What is manifestation?
Something which is evident through your thoughts, attractions and beliefs is manifestation. It’s your conscious effort to trust, to believe, that the Universe will provide you with exactly what you need at the time you need it. Every time an individual has a prolonged chronic way of thinking, they are in a creation process and that gives you the basic premise of manifestation – taking your thoughts, dreams, and desires and bringing them into the physical world.
For me, it’s such an beautiful concept. The thought that within every person is the power to create their dream life, through positive thinking, actions and beliefs. People are truly that incredible. And I can boast for the results.
But it’s not just about receiving what you want, going through the process of manifestation makes you, and everyday, a little better, a little brighter and a little more joyful – dare I even say, magical.
How to use manifestation to get what you want:
Step one) Be clear on what you want
Seems like a good place to start, right? If we’re talking about powerful stuff here, you don’t want to go running headfirst and blind. “Knowledge is power” – not only will knowing what you want help you get there faster, it’ll help you appreciate the gravity of what you’ve achieved. As well as, of course, stop you creating anything you don’t want, accidentally.
Establish your purpose
What’s your purpose? Why do you do the things you do? What is this all for? So many questions.
Finding your purpose is often an overwhelming task to face, but it’d needn’t be. One day you may find a definite, overarching purpose in life, but for now, it can be simple: ‘I want to make people smile’, ‘I want to help those in need’, ‘I want to be able to support those I love’, ‘I want to inspire myself and others’. It can be whatever. Just make sure the things you’re trying to manifest truly resonate and create real joy within you.
In my post, How To Set Achievable Goals You’ll Stick To, I discussed the idea of asking ‘why?’ when you set a goal. Having a strong reason behind you will give you motivation to keep moving and can help you decide if the goal’s truly for you.
Be specific
I’ve seen this one time and time again. I’m not saying to be closed-minded – you could fall in love with something completely different to what you set out for, but if you don’t set out with a direction in mind at all, well… the whole thing kind of falls apart.
Manifestation needs specificity. You’re trying to create something from the ground up. You’re not browsing through rails looking at your options – this is custom-made and tailored to you. (We’re a little heavy on the metaphors in this post). What I’m trying to say is (and here comes another metaphor), you have the playdough in your hands, so come up with an idea and start moulding, you can always change it later. It’s just important you get started.
Visualise
Visualisation, besides being quite enjoyable, is a fantastic way to figure out what you want. Picture yourself living in New York, see the bright yellow taxis, stare out the window of your high rise apartment, hear the chatter and car horns of the streets, smell the street food vendors and coffee cups, and feel the bustle of the crowds. How does it make you feel? If your dream is to move to New York, no doubt that makes you pretty excited. If your dream is to live in the country, maybe not.
Visualisation can help you decide how you truly feel about different things you’re manifesting. And those feelings will come in handy later on, too.
Be positive
Again, I spoke about this in more detail in What Is The Law Of Attraction?, but ensuring that our dreams come from places of abundance, rather than lack is extremely important.
A wish ‘to not be poor anymore’ focuses on being poor – it focuses on the lack of money, rather than the abundance of opportunity. Having a goal like ‘attain a well paid job’, however, focuses on the opportunity to gain money and gives you something actionable to do. This way you aren’t shunning or hating where you are currently, you’re just setting optimistic goals for the future.
Step two) Let go
Build it up and… let it go? This sounds a little crazy for step two, but one of the core elements in manifestation is trust. You’re putting your faith in the world, or maybe God, maybe karma or the universe or the source, essentially, whatever it is you believe in, to fit the pieces into place that are outside of your control (we’ll deal with the bits inside of your control in the next step).
Trust in something bigger
Find something to believe in. It might be religious, it could be spiritual, you might just have faith in the good in the world. Having something to believe in leaves you no room for doubt with manifestation.
Everything is conspiring to get you what you want.
Let go of the steering wheel
This is especially helpful if you’re someone who can be quite controlling, or just very self-sufficient. I know I’m like this. I’ve always been extremely independent so when I set a goal, I tend to try to control every aspect of the journey to make sure it gets done. Anything I can’t control worries me.
But, believing in something bigger, believing that those things are covered by another trusted pair of ethereal hands can help to ease that – breathe and trust.
You’re already doing it
If you find trust here difficult, it can be helpful to remind yourself that you’re already doing this, everyday. You’ve manifested everything in your life up until now – today you’re just becoming conscious of the process and how you can drive it.
One point of interest here is the Law of Attraction. I’ve done an in-depth post on the subject, but in short, it’s the driving force behind much of manifestation. It’s the idea that like attracts like. If you send out a clear intention, good or bad, and begin to align yourself with that intention, you’ll receive the result. You’ve used this since the second you were born, consciously and unconsciously. Now you’re just choosing to use it to manifest good things into your life.
Step three) Take responsibility for what you do have control over
Now you’re trusting that your dreams are in good hands, it’s time to take action where you can.
Become aware of your thought patterns
Positivity and optimism are two attributes essential to manifesting. We’ve said like attracts like, and that your thoughts dictate your reality, so, the more you think positively, the more positive things you’ll manifest.
When you’re in a bad mood and you’re frustrated, suddenly everything becomes frustrating. When you’re in a good mood, good runs to good more easily, right?
In order to manifest and make real progress, you need to hold onto your desired feeling, then you’ll attract what you want. Responding in the same patterns to your existing environment will keep you in your existing environment. Nothing changes unless you do.
Jump at opportunities
Create opportunities and then open yourself up to them. Like we said before, you need to take action too. Change and evolution are birthed from opportunity, so creating opportunities as well as jumping at them when they arrive is the whole point!
Step four) Practice gratitude
Accept where you are
This is your foundation. Wherever you are, as ideal or non-ideal as it is, this where you take your first step. Manifestation teaches us to look optimistically to the future, to learn from the past, but stay focused in the present, as it’s the only place we can take action. Get started with what you can.
Be grateful, always
There’s a silver lining to every cloud, fluffy or thunder-storming, if only we look hard enough. Learning to become grateful will help speed up the process for manifestation and also make you a more joyful, happy person.
Even negative experiences, or those when we manifest something we don’t end up harmonising with, simply teach us what we don’t want in our lives.
Open your arms
This is the make-or-break point. The point when the fruits of your labours are almost in reach.
Notice the signs
If I told you to count the yellow cars you saw today, how many more do you think you’d notice than if I hadn’t? It’s a classic example and a reminder to look for the good in life; for the opportunities, for the silver linings and for the encouragement to do what you want. With the right eyes, there’s gold everywhere.
Learn to accept
It can be overwhelming when you start to see your desires realised. A series of feelings and thoughts can bubble up, brought about by a fear of leaving your comfort zone, feeling undeserving, feeling nervous – anything. So ensuring that you stay conscious of why you began on this journey in the first place can help you keep to the straight and narrow.
Sometimes when these feelings come up, we react self-destructively, turning heel and running in the opposite direction from every good thing we’ve attracted. So, healing these feelings and their sources is really important and something that can be done in step three.
But, if you do find yourself hiding in the cupboard from the dream that arrived unannounced on your doorstep, don’t worry. You’re allowed to not be ready for it yet (big emphasis on: YET). You haven’t lost it forever. Work to make sure you’re ready next time.
This is so much more than wishful thinking. It’s about consciously deciding who you are. You have the power to create whatever you can imagine.