Have you ever caught yourself thinking/feeling this way? “I hate my job. My life sucks. I hate my ____. (fill in the blank) Feeling trapped by circumstances? I think we all have. The good news: You can change things. You’re not a victim in this life. You have choices.
The topic today is manifesting. It’s about bringing into your reality the things you want. It’s about recreating your reality, to increase your joy. It’s not hocus pocus, it’s not pipe dreams, it’s real. In these two essays on manifesting, I’ll tell you how I manage it, and you can, too! In my own life, I’ve successfully manifested a lot of things, new body, new friends, new career focus, new passions. New joy.
Making a wish when you see a rainbow. Or finding a penny on the street, and picking it up and saying to yourself: “Find a penny pick it up and all the day I’ll have good luck.” Are these simply silly childhood superstitions? Maybe not! “What you focus on expands,” says a friend of mine. He’s right. If you’re expecting something good to happen, you find yourself working to manifest that good “luck.”
Part I of manifesting is actually the most difficult, and the most important. It’s about coming up with and knowing the answer to this question: “What do I want?” What do you want? If you’re like I was, I’m sure you can come up with a litany of “what I DON’T want…” That’s not the question. If it’s true that what you focus on expands, when you focus on what you don’t want, you get more of what you don’t want. Think, rather, about what you DO want. What do you want? It’s not an easy question. Or, maybe it is! The first step to getting what you want is delineating what you want, inside and out, and making sure it’s
realistic, makes sense and fits your life. Here’s how to create a well-formed goal or outcome in your mind, or on paper.
So, you’re thinking about what you want: stated in the positive. The next step is to set the context. Be very specific! Where do you want this goal, when and with whom? Think about these things as well: Is it realistic? Is it attainable? “I want to lose 40 pounds by next Saturday.” Not realistic! It reminds me of the magic 8 ball message: “wish for something possible.” That’s really good advice! It has to be physically possible. Perhaps change it to 40 pounds within the next 10 months; that’s doable.
Ask yourself: Is it something I can do myself, start by myself, do by myself? We only control ourselves, our behavior, our feelings, we can’t control others. “I want Mary Jane to fall in love with me.” That’s not a well-formed outcome or goal. What you can wish for, instead, is that you yourself develop and enhance your own positive attributes that would attract someone like Mary Jane.
Think about the goal in complete sensory terms. How will you know you’ve gotten it? What will it look like? What will you feel inside your body? What will you hear? Smell, taste? Get every sense involved, and flesh it out!
Think about how the desired outcome may change your life, and whether those are positive changes for all aspects of your life. How will it affect your family and your friends, your health, your career, your spiritual beliefs, your everything? How does it fit? You may want a promotion in your job, but what if that would entail much more time spent working and traveling, and less time for your family. How do you feel about that? Is it worth it? Is it worth what it will take to get it? Think about ecology, as it’s
called, as you define your outcome.
Ok, now you have an answer I hope to “What do I want?” A positive, contextualized, self-propelling, sensory-based, ecological goal. You’ve accomplished more than half the battle!! Next essay we’ll talk about what specifically you can do with this goal to bring it into your world as reality.
Copyright © Connie Brannan, CHt. & Licensed Trainer of NLP, 2008
