#145: The Habit of Fulfillment

The Habit of Fulfillment

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have lived so long in the habit of unfulfillment that you have come to accept it as natural. You assume the state of one who wants, who lacks, who must yet attain, and because your world is forever faithful to your inner climate, it continues to reflect the very want you assume. Yet I tell you this habit can be broken, not by effort against it, but by the gentle, persistent assumption of its opposite. The habit of fulfillment is simply the training of your consciousness to rest in the feeling that your desire is already realized. It is not something you reach after long striving; it is something you assume now and persist in until it becomes your normal, automatic inner climate.

Most men move through their days assuming the unfinished. They feel the lack, they rehearse the problem, they hope for the change, and all the while they are impressing upon their deeper mind the very state they wish to escape. Consciousness is the only reality. What you feel yourself to be, you are compelled to express. Therefore the first act in forming the new habit is to cease assuming the state of the one who has not. Turn from that feeling, however real it seems, and assume the feeling of the one who has. Feel the quiet satisfaction of completion. Feel the rest that comes when the thing is done. This feeling, sustained, is the habit you are to form.

Do not think of fulfillment as a mood that visits you when conditions are favorable. Fulfillment is a state of consciousness, and states are assumed. You assume the state of wealth by feeling yourself to be wealthy. You assume the state of health by feeling yourself to be healthy. You assume the state of love by feeling yourself to be loved and loving. The feeling is not the result of the outer fact; the outer fact is the result of the feeling. When you make the feeling of fulfillment your constant inner climate, the outer facts must rearrange themselves to match it. There is no other way, for consciousness is the potter and your world is the clay.

To train this habit you begin where you are. You do not wait for some special hour or perfect condition. In the midst of your present circumstances you quietly assume the feeling that all is fulfilled. You do not deny the present appearance; you simply withdraw your attention from it and place your attention upon the fulfilled state. You feel it as real. You feel it as natural. You feel it as already so. And you do this again and again, not as a strained effort, but as a gentle returning whenever the old habit of unfulfillment asserts itself.

The old habit will assert itself. It has been your familiar dwelling place for years. It will present its evidence and invite you to feel once more the want, the lack, the unfinished. When this happens you do not argue with the evidence. You do not try to destroy it by force. You simply return to the feeling of fulfillment. You occupy that feeling until it feels more natural than the old one. Each time you return, the new habit gains strength. Each time you persist, the old habit loses its hold. In time the fulfilled feeling becomes your automatic response, and the habit of unfulfillment fades as a forgotten garment.

What does it mean to feel fulfilled? It is not excitement. It is not the thrill of anticipation. It is the quiet, deep knowing that the thing is done. It is the sense of completion, of rest, of having. It is the inner atmosphere in which you move when you know yourself to be the one who already possesses. Carry this feeling with you through the day. When you rise in the morning, let the first conscious act be the assumption of fulfillment. Feel it in your body. Feel it in your mind. Let it color every perception. When you walk, feel fulfilled. When you work, feel fulfilled. When you speak, feel fulfilled. The more constantly you occupy the feeling, the more completely it occupies you.

This constant occupation is the training. It is not enough to assume the feeling once and then return to the old climate. The habit is formed by sustained assumption. You must live in the fulfilled state until it becomes your normal dwelling place. Then you will discover that you no longer reach for things; things reach for you. You no longer strive to make something happen; it happens because you are already the one in whom it has happened. The effort has gone out of living, for you live from completion rather than toward it.

The world will seem to resist at first. It will continue for a time to reflect the old assumptions. But this resistance is only the echo of former states. It has no power to create. As you persist in the new feeling, the echo grows fainter. The old reflections fade. New reflections appear that correspond to your new inner climate. You will find circumstances arranging themselves without your conscious planning. Opportunities will appear that you did not seek. People will act toward you in ways that confirm your fulfilled state. All this happens because consciousness is forever externalizing itself, and you have given it a new content to externalize.

You may wonder how long the training must continue. I tell you it continues until the feeling of fulfillment is natural, until it requires no special effort to assume, until it is simply the way you are conscious of being. Some will find this happens quickly; others will find it requires longer persistence. But the principle is the same for all. Persist until the new state feels normal. When it feels normal, the habit is established, and the outer world must conform.

There is a profound rest in this habit. The scriptures speak of entering into rest, of ceasing from labor. That rest is not found by changing outer conditions; it is found by changing the inner climate. When you assume the feeling of fulfillment, you have entered the rest. You have ceased the labor of trying to make something happen. You rest in the knowledge that it has already happened in consciousness, and therefore it must happen in form. This rest is not inactivity; it is effortless activity. You move through your day, but you move from a place of having rather than wanting. The strain has gone out of it.

The habit of fulfillment changes your identity. You no longer see yourself as the one who is becoming something; you see yourself as the one who already is. This shift in self-conception is everything. For you are always expressing what you are conscious of being. When you are conscious of being the fulfilled one, you express fulfillment. When you are conscious of being the one who lacks, you express lack. The choice is always yours. The training is simply the repeated choice of the fulfilled state until that choice becomes automatic.

Do not concern yourself with the means by which your fulfilled state will appear. The means are not your responsibility. Consciousness has ways that you as man know not of. Your responsibility is only to assume the feeling and to persist in it until it becomes your normal climate. When you do this, the means will appear. The bridge of incidents will form. The necessary events will unfold. But you will not have planned them; they will have been compelled by your inner assumption.

You will discover that many of your former desires lose their urgency. This is not because they are denied; it is because they are already satisfied in consciousness. The desire was only the signal that you had not yet assumed the fulfilled state. Once you assume it and make it habitual, the signal is no longer needed. You rest in the possession. The ache of wanting is replaced by the peace of having.

This peace is the true sign that the habit is taking root. When you can move through conditions that once disturbed you and remain unmoved in your inner fulfillment, you have trained well. The outer storm no longer creates an inner storm. You are anchored in the fulfilled state, and from that anchorage you view all things. The things themselves may still appear to move, but you remain unmoved in the knowledge of completion.

The habit of fulfillment is the habit of freedom. To be fulfilled is to be free from the tyranny of want. It is to be free from the belief that you must struggle to survive or attain. It is to know that all things are already yours in consciousness, and therefore they must appear in form. This freedom is not license; it is the quiet liberty of the one who knows himself to be cause rather than effect.

You can test this principle in the smallest things. Assume the feeling of fulfillment concerning some minor matter. Persist in that feeling until it becomes natural. Watch how the matter resolves itself. Then apply the same principle to larger matters. The principle does not change with the size of the desire. All desires are equal in consciousness. What matters is the feeling you assume and the persistence with which you assume it.

As the habit deepens, you will find yourself assuming fulfillment almost without thinking. It will be your first response rather than your last resort. When a seeming problem arises, your automatic reaction will be to feel it already resolved. When a desire stirs, your automatic reaction will be to feel it already fulfilled. This is the trained consciousness. This is the habit that has become nature.

The world you see tomorrow will be the out-picturing of the inner climate you establish tonight. Therefore establish the climate of fulfillment. Assume the feeling now. Feel it as real. Feel it as natural. Feel it as already so. And persist in that feeling until the whole of your consciousness is saturated with it. Then sleep in it. Wake in it. Walk in it. Work in it. Speak in it. Let it be the atmosphere in which you live.

In time you will look upon your former struggles with a kind of distant wonder. You will see that the effort was never necessary. The only thing necessary was the assumption of the fulfilled state and the persistence in that assumption until it became your normal inner climate. All else followed from that.

You are not asked to believe this blindly. You are asked to test it. Assume the feeling of fulfillment in some area of your life and persist until the feeling is natural. If you will do this faithfully, you will discover for yourself that consciousness is the only reality and that your world is forever reflecting your inner climate. When you have proven this in one area, you will have no difficulty extending it to all areas.

The habit of fulfillment is not a technique to be added to your life. It is the natural way of the one who knows himself to be the awareness of being, the I AM that assumes all things. When you assume the feeling of fulfillment and make it habitual, you are simply returning to your true nature. You are ceasing to live as the creature of circumstances and beginning to live as the creator of circumstances.

So tonight, begin the training. Assume the feeling of fulfillment. Let it fill your awareness. Let it become the climate in which you rest and in which you move. Persist in it through every seeming contradiction. Return to it whenever the old habit calls. And as you do, you will feel something shift within you. The shift is the formation of the new habit. The formation of the new habit is the transformation of your world.

You are not becoming fulfilled. You are awakening to the fact that fulfillment is your natural state when you assume it and persist in the assumption. The habit is simply the persistence made permanent. When it is permanent, your inner climate is fulfillment, and your outer world must be the perfect reflection of that climate.

This is the truth I leave with you. Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Make it your constant inner companion. Train it until it requires no training. Then live from it, for in living from it you will discover that all things are already yours and that your world is forever bearing witness to the habit of fulfillment you have formed within.