Are You Accidentally Manifesting What You Don’t Want?
What you can imagine you can manifest.
Recently I was listening to a podcast episode for one of my clients and his guest Bruce Lipton said, “What you can imagine you can manifest.”
That hit me hard.
I lived most of my life having too high of expectations for things and felt like I was constantly being let down. I would get overly excited about an opportunity, or I would put too much faith into a “friend”, or I would lock something in as certain before it was actually certain.
There were two problems with this mentality…
1. I would forget that I am an extreme perfectionist, I have an abnormal amount of drive and dedication, and that I cannot hold others to the same crazy standard I hold for myself.
2. Life rarely goes as planned. The thing about people, the world, and life, is that it’s all outside of my control. And no matter how hard I try to control it, the only thing I can actually control is myself.
So with that being said, I was constantly feeling disappointed. I was never happy because things and people never lived up to what I had expected. One day I decided I was never, ever, going to expect, or assume, or count on anyone or anything ever again.
I began living in a mindset where I always prepared myself for the worst. I decided I would have zero expectations. I would have thoughts like…
That probably won’t happen.
That person and I will never date.
It won’t be as exciting as it sounds.
I can’t count on that opportunity.
I became cynical.
Although if I’m being 100% honest with you, this mindset actually did make me happier. It allowed each moment and person to be what they were without carrying the weight of my expectations. I had more fun and I enjoyed everything for exactly what it was without comparing. It was beautiful.
But the problem with this mindset was that I wasn’t manifesting what I actually wanted. And in most cases, by preparing myself for the worst, I was manifesting what I didn’t want.
And after listening to Bruce Lipton, I’m now realizing that there is a drastic difference between having expectations and manifesting. I can manifest something without expecting it to happen.
I can visualize myself being where I want to be, doing what I want to do, with who I want to be with, without having the expectation that it will actually happen.
But if I cannot envision it actually happening, the likelihood of it actually happening is slim.
For example, there was a potential client I would have given anything to work for. After speaking with him, my instant thought process was to tell myself that this was too good to be true and there’s no way I’m actually going to work with him. It’s like I have already decided for him that he doesn’t want to work with me.
With thought process, I was manifesting exactly what I didn’t want to happen.
So I switched my mindset. But here’s the thing: When switching my mindset, I didn’t switch to “He’s for sure going to hire me!”
Instead, I took moments out of my day when I need a break from staring at my computer screen to imagine myself working with him. I vividly imagined myself one month from now sitting on the phone with him discussing what we are working on, and I vividly imagined myself, working on his content, and I vividly imagine myself typing his name into my invoices.
This doesn’t mean I’m getting my hopes up, or having high expectations, all it means is that I am feeling what it would feel like to actually work with him. I’m manifesting.
I knew I would still be okay if he chose to go in a different direction because I’ve learned to never take anything personally and that one rejection is typically a wide-open door to a new opportunity (which I can write endlessly about in another post). But I still need to feel it. I need to visualize it. I need to manifest it.
So I challenge you to look at your life…
Are you holding rigid expectations or are you manifesting? And if you are manifesting, are you manifesting what you want or what you don’t want?
To begin manifesting you can take my approach by finding moments throughout your day to imagine and visualize, or you can dedicate a certain time of your day to sit and manifest.
I have a client who sits every single morning and tells herself, “I am the strongest I have ever been” even if she isn’t feeling strong. But speaking to herself like she already is what she wants to become, allows her to actually become what she wants to be.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this idea in the comments below!