Years ago, I noticed something odd. Little windfalls seemed to come my way just after I gave money to a charitable cause. This happened over and over again.
That really was the beginning of my journey in relation to manifesting.
I've gone on to manifest lots of things, small and big. But my favourite example has got to be a tailor-made-for-me job (no kidding - a new position at a dream organisation that didn't previously have a team in this department, let alone an office in my city). I truly believe in the power of setting an intention, then stepping back, and taking actions that flow in the right direction.
Just recently, I received an email that I'd written to 2021 me, three years ago. No joke: I have everything I outlined in that letter, none of which I had achieved back then, and had no concrete idea as to the HOW - only the WHAT. That's not to say my life is perfect. Far from it! There are some things I didn't specify, didn't touch on at all in that letter - and those are currently the most deficient areas in my life. They are worse than I could have ever imagined, to be honest.
Now, I'm still not crazy about the word manifest. It's a little too woo for me and I know it turns a LOT of people off. But the fact is, my experience has shown me that:
- I can achieve what initially seemed like impossible goals once I DECIDE to go all in
- The more I give, the more comes back to me
Barring certain external limitations (physical, societal/systemic/structural factors, etc), what I need to succeed is already within me. And therefore on the flipside, all that's stopping me is also within me.
Sometimes you hear something phrased in a way that just clicks for you.
We are mental health sanitation workers.
(Courtesy of The Hello Seven podcast)
It's not all about money, although a lot of my goals have been financial. And let's face it, most goals require money.
In my quest to work my way up to six figures, I have had to do SO MUCH inner work, training my brain to absorb and accept new thoughts, ideas, and patterns. Moulding it to help me. Building those neural pathways. The brain is a muscle, and it has so much power to help or hinder you (as anyone with anxiety, etc knows). Opening my brain up to new possibilities helps it to see more opportunities and then to take advantage of them. No wonder so many entrepreneurs treat working on their mindset like a full-time job. I've tried to adopt that mentality too. It's what has helped me get through Covid, along with a ton of ... other life stuff. I've made mindset work a daily practice, and I only wish I'd discovered it earlier.
Getting my brain on board with change
What really clicked for me was learning about the Reticular Activating System (RAS), a lovely big bundle of nerves that basically connects the subconscious and conscious part of the brain. (This is basically the science that serves as the base for anything vaguely Law of Attraction-y.) When you learn a new word then start hearing it everywhere, buy a new car and start seeing the same model everywhere, or instinctively snap to attention when you hear someone call your name - that's our buddy RAS kicking in. It tunes us in to the things we care about, filtering out all the masses of information that the brain is constantly taking in and processing and honing in on what it thinks we'll be interested in.
It's basically nature's version of the Facebook algorithm. It's always looking for data points to back up and validate your beliefs. It shows what it thinks you want to see and what it thinks you care about. But it doesn't actually know what you really want unless you explicitly tell it. And that's where all the mindset work comes in - training it to prioritise stuff that will help you achieve your goals and help you become the person you want to be.
Three things that have helped me a lot in the past year, and that I frequently return to, are:
- I can choose a new thought any time (and everything that exists once began as a mere thought)
- A thought just needs to be 51% believable
- Envy = evidence. Take others' achievements as proof of what's possible
After that, it's up to you to do the work. Seize the opportunities, capitalise on them, and see how the results flow.
