,What on earth is manifestation? How do you get started? And, does it work? All these questions and more are answered here in this go-to guide to manifestation!
What is Manifestation?
Firstly manifesting or manifestation is the practice of thinking aspirational thoughts with the intention of making them become a reality. In simple words, it’s thinking about your wildest dreams as if they’ve already come true so that they do come true.
It’s an appealing approach to sealing your fate, isn’t it? You’re telling me if I write down every day “I’m grateful I have a new job” it will eventually come true… I’m sold!… but also doubtful….
It’s such a nice idea, but what people forget with manifesting is that you can manifest all you like, but hard work and focus have to come into play too.
Now, I’m no negative Nancy, in fact, I’m a big fan of manifesting, however, the realist in me knows you can’t just sit back and expect amazing things to happen to you magically, you have to change your actions too!
For me manifesting works at its best when I balance it with feasible actions. For instance, I want a new job, one that I love and that makes me happy but that won’t happen overnight. My manifestation- which consists of writing down “I’m grateful for a new job” and creating a vision board of what it would look like- helps curate my vision of what I want and from that I can make a list of actions to follow such as:
Update my CV
Go on LinkedIn and save 20 jobs
Apply for 5 a day
Following this list of actions I then go BACK to manifesting and change it to “I’m happy I have the best CV” or “I’m grateful 20 opportunities found me”. The result? My manifesting helps my actions and my actions help my manifesting. God knows if my dream will come true but at least thanks to this new mindset I’m a few steps closer!
How do you get started?
Get imagining! Think about your dream job, your next big achievement, or your dream car, business, etc. If you're not sure what you want, get on Pinterest or TikTok and have a look at some vision boards or a day in the life of your favourite influencer and work out what it is that appeals to you.
Once you've got that down I would recommend creating a vision board! A vision board can be whatever you want it to be. It could be cut-out pictures from a magazine glued onto an A3 sheet of paper, or it could be a Pinterest board full of quotes and photos that speak to you. It doesn't matter what form it takes as long as you feel motivated by it and can look at it when you need it and feel inspired.
Next, one of my favourite forms of manifesting is creating a "grateful" diary. You can easily go and buy a cheap notebook from Tesco and turn it into your grateful diary or you can do it in the notes section of your phone, again, whatever works for you is best! I love writing things down, so I went and bought a plain £1 notebook, got a Sharpie, and wrote on the front of it "I'm grateful for…" and added some stickers too. Inside the notebook, I write 15 things I'm grateful for today on the left-hand side and on the right-hand side I write 15 things my future self is grateful for in the present tense. For example, my page will look like this:
TODAY TOMORROW
I am grateful for… I am grateful that…
My lovely family I aced my interview
Having met my friends Me and the girls had a fun time at brunch
My dog My haircut looks beautiful
The left shows you everything that I have at the moment that I'm grateful for, and on the right none of these are true yet, but I'm writing as if they are. Once I'm done writing, I then create a list of actions on my phone that I can aim to achieve such as…
Book a haircut + Make a Pinterest board of ideas
Google good brunch places + Message the girls about brunch
Prepare interview questions + practise
I never put a time frame on my manifestation and list of actions and while I know this won't work for other people, for me this works very well as I know if I create a deadline I will feel too much pressure surrounding what I have to do. So instead I put my notebook away, close the notes app, and know in my head what I will do and when. Those of you who like to be organised and keep to a timeframe can always set reminders of when to book the haircut or when to check in on your manifesting goals. It's up to you!
Crystals are a big hit-and-miss in the manifestation world; you're either a big believer or a complete non-believer. My sister is the former and I admittedly am agnostic on the matter. For my sister and believers alike, crystals hold great power, Jade heals health, Amethyst is a symbol of meditation and healing, and the infamous Rose Quartz embodies love, relationships and recovery. I want to believe in the healing powers of crystals but the cynic in me is very strong and tries to keep me grounded, I do however, have a Pink Agate crystal keyring on my keys. It's funny because apparently you're meant to choose a crystal with your gut and intuition, and that's exactly what I did when I bought my keyring, though at the time I just chose the one I thought looked cute on my keys, Later I googled the meaning of Pink Agate and found it was the perfect crystal for me, with its power to help release and heal emotional issues and boost self-confidence I really did feel like the crystal chose me. If you do want to look into crystals I would recommend researching the different qualities that different crystals hold and see which one resonates with you. Or, you could do what I did and choose a random one and stick with it. Once you have your crystal, do whatever seems right for you with it, you can wear it as an item of jewellery, meditate with it, or pop it on top of your gratitude diary and charge it in the moonlight.
Does it work?
The short answer is yes, and no. Many influencers and avid believers of manifesting will preach about how it's changed their lives for the better and has made their wildest dreams come true, but you do question whether it's manifesting or their 1 million followers helping them out. I'm not about to question the power of the universe, but I do think balance is key to manifestation. It's important to remember manifesting is no wishing well or genie-in-a-lamp, the way I see it is that manifestation is a great way of realising what your dreams are and it is the belief that these dreams will come true one day. If you have this alongside a list of feasible actions then surely you can't go wrong. Manifesting isn't for everyone, and there's no guarantee it will work, but I for one enjoy it, and if you think it will suit you too, then go for it!
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