How You Can Manifest Anything In Your Life
The secret behind “The Secret”.
These people have stars in their eyes. They smile genuinely. They are the human version of a firework, brimming with energy, joy, and eager to share it. They are insanely up beat and will say all kinds of encouraging and positive things to you — after all they’ve built a system around purging negativity and doubt.
They’ll say things like:
“Cheer up this will pass.”
“You’ll nail this. I fully believe in you.”
Some might go as far as to tell you…
“As long as you really believe it, you’ll manifest it into your life.”
Ever since “The Secret” emerged, manifestation has become this thing everyone seemingly understands. In the self-help world it’s gripped us and there are many articles on it. Some will lean into the mysticism and talk about mindfulness, building a mindset for manifestation, or encourage buying crystals or scented candles or something else to help with “channelling” that energy.
Others might offer something more practical in that you need better habits. What kind of habits? The hell Gala knows as she writes about journalling and asking yourself specific questions.
I guess that’s something…
A lot of the self-help around manifestation usually falls into this camp. That or they preach about the specific lessons The Secret offers like purging doubt, believing in that you are worthy of whatever you’re looking to get, and so on. But a lot of this falls short.
For those of us who genuinely want to help people we know 99% of the time this sort of stuff isn’t that effective. There is that 1% it might, but let’s be practical, I’m not the 1% and you’re not either.
I tried manifesting for weight loss and I’m still not fit. It’s gotten to the point where I know the solution is get to a gym, and have someone to train with that can hold me accountable.
Genuine manifestation is something different than what Rhonda Byrne popularized. She offered the watered down version of what you actually need to do. It’s why people called bullshit on it, tried it and failed miserably, and the science has been disproven.
It’s complete garbage.
But that doesn’t mean manifestation itself is a scam. It’s more that The Secret is. Genuine manifestation from my experience looks more like this.
It Begins With Truly Defining It
The problem with books like The Secret or The Law of Attraction is that the “science” they present in those books is more along the lines of pseudoscience. It creates this situation where if anyone read it, they’re given the impression they know what it is, how to create it, and what it can do for your life.
Some people make all these sorts of claims under these particular circumstances when they are far from the truth.
To be fair, the psychology field also provides a pretty vague definition of it — stating it generally means our thoughts, feelings and beliefs as we make the immaterial, material. That definition doesn’t fully encompass what manifestation is and probably was used as the basis for those books as well to bolster creditability.
Genuine manifestation looks quite different from that popularized version and there are shreds of it scattered about.
For example, Dr. Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset provides a hint as to what manifestation looks like. Through her research, she found out that believing in something gives you higher odds that you will actually do what you want to do.
This deviates from what we see in The Secret because the book focuses more on the thought process rather than actually doing anything.
Manifestation leans more towards the act of using your feelings, thoughts and desires to willingly act on making something happen.
This is further reinforced by the research into self-fulfilling prophecies — whatever your expectations are, they get confirmed over time.
If you think today is going to be a bad day, you’re conditioning yourself to see neutral things during the day as these bad things that ruin your day. In longer term cases, there was a 1968 study where teachers in an elementary school had their students take an IQ test followed up by being informed that the children were either average scorers, while others showed more academic prowess or “Bloomers”. The “Bloomers” made up 20% of the students.
Eight months later, the children took the same IQ test and the “Bloomers” had grown far more than the average students.
What changed between now and then was that when teachers expected more from the Bloomers, they altered their behaviour around them compared to the average student. The Bloomers had nicer environments to work in, paid more attention, were called upon for answers more often, and had been given better feedback.
Even though I don’t believe an IQ test accurately measures ones own intelligence, what is real is the teachers behaviour around Bloomers and average students. Especially since the researchers selected the students at random.
It’s called the Pygmalion effect where it creates a feedback loop. I can relate a lot to this on an academic level as I recall telling myself so many times that I was an “average student”. The highest grades I’d expect for myself were B+’s in most situations.
And I was right. A lot of my grades were ranging between C’s and B’s.
This also translated into my expectations and efforts. I rarely studied since I was confident I knew the material. As a result I was very detailed in the notes I took during class time. The idea of studying even bore me.
On top of the fact my parents didn’t encourage me much to study or learn more, it reinforced what I was already telling myself. That I didn’t need to study. That I was smart already.
In the end, these particular loops are more in line with what real manifestation looks like and is defined. And it’s through this phenomenon where we know how we can turn it around and change us.
Manifestation Is About Following A Path
True manifestation looks much like what I’ve been talking about for years. When I heard of “the secret” I didn’t believe it for a second. For all of my life, I knew that I got results based on the work that I put in.
That was more reinforced on the financial side of things, hence why I took on a paper route when I was 12 and continued to deliver papers until I was 17. I was taught early if I wanted to get something I wanted, I had to work for it.
That didn’t really translate to academics or much else though.
But all of this is an elaborate way to say that manifestation is about creating a path and then following it through. It’s about knowing what tools you need in order to make things happen as well.
There isn’t some nuanced way to go about it, nor do you need to adapt a precise mindset. What really matters is that you are willing to commit to something and you’re able to do it. Just like you would with building habits.
And in that sense manifestation is akin to habit building. Though manifestation has more of a particular intent and goal in mind rather than doing something for the sake of it bringing you joy or serving a simpler purpose.
Manifestation Is About Alignment To Make It All Happen
When you have the path and the tools to do so, true manifestation transitions to energy to align yourself with your intentions and making it all happen. It’s the creation of movement and building momentum in the same way you would with building habits.
In this stage, clarity is key and gurus are pretty vague about how to obtain that. A lot boil it down to some emotions or uncertainty or not manifesting good enough.
While there may be truth to that, the underlying reason is more of the lack of tools to get there.
To truly manifest something you need to know the how, the want, and the where.
How to get there is a matter of knowing the tools you need. Whether you buy them or purely informative hinges on what you are doing. For example, if I am to lose weight, I know my best “tools” in that situation is an accountability partner, and a space where I can exercise.
Want is obvious on the surface, but through Simon Sinek’s Start with Why, it’s clear there is more to our wants. Out of all the things you could possibly do, you’ve settled with these particular want. Why? Your want is the fuel that drives you. Your primary motivator.
Where is more destination focused. Where do you want to go with this. What will it take for you to be satisfied or fulfilled. It’s putting a line in the sand and making it realistic and reasonable for you. By no means is it some hard limitation, but goals do need to have a cut off point or some milestones.
Between these things you get a better picture for the manifestation process. You can achieve these things by asking yourself questions, using mindful meditation, or some other technique. But at the end of the day it’s building up your self-awareness and understanding of yourself. The more you have that and continue to use it, the more easier manifestation will be.
Manifestation Is About Overcoming The Obstacles
The final step for manifestation is to be overcoming the emotions that disrupt us in the first place. This is why The Secret and others who talk about this topic bring up negative emotions like doubt, uncertainty, fear, uneasiness, or they attribute “toxic friends”, or bad environments.
And while they have a point with that, there are other emotions and aspects that can get in the way as well. Procrastination, dopamine addiction, distractions, other life events, self-criticism. The list goes on.
The issue is that we’re not really trained to deal with these kinds of things. In so many cases The Secret and others focus on how we can be manifesting more or just spend more time thinking about those things. They don’t tend to offer much action or the advice is off base to the root problem.
As far as overcoming these aspects, I know for myself the idea is to be gentle with yourself and to spend time thinking about the problem and active solutions to address those issues. From there it’s about keeping your emotions in check, remaining confident that things will sort themselves out and you’ll be back on track.
Disruptions and obstacles are bound to happen and to think you’ll never encounter these situations is silly. If you bank on overwhelming positivity, you’ll only blindside yourself to other problems or not even see the dangers that are in your path.
These obstacles are necessary and play a vital role in your overall life. Even though these are bad things, they can also serve as checks for yourself. They challenge your views and ideas and can help you piece together whether this is actually worth it for you. These obstacles ultimately test the clarity that you formed and over time it can shift and change into something else.
And that’s really what manifestation is about, it’s not meant to be a strict straight line towards your desires. It weaves and shifts and changes as you continue to progress. As you gain clarity and understanding, manifestation is consistently changing to address your needs and present you with something you genuinely want.
Manifestation — when you set aside the mysticism surrounding it — is a practical approach and spurs us into building habits, setting goals, and achieve those results. It’s the underlying force that is carefully crafted and shifts and changes over time. We have to pay attention to it and to truly manifest in our lives it all comes down to having that clarity and pursuing the right goals that fit for you.
No wishing to the Universe to make it all come to you is required.
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