Manifesting 101: How to Attract What You Want in Life

Are you stuck in a job you dislike, aren’t making as much money as you’d like, and haven’t traveled to nearly as many places as you’d hoped to by now?😭

If so, welcome to manifesting 101 – basic AF Law of Attraction concepts to help you understand what manifesting is and how to manifest something that you desire in life! 🪄🔮

I’m going to introduce you to what manifesting is about and tell you how it has worked for me.

Then I’ll take you through 5 simple practices you can start doing to learn how to manifest something you want in your life.

And I’ll share with you how I have fulfilled several BIG dreams in my life so far, and why I believe that my manifestation practice has helped me achieve those dreams!

Keep reading, OR if you prefer listening while sewing an epic Halloween costume, click below for the podcast version. 🪄 🎧💫

Prefer to watch instead of read? Watch the YouTube version here if you want to watch me teach the 5 lessons on your lounge room TV 🪄 📺💫

So first off, let’s answer the BURNING QUESTION most people have about manifesting…🔥🔥🔥

Does Manifesting Actually Work?

The short answer is:

Yes – Because 99% of manifesting is NOT metaphysical. It’s about setting intentions, goals, and being FOCUSED. The other 1%? That ”works” when you are aligned with spirit and ”listening” to the signals that the universe is sending to you.

and

NO – if you don’t believe in it and never try it out.

My guess is that you are here because you are mostly curious about the 1% aspect – the truly metaphysical magic where we are able to shape our reality through our creative intentions…

So let’s talk about that aspect here now.

What you need to understand first is that we’re talking about spiritual beliefs here.

We’re talking about faith.

The definition of having faith is taking a great leap of action toward something based purely on hope, rather than on anything concrete, logical, or scientifically evident and measurable.

So unless you’ve TAKEN that leap of faith, you can’t experience the BENEFITS of that leap of faith.

Makes sense now, hey? 😉

I’ve personally experienced incredible coincidences and synchronicities in my life, and I attribute most of it to my lifelong habit of writing in a diary, which is my form of manifesting.

Other forms of practice may include prayer, meditation, chanting, visualizing, rituals, and spellcraft, but I am a writer so I just write down what I want.

Hundreds of times in my life, I have written down what I wanted in my diary, describing them in detail, and they eventually manifested in my real life. 

I’ve landed perfect jobs at just the right time with very little effort (read about that a bit more here).

Or met just the right person at just the right time to help me with a problem.

And I’ve realized many of my BIGGEST dreams in life, including:

• Starting my own handmade jewelry business
• Working from home with cats
• Becoming self-employed
• Living as a pet-sitting digital nomad
• Taking extended overseas trips in the U.S. and Bali
• Out-earning the most I ever made as an employee
• Falling in love with an ideal partner and enjoying a long-term happy relationship with him

However, none of these things manifested overnight or without a lot of conscious intention on my part.

Most of the things that I’ve manifested following a written plan have been small and arrived quickly.

But the bigger things took much longer and required that I do a lot more work on myself before they became possible.

And this is because of one of the key laws of The Law of Attraction, the popular name of this type of spirituality that we’re talking about here…

Though science hasn’t explained all of it yet–give it a few more decades to tackle that 1% crazy coincidence-level magic– there are enough of us who actively use and experience the benefits of manifesting to have created this large-scale spiritual movement around it.

Manifesting 101 – Lesson 1: Your Faith Must Inspire The Feelings of Belief For Something To BECOME Possible In Order to MAKE It Possible🪄🔮

The bigger the thing you want, the harder it can be to align what you’re able to believe and feel is real before it actually becomes real.

So this is why all the people who practice manifesting are not all yet millionaires driving Rolls Royces and living in Hollywood mansions…

The universe is not going to give you what you’re not aligned to receive.

Alignment’s got NOTHING to do with ‘deserving’, by the way.

What I mean by ‘alignment’ is your ability to ‘hold’ an experience as either a legit possibility or a legit reality.

It’s the capacity of your faith in something being possible for you.

So the good news is, you can practice beliefs and expand your capacity. That’s what the next 4 lessons will cover.

The bad news is, it ain’t easy to expand your capacity for faith, as you’ll need to be willing to wear rose-colored glasses and feel a little foolish.

Life can make having faith harder at times, right?

Especially with all the greedflation, cost of living crisis, war, environmental destruction, and political turmoil going on.

That’s the challenge of having faith in your ability to manifest positive changes here.

Some of us are just struggling to believe we can ever even buy our own 1-bedroom home here, right?

Let alone make a million bucks or own a house with, oh, I dunno – TWO bedrooms??😅

So this is to say, you gotta do a helluva lot more work on the intensity of your faith and belief in what you want if you want it to manifest.

Manifesting does not happen by applying positive thought band-aids!

Positive thinking around what you want does not equal alignment with what you want.

Alignment in faith means emotionally navigating the darker events and experiences of life in a way that does not diminish faith but strengthens it.

This is a skill.

Because trying to think positively about your life when things are awful is like a constant game of whack-a-mole.

Negative thoughts where you’re wishing things were different than what they are will keep popping up.

IT CAN FEEL ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE, at times.

Like when your boss happily announces a new team project that may mean weeks of late nights at work. “Oh, yay!” 

Or you’re going through a break-up, or you get hit by a car.

You try to force yourself to put a more positive slant on the events in your life to mentally survive.

Maybe you ask yourself what lessons there are in what you’re experiencing.

Or you start a gratitude journal and list all the blessings you have in a bullet point list:

• Job security, though I hate it.
• Friends. Thank $#@* for friends.
• My cat, Mr. Doodles.
• Wine. And Happy Hours!

But sometimes trying to force yourself to feel good when you feel like your life has become a junkyard hull is like trying to spray-paint over a rusty patina.

Pointless, makeshift, and just a bit gaudy!

So HOW does manifestation work if not through positive affirmations?

Well, the short answer is you’ve got to consciously work to convince your subconscious that something is possible.

So much so that you erase most of the self-doubt and negativity that you are holding.

TELLING yourself something is possible is not enough – your belief has to be 100% unwavering on a deeply rooted, subconscious level.

In theory, thinking positively is a nice idea.

But in reality, it’s a masochistic mental gym class that never ends.

Those who think that manifesting is all about positive thinking have a very crude understanding of the Law of Attraction.

A legion of New Agers who can’t articulate the practice with any useful guidance except to suggest vision boards, gratitude journals, and positive thinking are to thank for all the people who poo-poo the power of manifesting.

Many of these practices are useful, but what helps someone begin to truly, deeply believe in something is going to be different for every individual.

The real power of manifesting what you want in life has to begin with understanding yourself on a much deeper level in order to expand your capacity for faith.

Manifesting 101 – Lesson 2: Have a Daily (or weekly) Practice of Looking Inward🪄🔮

It has to begin with looking inward at yourself to begin to know what you really want.

You have to dig deep and keep digging.

It can be hard to look inward in the noisy world we live in.

We are glued to our phones and laptops, scrolling through social media all day. We listen to podcasts while we are driving and watch Netflix while we mindlessly swallow down our food. We’re consumed in a world where we try to make every second count – to the point of complete burnout.

Taking the time to slow down and listen to ourselves can feel daunting, unproductive, and pointless.

But this is the first step in reconnection with our intuition and allowing ourselves to believe in what may be possible for you.

Learn as much as you can about your own mind. Truly get to know yourself.

I prefer to do this through writing in my diary, but I also read a lot of books on psychology and human behavior.

I’ve found the most helpful books are on Attachment Styles, relationships, emotional and social intelligence, and anything on how our subconscious mind works.

Once you know what it is you want, you must focus on that thing intensely and live each day with the intention of getting that thing.

Manifesting 101 – Lesson 3: Create or Find Opportunities For Yourself🪄🔮

You must create the opportunities for what you want to come into your life. Expect it. Allow it. Look for signs that it’s not far off.

You have to be consistent in your search for it.

Sometimes, what this means is that for something new to come into your life, you may need to let go of something old.

You can’t just wait around for a new romantic interest or job offer to call you up. You have to prepare and create the opportunity, like a welcome.

Some people describe this as ”calling in” your desire. It’s saying to the universe, ”I am ready!”

It’s helping yourself get aligned to what you would like to receive.

You have to be HARDCORE about your desires! Nobody else will. Only YOU can make it happen.

Do you need to learn digital marketing to create a successful creative business? Or do you need to tune in and listen to your body more to understand what diet is right for you?

Maybe you crave a life of freedom or an alternative lifestyle.

Well, there are steps you are going to have to take to achieve both of those things. You can’t simply write it in your diary every morning and live in the status quo, hoping something will happen!

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein

In order to manifest something, you need to become a co-create.

You have to make changes in order to receive changes.

Manifesting 101 – Lesson 4: You Have to Have Absolute Clarity on What You Want & You Must Stay Focused On It!🪄🔮

All that intentional thinking requires focus, of course, so you must work to keep your mind focused.

FOCUS is what will help you achieve the changes that you desire, once you get clear on what it is you want to manifest.

So what I’m talking about here is not just knowing what it is that you want, like the list of things you’d like to manifest, for example.

But it’s about having daily consciousness or mindfulness throughout your day.

This is mindfulness about what it is that you are thinking and what it is that you are doing in order to stay aligned with what it is that you want.

It’s having mindfulness.

And the skeleton key to developing mental focus is meditation. 

So I recommend sitting for at least 20 minutes a day to practice calming down the noise in your head and get better at listening to what you’re really thinking.

Practice deep breathing and deep relaxation.

It should feel like a hot bath for your mind. You should literally feel tension in your neck, shoulders, and face melt away, for example.

Do this as often as you can,

Even if it’s just in the car between running errands, for example.

I meditate several times throughout my day, doing 5 to 10-minute meditations on YouTube at my desk. I just pop on my headphones, relax in my desk chair, and spend a few minutes to relax and clear my mind.

The more stressful my day, the more frequently I meditate.

It helps me get more done than I would otherwise.

Because clearing your mind and relaxing your body helps your ability to focus (as well as help you scream less obscenities at technical failures!)

When you meditate daily, repeatedly think about what you want, and begin each day with the intention of achieving that thing, your chances of success skyrocket!

And, you’ll become more accepting of the things you may dislike in your life because your mind is so hell-bent on having the better things that you desire.

You’ll become more creative, less anxious, you’ll sleep better, and you’ll even discover a delight in the things you must do, because you’re living intentionally, like a woman on a mission!

Incidentally, you’ll also start to feel more positive about everything in your life as it already is NOW.

Positive thinking follows intentional living. (More on THAT in just a moment!)

But first, you must get clarity.

If meditation is just not your thing or you struggle with it, an alternate practice I highly recommend is scripting or journaling.

Check out this post I wrote to summarize my Money Manifesting Witchcraft newsletter to understand how writing prompts and affirmations can help you rewire your subconscious mind.

Manifesting 101 – Lesson 5: Gratitude amplifies your ability to manifest what you want.🪄🔮

Gratitude is the secret sauce to the law of attraction.

It’s the great magnifier; what makes everything possible.

If you don’t have gratitude, you cannot manifest.

It’s as simple as that.

You have to feel grateful and happy about what you have in order to bring more of what you want into your life.

You cannot be hating on your life, no matter how bad it is, and expect good things to come into it.

Because here’s the truth: we’re always manifesting.

Whether you’re aware of it or not, you are manifesting. You’re manifesting something right now.

So you are attracting into your life the experience, people, and things that you are reflecting in your mind and in your thoughts.

And when we become intentional and we start designing our life and designing our thoughts and designing what it is that we want, we start to become co-creators.

We are able to bring in those things that we want to manifest. But we are always manifesting.

So if you are a person who has deep gratitude, if you’re a pretty happy person, if you appreciate the things that you already have, you’ll tend to attract more positive good things in your life.

Grumpy, unhappy people, they literally don’t have great things come into their lives.

They attract more grumpy, unhappy people and unhappy experiences.

That is the reality of it, and this is the thing that a lot of people who don’t believe in the law of attraction hate to hear, but it is the truth.

You cannot become a powerful manifestor unless you learn how to feel gratitude on a very, very deep level. 

Manifesting is a practice, not the result.

For those still wondering how to manifest something that you desire instantly, the answer is simply: you cannot.

Manifesting is not something that you just write in your journal in the morning and find at your doorstep in the afternoon.

That’s not how manifestation works, and any book, coach, or video that tells you otherwise is most likely BS-ing you.

Instead, enjoy the practice of manifestation, and get good at it.

Once you’ve found your perfect manifestation practice, the results take care of themselves.

You start seeing the small changes, and eventually, you start to see and feel the bigger things change too!

Ready to craft a Hexotic AF INTENTIONAL lifestyle that manifests MONEY and SUCCESS?🪄🔮

Join my Money Manifesting Witchcraft newsletter to get clarity on what TF you want in your life and start a daily manifesting ritual to amp up alignment!

I take you through 10 stages of manifesting 101, in order, with a focus on manifesting money with journaling prompts and affirmations. You can get a summary of what each stage is and some of the affirmations in this post.

Sign up below if you want to get RITUALISTIC with your daily manifesting practice!👇