Just How Do You Manifest Anything?
It’s not what you think.
Despite being a certified life coach, reading numerous books regularly, and knowing there’s a need for more emotional and mental health in the world, I have a confession to make: I hate the buzzwords and phrases used within the Wellness Industry.
You need to ‘do the work.’
You need to ‘process’ those emotions.
Or the worst, any reference to being ‘woke.’ 🙄
There are a lot of reasons I hate these words and phrases, but it comes down to two things. First, they’re not very inclusive. Having someone sit back in their chair while telling you magnanimously that you need to ‘do the work’, doesn’t help. Talking about being woke is the Wellness equivalent of asking “Do you even lift, bro?” The second reason is I just don’t understand these catchphrases without concrete examples. That’s 100% on me.
So, why am I talking about manifestation? It didn’t make sense to me for the longest time. Others would tell me about asking the universe for what I wanted, and it would provide. Or talk about manifesting your future the way you wanted it. It would never work for me, and all I could think was that it was some advanced wishing and that some people just got lucky.
Recently, I finally had a realization of how it really works and perhaps my metaphor can help you too.
I love motorcycles. I keep thinking that someday I should write just how life on two wheels is the difference between second-hand smoke and fresh air. But my story on how I got to motorcycles isn’t that different from others and the reasons why I love it have been written before. It was returning home from my last motorcycle trip, that I finally got it.
There’s a concept in motorcycle riding that goes by many different names. However, when you put it very directly, it comes down to just this:
Where you are looking is where you are going.
This is true when it comes to performance riding or accident avoidance. If you’re looking at the yellow line you desperately don’t want to cross; you’ll cross it. If you’re looking at the apex that seems you’re traveling impossibly fast to hit; you’ll hit it.
It’s something every motorcyclist just innately recognizes and understands. On the surface, it may seem very similar to just wishing really hard. The reality though, is that you’re setting a goal and then using all of your riding skill to hit that goal; often subconsciously. You reflexively use your body to do whatever is needed automatically; lean a little more, modulate the throttle, apply the brake.
I’m not sure why it took me so long to make the connection as a metaphor for life or manifesting, but as soon as I did, I realized it was true. The idea of manifesting, of asking the universe for some specific outcome or goal, is not just making a wish and leaving it in the air. It’s declaring a result (looking at what you want) and then taking action to get there. And much like riding a motorcycle, if you’re moving, you’re also accepting the risk that comes along with the goal.
If you think of any life goal you want, there are specific actions you can take to help try and get there. There are always risks with trying to reach that goal. The more willing you are to accept those risks, the more you’re ready to work towards reaching the target, and the more the universe rewards the efforts.
I have held a belief for a long time that I’m just not that adventurous. It was something told to me once, and it stuck so hard that for the longest time I stopped trying. Once I did start, I still kept it in my head that I’m not adventurous enough. What’s worse, I had it in my head that I couldn’t be adventurous because my life wouldn’t let me.
On my last motorcycle trip home, I had an offer in my head going on repeat; to go on one crazy long impossible sounding backpacking trip. When it was first offered to me, my heart said yes, my mouth said “it’d be amazing”, and my brain said I couldn’t.
Riding through some of the more twisty sections of the PCH, my motorcycle going where I was looking through each turn, I wondered why life couldn’t work that way? And I realized, it did.
“I can’t go” turned into “what’s stopping me”? As the miles passed, I started making mental checklists of what would need to be done to be able to go on this fantastic adventure. Those mental checklists turned into real lists. It meant telling my personal trainer we needed to change my workout routine. It meant making legal arrangements for things while I’m gone. It meant quitting my job and buying a one-way ticket to New Zealand. It meant setting a goal and then taking steps to make it come true.
We like to pretend decisions are hard or take a long time. The reality is decisions take less than a second to make. What takes time is convincing ourselves that we’re okay with the possible consequences.
And now, on November 6th, I’m taking off to hike the Te Araroa SOBO without a specific plan for when I return. It means I’m finally living the life I keep telling myself I wanted, but hadn’t done anything to try and achieve. And that’s the universe manifesting what I asked for: adventure.
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