Many people turn to prayer only to find themselves disappointed. Often they’re told it’s because they “lack faith,” but that’s nonsense. If they didn’t have faith, then why would they try praying in the first place?

1. Love God

A lot of people say prayer starts with belief. I say effective prayer starts with the mutual love between God and humankind.

Why? Because you can hate a God you believe in (they’re called misotheists and masquerade as militant atheists), but how can you love a God you don’t believe in?

Love of God is rooted in the Bible’s teaching we are created in God’s image, that God created us out of Love. Our love for God is Love returned to its Source, forming a bond that’s unstoppable.

These Keys and others are explained in detail in The Magic of Effective Prayer.

2. Love Yourself

A lot of people forget this part, and a lot of other people misunderstand it. In fact the Bible says “To get wisdom is to love yourself.” (Proverbs 19:8)

Loving yourself isn’t the same as being prideful, selfish, narcissistic, or greedy. Those are imbalanced emotions based more on insecurity than love. A balanced love for yourself is rooted in a balanced love for God, recognizing that you were created in God’s image and being grateful for the way He made you. To love God is to love yourself.

Society and especially the churches can do a lot of damage to our self-image n that regard, whether by telling us we’re “evil” or “totally sinful,” or that we don’t live up to an idealized body type or level of success. Some of us may have imbibed those messages more than others and may need some deprogramming, and once you break free of those messages and learn to love yourself for who you are, it becomes totally worth it in the end.

3. Love Your Neighbor

You love God because you love yourself as made in the image of God, and when you love you’re neighbor you’re loving someone God made in His image also.

Loving your neighbor can take a LOT of work. But you have to remember that God’s Love, though meant for you, isn’t meant for you alone. God’s Love is meant to be shared, and when you share that Love you’re casting out a net of positivity into the universe.

Do you know what happens when you cast a net of positivity or hang around positive people? You and your life become more positive too! Prayer done right is not a selfish endeavor, it’s a rising tide that lifts up all boats.

4. An Attitude of Gratitude

Prayer can be seen as tapping into God’s Love as it encircles the entire universe, and becoming a full participant in it as well. A part of participating in that love is the attitude of gratitude.

Showing gratitude is part of returning Love to the source, by showing our respect and appreciation for all that we’ve received. In fact, you might want to take a look around and notice something: the happiest people tend to be the most grateful people and constantly have good things coming to them, while the most miserable people are not grateful and constantly have things taken away.

After Jesus healed the ten lepers (Luke 17), only one came back to say “Thank you.” After a little rant showing his displeasure, Jesus said to the one, “Get up and go on your way, your faith has made you whole.”

If you get nothing else from this post, internalize the fact that God’s Love applies to EVERYBODY, and just like the leper who was healed, each and every last one of us can benefit from being grateful for that Love.

5. Visualize to Actualize

Prayer is not just mumbling a few words and expecting some result to beam down Star Trek-style. Prayer is an exercise of the entire mind and the entire heart.

As you pray, picture your desire in your mind as though you’ve already accomplished it. In fact, begin each prayer session by writing down your goals clearly, briefly, and honestly. Writing it down helps you to phrase what you’re asking for and figure out whether you even want it in the first place, and forcing yourself to use as few words as possible trains the mind to zero in on exactly what you want and see through any potential subconscious spin-doctoring.

You don’t have to tell anyone about this, but you do have to be honest with God and yourself.

6. Your Sphere of Availability

Books and blog posts talk about the limitlessness of prayer, but not about the pray-er’s potential limitations. If I don’t talk about about your potential limitations, I’m setting you up for failure.

God is limitless and can do anything, but we as humans are limited by our Sphere of Availability. This refers to the truth we can only attract into our lives as much as we’ve set up channels to attract. As we work on our lives and the areas where we want more goodness to manifest, our prayer will attract more good into our lives as we move forward.

For example, you’re praying to find an ideal mate. But what if you’re a socially awkward person with very few friends? Having neither the charisma nor the social network to attract someone automatically puts this prayer outside your sphere of availability. This affects how your prayer would be answered.

At first, it might be answered by a chance meeting with someone who can help you work on your social skills, or maybe a copy of a social-skills book like Carnegie’s How to Make Friends and Influence People will fall in your lap. These skills can be read from a book but take practice before you can actually learn them. Yet by trying them out you eventually learn than and end up making more friends. This expands your Sphere of Availability. Eventually as your skills improve and your circle of friends grows, your continued prayer can lead you to that ideal person of your dreams.

7. Ain’t Nothing to It but to Do It!

St. Ignatius supposedly said “We must pray like is depends on God but work like it depends on us!”

Nobody knows if he actually said that, but the words are 100% true. Just as the physical world has a Law of Inertia, the spiritual worlds have such a law as well. The Law of Spiritual Inertia is that any action is better than inaction. You can pray all you want, but you’re not gonna get anywhere unless you do something.

Consider the socially-awkward loner we just talked about. He or she prayed but didn’t have the Sphere of Availability to make it happen. Their prayer brought them opportunities to move closer to their goal, but they did the work to make it happen!

When you pray but don’t do anything about you’re situation, you’re not really praying but complaining, and when God sends opportunities to move toward your goal and you don’t act on them, you’re showing a lack of gratitude. And you remember what we said about ungrateful people, right?

So act on the opportunity, and even if you don’t see a clear line toward getting your prayer answered, do anything. Even a Google search for more information. Anything. It’s not that hard.

These Keys and others are explained in detail in The Magic of Effective Prayer.