.
The teaching is sharply present-tense: you “cannot act where you are not”; you act “only where you are,” doing today’s work fully and well, making “each act a success in itself,” neither dwelling on yesterday nor reaching for tomorrow.
It belongs in embodiment state because it is about how you do the next ordinary task, charged with the vision — not about visualizing.
The Method
- Thought brings; action receives. “By thought, the thing you want is brought to you; by action you receive it.” Wattles warns you “must not rely upon thought alone, paying no attention to personal action” — “it will not mine itself… and come rolling along the roads into your pocket.”
- Act NOW, only where you are. “Whatever your action is to be, it is evident that you must act NOW.” “You cannot act where you are not… you can act only where you are.” Begin in your present business, not an imagined future one.
- Do today’s work, fully. “Do not bother as to whether yesterday’s work was well done or ill done; do to-day’s work well.” Drop the past; pour the mind into the present task.
- Don’t reach for tomorrow. “Do not try to do to-morrow’s work now; there will be plenty of time to do that when you get to it.”
- Make each act complete — a success in itself. Do every act in the Certain Way: efficiently, completely, without hurry and without holding back, so that no act is wasted and the picture is being expressed through the present work.
- Hold the vision while acting in the present business. “Hold the vision of yourself in the right business… but ACT in your present business.” The picture is the destination; today’s task is the only place you can move. (Sourcing note: quoted phrases are verbatim from The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 11, “Acting in the Certain Way”; the structure is an attributed paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Wallace Delois Wattles (1860–1911), American New Thought writer. “Acting in the Certain Way” (Ch. 11) is the corrective heart of The Science of Getting Rich (1910): it welds New Thought metaphysics to a near-Stoic insistence on the present, efficient deed.
Common refinements
Visualizing instead of acting. Wattles’ whole point: the image without present action fails.
- Waiting for the “right” circumstances or business. Act in your present business now; move from where you stand.
- Dwelling on yesterday / pre-living tomorrow. Both leak the present. Do today’s work, today.
- Hurry and overreach. “Efficient” is not frantic; rushing botches the act. Each act done well, not many done poorly.
- Overwork dressed as diligence. Filling every act with the vision is about quality and completeness, not grinding yourself out.