The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Manifestation

Manifest your dream life! Manifest the love of your life! Manifest a bunch of money! Manifest! Manifest! Manifest! — Everybody is talking about it, everyone is trying to do it, but who is actually sharing the process in an easy, digestible way? No one.

It’s true that the steps are shared widely across the internet but the Universe, Source, God, or whatever your higher power may be, tends to speak in its own language. Nobody is teaching you how to speak the language of this magic and because of this, you’re not able to truly experience the full benefits of manifestation and the Law of Attraction.

Never fear! This guide will walk you through the steps in an easy to understand way while also sharing my favorite tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years of manifesting that will not only help you talk the talk, but walk the walk right into that dream life you’ve been making vision boards about for years.

What is Manifestation?

Learning the language of the Divine

Learning to manifest is like learning a brand new language. You’re learning new ways to understand and communicate with the world around you to help you achieve your optimal life experience. As you begin, you won’t immediately be fluent in this language but as you practice, the more you will see your skills grow.

What is the language? It’s far simpler than you would think. It is the language of vibration.

Everything in our reality vibrates. We know this and we have studied this. As humans, we are no different. Each of us emits a unique and individual vibration out into the world, much like a radio station who emits a different song (aka frequency) throughout the world than the radio station from across town.

As humans, we have the unique ability to be able to tune into various different ‘radio stations’ by changing our vibration. Our external realities are, in many ways, a mirror of our internal reality. What we put out into the word, we get back. What comes around goes around. Like attracts like. This is the most fundamental principle to remember while manifesting.

The vibration you consistently put out into the world is what you will continually get back.

On a surface level, it seems simple enough, right? In theory, it seems like it should be easy, but manifestation requires a certain level of confronting everything you’ve ever known with a belief that you are meant for more in this world. It’s getting in the ring every day with yourself in pursuit of a better life and it is one of the best journeys you could ever embark on should you be brave enough to commit to yourself.

If you’re ready to truly see what you’re capable of (and capable of creating) continue reading to the recipe for success:

Getting Clear

Naturally, the first step to manifesting anything is getting clear on what you actually want. You would never end up getting your entre at your favorite local restaurant unless you made a decision on what you wanted to eat. This is no different than ordering at some cosmic restaurant in the sky. The first step is always figuring out what you want. However the key to this step is one that people often miss. Getting clear on how you want to feel as a result of your manifestation.

Emotions = Energy in Motion. Thoughts vibrate at a certain frequency, lots of thoughts create emotions making emotions vibrate at a more concentrated and powerful frequency than your thoughts. This makes your emotions one of the biggest assets in your manifestation toolbox and way too many people choose to overlook them because they can be a little tricky to work with.

Too often we think we want one thing because we think it will make us feel a certain way, only to then achieve that goal and find that it wasn’t what we wanted at all. Save yourself the time of trying to think up a million material things that will fill this life that you dream of and start getting clear on how you want your dream life to feel. There are many roads to get to where you want to be, but do you want to take the stressful, grind-’til-you-die road, or the easy, free-flowing, fun road? The choice is yours.

• Tip #1 — Gauge your ideal feelings

Pull out a sheet of paper and think about what your ideal day would look like if money didn’t exist. If you didn’t have to worry at all about work or finances or rent; what would your ideal day look like? What activities would replace your full-time job? How would you fill your time when you didn’t have obligations? Read back over the page after you’re done writing it and make a list of the feelings this ideal day makes you feel! Relaxed? Secure? Supported? Free? Creative? Inspired? Passionate? List all the feelings and by the end — these are the feelings you want to focus on creating now. (See Step 3 – Becoming HER)

• Tip #2 — Make Vision Boards

This is probably a completely overdone tip but there’s a reason for that. Vision boards work if you use them correctly! The thing is, most people don’t know how to use them correctly. They get made, looked at for a little bit, and forgotten about. (guilty!) The way most people use them is similar to that list people make on January 1st of all their New Year’s Resolutions that end up getting lost in the mail pile and forgotten about two months into the new year. The trick is to connect and review your vision board often!

Personally — I don’t like the idea of just one static vision board image that has to stay the same for a whole year. I grow and evolve and change so much in a year and so do my desires and I prefer a format where I can add and subtract as I please. Pinterest is my favorite for vision boards for this reason! Making your vision board something you can connect to and interact with brings it to life in a way that static images could never compete with in my book.

Setting Intentions

You’re not going to get that entree if you don’t tell the waitress your order. If we want to receive our desires, we must put in our order! Technically speaking, there are only two requirements to setting intentions: Identifying whatever it is that you desire, and allowing The Universe to bring it to you. As long as each of these is in your intention-setting ritual, you have the basics of your foundation down!

A lot of people consider this step merely a communication with whatever higher power you believe in. This isn’t true, and these people are missing a crucial and powerful step that setting intentions the right way can bring. When you set intentions, you tell the Universe what you want, but you also make a promise to yourself to achieve better. You make a promise to yourself to follow through and be committed enough to your greatness to uphold your end of the energetic exchange that is taking place.

• Tip #1 — Hire A Manager

No, I don’t mean hire a real manager (unless you want to!) I mean hire your Universal Manager. You can give them a name and some personality traits if you want, and if you’re feeling creative. It can help the exercise feel more real which will help you in the long run. Think of this manager as your connection to a bunch of energetic employees who manage your PR, your marketing, your product, your design, your production, your fulfillment, and so forth. You don’t know all the energetic employees but you know your manager and you trust that they will do what they’ve promised you will be done. You give them your request and then you expect to receive results from them.

You can simply speak out loud to your manager whenever you get an idea that sounds like something you’d like to experience or create. You can take it a few steps further and search your own Facebook profile in the messenger app (or you can download a fake texting app) and change your nickname to the name you decided on for your manager. Periodically throughout the day when you get that inspiration, send them a message!

• Tip #2 — Create A Contract for Yourself

Like I said earlier, setting intentions is just as much about communicating your desires to the Universe as it is promising yourself that this is something you desire and will achieve. Now that you’ve released your desires to the Universe by hiring your Universal Manager, the next step is to create that deep connection to your manifestation with yourself.

Pull out a piece of paper and write something to the effect of this:

From the Creative Desk of (Your Name) on (date)

It is my declaration both before the Universe and every version of myself from the beginning of time to the end that I desire (your manifestation). I am flowing with creative abundance and easily call this desire into my lived reality. Over the next short time, I will prepare to receive this desire as the Universe works to put all the details in place. As I uphold my end of the bargain, the Universe will follow.

And so it is, and so it is, and so it has already been done.

Your Signature

Hang the contract up where you will see it frequently. Read the words to yourself regularly or do pep talks in the mirror each morning where you dare yourself to achieve all that you desire. Where you challenge yourself to do the damn thing because the word dare is a lot more motivating than the word want, in my experience. Promise this life to yourself, to every version of you, and that will become a huge motivating force that will carry you through all the growth that is yet to come.

Become Her

You’ve decided on what you want, you’ve put your order in with the Universe, and now it’s time to become her, aka feel as if! Once you start thinking the version of you that you want to become, you start acting like the version of you that you want to become and eventually you will be the version of you that you want to become. For example: If you believe you are a person who creates success everywhere she goes, then you’ll start taking action like the version of you who creates success everywhere she goes, and then eventually you will just be the woman who creates success everywhere she goes.

To attract the things you desire, you need to attune your current vibration to the vibration of the things you desire. Your feelings are your most powerful asset in this step as the Universe is a feeling language. It’s important to focus on feeling good now, even if your world doesn’t make you feel good. I always like to say, “If you can feel it in your heart, you can hold it in your hands.” But to hold it in your hands (bring it into your reality) you must be able to feel it first.

(Pro tip: pretending to feel something is entirely different from actually feeling something. Make sure when you are creating the emotions from Tip #1 to get clear that you’re actually feeling the feelings and not just pretending to feel the feelings.)

• Tip #1 — Going on an Appreciation Riot

There are two different ways I utilize this technique. The first is by playing this game of appreciation in the present moment. Look around you until you find something you like to look at! Think, say out loud, or write down something like; “I appreciate the beautiful photos of my husband and me that hang on the wall because it reminds me how happy we are together, even on the hard days.” Then find smaller details about that thing that you appreciate. “I appreciate that this photo has both of our genuine smiles. I appreciate how happy we look together. I appreciate the size in contrast to the space on our wall. I appreciate the dried flowers that line the top of the frame.” I’ve done this with my countertops, my work laptop, our bathtubs while I’ve scrubbed them, and our food while I’ve cooked dinner. It’s a great way to get you feeling good now!

The second way I utilize this technique is by visualizing my dream life and playing the same game but in my visualization. Say I was trying to manifest a four-bedroom home to purchase. I would visualize myself sitting in this home and I would find something in the room that was pleasing to me. “I really appreciate how large this farmhouse sink is! There is so much space to do the dishes! I appreciate the faucet that extends so I can rinse the sink thoroughly! I appreciate the large amount of counter space that makes it easy to dry all the dishes without everything looking cluttered. I appreciate the sleek finish on the hardware that always makes it look more clean than it is.” As you feel the appreciation for those manifestations before you have them in your reality, and set a standard for feeling good most of the time, you bring that dream life closer and closer with every new feeling!

• Tip #2 — Your Little Book of Roses

When I was young, we used to play a game called Roses and Thorns at girls’ camp. We would all sit in a circle and take turns announcing the worst part of our day (thorns) and the best parts of our day (roses). I’ve always loved the game but as I got older, I stopped focusing on my thorns and started to only write down my roses! As I stopped for about 10 minutes every day to notice and metaphorically smell the roses I was gifted with that day, the world started to become so much sweeter. I started to realize that the Universe was gifting me so much more than I was originally giving it credit, but I was moving through my life so quickly that I wasn’t even noticing the gifts that were presented to me!

Grab a notebook or create a folder somewhere in your phone and sit down for about 10 minutes at the end of every night and write down things that happened during the day that made you feel good. Perhaps someone named Sally bought your coffee at Scooter’s while she was in line ahead of you and it made you feel lucky and blessed — write down her name or a brief description of what she looked like. Maybe you enjoyed snuggling with your fur babies this morning, or they gave you some silly faces to giggle about, write down their names. Maybe the sunrise was one of the most beautiful you have ever seen, describe it! Maybe you found a new song that you love that brought a message of encouragement, write down the name and the way it made you feel.

Stopping and noticing the little things that already make your life good will bring you into a state of feeling good most of the time much quicker than anything else!

Let go of the HOW and focus on the NOW

The Universe works in vast and wondrous ways and I fully understand that there are many things I will never fully understand in my life as a human being. The Universe takes care of the how — you just have to focus on your vibration in the now.

In order to receive our manifestations, we have to take action towards those manifestations. As much as I wish I could sit on my couch all day and think really hard about how much I want a new Tesla or a new 4-bedroom house; how am I ever supposed to actually receive them if I don’t go test drive the car or start viewing homes? The Tesla isn’t going to drive through my apartment to just land in my lap and there won’t be a big, beautiful house that falls out of the sky… unless we’re in the Wizard of Oz.

We are the ones that live in reality which means we are the ones that have to take the real-life steps towards what we want while The Universe lines things up on the back end to work out exactly how they need to. The trick is to make sure you’re taking the right actions and not just any action.

• Tip #1 — Future Self Mapping

Trying to decide in the moment if everything you’re doing is the right or wrong action adds a lot of stress and pressure to our lives that we, frankly, just don’t need or want. Future Self Mapping is the roadmap and the key to ensuring the actions you take towards becoming the version of you who has everything you want are actually leading you in the right direction.

Pull out a sheet of paper and think about the version of you that has everything you want. Write down every detail you can think of about her. How does she feel about her career? What does she do for work? What is her relationship with food? How does she keep her body healthy? What is her cleaning schedule like in the dream home you want to live in? How does she unwind? What is her relationship to money like? Does she smoke? What are her biggest challenges? What are her biggest successes?

Write it all down and when you’re finished, you will have a list of shifts and changes (action steps!) you can make in order to attune your vibration to your desires.

• Tip #2 — Mapping your Manifestations Inside Your Routines

I recently revamped my morning routine because the whole get up, get dressed, go to my 9-5 thing just wasn’t serving me in the best way a morning routine could. I wanted my morning routine to prioritize my body, my mind and my manifestations. So I revamped my morning routine, dedicated myself to getting up one hour earlier so that I could dedicate some time to taking action towards what I was actually manifesting. For you, this could be your dream body! So you block out an hour in your morning routine to work out and take action towards that manifestation. You might dream of owning your own business so you block out that hour in your morning routine to set up your website and work on your product design or service or marketing every day. Taking the time to make taking action towards the things you truly want in life makes all the difference in the realm of consistency and in your mindset about who you are which is easily one of the most important parts of the manifestation process.

Prove yourself RIGHT

Some manifestations take years to come to fruition if there is a lot of resistance and limiting beliefs to break through. Sometimes, just before your manifestations arrive, your world gets chaotic and out of control to make space in your life for the new changes that are coming. Change is difficult to be comfortable with because it’s entering into the unknown and instinctively, we don’t like the unknown because there could be dangers lurking there — but everything you ever wanted could also be hiding there.

There will be moments of discouragement that will come up. Anyone who says there isn’t is lying to you. Self-doubt is a natural part of the human experience. It’s when we transcend the self-doubt that the real transformations take place, but how do we transcend?

To overcome the limiting beliefs, you have to first understand what they are and where they come from. We are all born loving ourselves. Every single piece of us that makes us unique we love. We are not born already criticizing ourselves and talking down on our appearance or our abilities. That was all taught to us by someone at some point in time, whether it was a parent who repeatedly talked badly about the way they looked in front of you or TV ads that told you that you had to look a certain way to be accepted or music that taught you what femininity looked like or teachers that told you that you weren’t putting in your best effort even though you thought you were? At some point, these beliefs that other people held became your ‘truths’ even if they weren’t actually true or important to begin with. These truths then shape our worldview, our self-esteem, our self-worth, and our relationships with other people. We bustle through life carrying the weight of each negative belief that was never ours to carry.

When we step out of our comfort zone and into the unknown, these beliefs start to pop up. That pesky voice that says, “You’re way too awkward to be a likable leader. Who do you think you are? You’re going to fail miserably and fall flat on your face!” or “Nobody wants to see your body like that. Why would you even put that dress on? You look disgusting.” or “You were never the nurturing type anyway. What makes you think you would even be a good mother?” Just like a tick, if you let those beliefs live within you, they cause dis-ease. Stepping out of your comfort zone is like the hot needle that makes the tick back out so that you can live your life with ease. These beliefs are foreign, they are not inherently us and this is one of the hardest, and yet, most liberating steps of them all.

• Tip #1 — Start Clearing Physically

When I’m ready to up-level into the new version of myself that has all the manifestations I’m currently desiring, I start by clearing out the clutter in my physical space. Clutter in the physical spaces that you spend the most time in tends to create feelings of overwhelm and stress which are the opposite of how I want to feel. I go through all my ‘clutter closets,’ under my bathroom sinks, our storage room, our shed, my clothing closet, our kitchen cupboards and even the dreaded junk drawer. Clearing out the clutter in my physical helps me to clear out the clutter in my mind by creating more feelings of peace and harmony and relaxation instead of the stress and worry and overwhelm and claustrophobia that the physical clutter creates for me. This also signifies to The Universe that I am clearing out the old in preparation to accept the new. It shows the Universe that I am willing to let the past go in pursuit of my better future.

• Tip #2 — Challenge the pesky voice and find proof that it’s wrong

One of my favorite ways of breaking through limiting beliefs is by challenging the doubting voice that pops up for me when it pops up. Social Media used to be a really big struggle for me due to previous trauma that I experienced on the internet and it made showing up really hard. When I would post in the very early stages of my socials, I would always feel so awkward in front of the camera. I would over edit every ‘um’ and pause because I didn’t want to sound dumb. That voice would circle around and say, “Who do you think you are? You’re so weird and people are going to see this and think you’re so cringe.” And then that voice would make me cringe myself into a corner where I just hoarded all the posts I had pre-made but never posted them. Until one day I was tired of feeling like that — and when the voice popped up I said, “How do you know everyone who sees this will think it’s awful? There has to be a least one person who will think it’s helpful.” And then I focused on all the people who had previously told me how much my posts had helped them and impacted them before. I made an album on my phone titled “Why I do it” with screenshots of all the comments and messages I had gotten before and I proved to myself that there was at least one person who thought my posts were helpful. There was more than one person! And I knew there had to be even more out there who would find my tips useful and the voice shrank.

Challenge that voice like this every time it pops up: “You look too fat in that outfit, I don’t know why you even wear it?” Who said fat wasn’t beautiful? Who said that I couldn’t look fat and still walk around like a badass? There are plenty of hot, badass, fat women in the world who walk around with confidence. Take Tess Holliday as your proof! She’s a goddess who’s not worried about being modest and walks around like she owns the world (as she should!!)

“Ha! You want to be a millionaire? Look at your bank account! Look at how much debt you’re in! There’s absolutely no way you’ll ever make it.” Absolutely no way? Of course there is a way, there are plenty of people who started worse off than you and they’re living the dream life right now. Take Halle Berry for example. She was living in a homeless shelter in her 20’s and is now an Oscar winning actress. Jan Koum collected food stamps before creating WhatsApp and is now worth $10.1 billion.

Find proof that the voice of doubt in your mind is wrong. Find examples of people overcoming what that voice says you can’t — because if there is someone out there that has already done it, you absolutely can do it too.

Celebrate

The last step of the cycle is one people often forget, but in the long run, it will make or break your manifestation process. Remember: Manifestation is about who you are becoming more than what you are receiving. This means that manifestation hinges on growth which requires new mindsets, new habits, new routines, new people, etc. which brings about a new baseline vibration. This is the reason why you’re able to manifest the things you desire. It’s the whole point. When you believe you are a person who creates success everywhere she goes, and you take action like someone who creates success everywhere she goes, you become the person who creates success everywhere she goes! (It’s honestly much more simple than everyone makes it sound)

If you wait until you have already received your manifestation to celebrate — you’re never going to make it there. The journey of manifesting is little wins on the way to your big wins. Celebrate the small stuff so you keep going to celebrate the big stuff. This keeps us in a mindset of excitement and gratitude for how far we have come. Gratitude for the version of us that started this journey where we are now seeing even a glimmer of benefit. When you celebrate yourself for the small things, reaching your first 1000 followers on social media when your target is 400,000 sounds like “Wow! We made it to our first 1000! This is amazing! I’m so thankful that I did this! I’m so thankful that all these people found me!” When you only celebrate yourself for the big things, reaching 1000 followers on social media sounds like, “I can’t believe we are only at 1000. I have so far to go. How am I ever going to make it there? I can’t keep this up forever, this is going to take way too long. Why am I even trying?”

Take it from someone who has skipped this step and quit things before I ever really gave them a chance a million times. Honor yourself, appreciate yourself, love yourself, and celebrate yourself for doing the work. As much as this process is simple on paper, it’s a hell of a lot more work to actually do and that alone deserves recognition.

• Tip #1 — Mirror Magic Hype Sessions

I make it a point to celebrate myself every single day. Because Like I said, if you don’t celebrate the small stuff, you’ll never make it to celebrate the big stuff. I also ‘pre-celebrate’ the things I’ve accomplished as a way of tapping into those feelings now which pulls that manifestation closer and closer because feelings are powerful ya’ll.

Stand in the mirror and start hyping yourself up like you would your friends. For me, this sounds something like: “Bitch you did it!! You fucking made it! I’m so proud of you, oh my gods. You worked so hard and now everyone is in your inbox asking you for all your secrets! Everyone is willing to pay you whatever you ask just to learn from you! Do you know how amazing that is? Do you know how amazing you are? You’re SMASHING IT! Don’t stop! Never stop! You’re building an empire!!”

When I say I get into it — I. Get. INTO. It. Sometimes I have to stop myself from yelling because it’s 7 am on a Saturday and the whole rest of my house is sleeping. But you have to get into it to really feel those feelings. Don’t feel embarrassed or weird. You’re the only one seeing you do this, so give it all you got because you deserve to be celebrated and you deserve to feel good!

• Tip #2 — Give yourself a luxury experience every month

You work hard. You have kids you’re taking care of or a job that you’re managing and busting your ass for. You keep your house clean and you cook dinner and do the grocery shopping and you work out 3 times a week and stay hydrated and break through your limiting beliefs and challenge your fears and take action and get clear on what you want and make promises to yourself and follow through on those promises to yourself. PHEW! That’s a lot. You do a lot babe and you deserve that recognition. So give yourself a luxury experience every month.

This doesn’t have to be anything crazy. Take yourself to your favorite café one day and treat yourself to your favorite food there. Give yourself a nice lymphatic massage to drain the fluid from your face. Have a candle-lit bath. Make yourself a candle-lit dinner! There are so many ways to treat yourself to a celebratory moment that don’t require all the big $$$. Customize it based on what feels like luxury to YOU! But make it a priority every month to do something to celebrate the work and the progress you have made. When you hit a big milestone, plan yourself an even bigger luxury experience or gift for yourself to celebrate. This is a big motivator for me.

Conclusion

All in all, manifestation is not this crazy, esoteric, woo-woo thing. It’s a law of the universe, much like gravity. We don’t know every single fact there is to know about gravity or how it works and it’s the same with manifestation. We don’t have to know everything about it to use it. The important things are that we:

• know what we want to feel
• we feel those feelings now
• we take steps towards the life that we want
• we move our internal roadblocks out of the way.

The universe does the rest. Everything else should merely be about feeling good. The true magic behind manifestation is setting up systems in your life that make you FEEL GOOD! That’s it – it’s really that simple.