I live in the country. The closest town — and it’s one stoplight town at that — is about 5 miles away. The main street has a New England feel and after decades of depression, seems just about ready for a comeback.

We buy lots of organic products so we were thrilled when one of the vacant storefronts morphed into a lovely health food store. The new owners obviously invested many thousands of dollars remodeling the space. They have lots of great products including meats and produce.

As much as we like having the store nearby, we were not surprised when we started to hear whispers that the store isn’t doing so well and might be in danger of closing. While the health food store invested lots of money making the store look great, I noticed they overlooked one of the most important aspects of a retail business. The checkout.

The owners installed a state of the art computer/scanner system. Well done. However, the entire check out area is smaller than the desk I type this on. There’s no surface area for shoppers to place lots of groceries. In fact, if I were to shop at this health food store and buy hundreds of dollars worth of food and products (which happens everytime we visit to the traditional grocery store), there would be no easy way to check out.

In other words, with their tiny check out area, the health food store is telling the universe (and their customers): Hey, don’t buy much stuff here! Nothing more than you can carry, please. We cannot handle it. We’re not ready for it. We don’t want that much business.

Even though we like their prodcut, we don’t end up shopping there very much even though we’re their target market. They are not ready to recieve our business. As a result, I would be suprised if the business remains viable.

My point is this… Think about what you desire to attract in your life. Is it more money? A significant other? A second home? Whatever it is, are you ready for it? Are you acting "as if?" Or are you waiting for your desire to show up before you make the appropriate changes in your life?

For example, if you desire more money, do you have a place to put it already? Or are you waiting until it shows up before you create that environment, like a separate bank account? (By the way, my book Piles of Money is all about creating the proper environments to attract money into your life. It’s here.) Can you visualize what you want your vacation home to be like? And if you wish to attract someone special in your life, do you feel special to yourself?

When you create the environment that is aligned with your desires, you are putting out a clear signal to the universe instead of a conflicting intention. That’s your responsibility in the attraction process.

DO NOT OVERLOOK THIS STEP.

So whatever your desires, make sure your checkout space is big enough to handle the Tom’s toothpaste, the organic apples, the bean dip, and lots of buffalo meat, okay?

Create the space to let it in!