How to Manifest Your Best Life
Do you live your most desired life? Or do you (secretly) dream of having more money, a better relationship, more freedom, a healthier body, or a different career? Well, you’re not alone. Most people dream of improving in at least one (or more) of these areas. But how can you change it from a dream to reality? In this article, we take a deep dive into the most important variable to manifest your best life.
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Let’s start with a statement that might not be the thing you want to hear: Although it might seem that things ‘just happened’ to you, you are responsible for the life you have right now, the good and the bad.
In short, here’s why. You decided on your education and how well you performed. You decided to take the job you currently have. You chose to be with the partner you’re currently with. You decided how you spend your money. You decided everything. Even on things that were out of your control, you did decide how to cope with them.
But let’s also be honest that many of these decisions aren’t made conscious. In the first 7 years of our life, we learn the most fundamental beliefs how the world operates. Your relationship with money, love, and the amount of risk you’re willing to take. All these factors will play huge roles in the rest of your life. You’ll keep building upon this foundation for the rest of your life.
So, when you’re in your 30s or 40s, things are pretty hard wired in your belief system.
Our brain is happy to automate things for you. That saves energy. The more it can do on autopilot, the better. That’s the power of habits. And we even have automated thoughts, called beliefs. It’s your truth about certain areas of reality.
“You have to work hard to make money.” “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” “I’m not good enough.” “I’m not lovable.” “I come from a background of X so that means that Y (just fill in what you like).”
Your truths, because you believe them to be true.
A belief is just a thought you have been repeating again and again.
But is it true for everyone? No, I know plenty of people that don’t work hard but do have a lot of money. You are good enough and lovable (everyone is) and there are also many examples of people outgrowing their background.
But, it’s your belief, and that’s what matters.
Do you think that if you believe you can’t run for 5 miles, you’re willing to give it even a shot? Probably not. And since you’re telling yourself you can’t, even when you do try it, you’d think you’re able to pull it off?
No.
We all know this. But still, we don’t look further than that.
Because what would happen if you could change that belief? What would be possible then?
That’s right. Everything.
Now, physical limitations aside, the way we think about something is around 90% of our success. The work still needs to be done and can be hard or challenging, but the hardest work is your belief system.
The way you think and how you feel about it determines the actions you take. Agree?
And the actions you take, determine the results you get. That’s pure logic. This is the real secret to manifesting anything in your life.
Dreams vs Memories
We learn by experience. That’s how we learn how to walk. We try, we fall, get up and try again, until we get it. And this simple sequence we use in every part of our life. That’s how you get to know what you’re good at, and what not. Got straight A’s for math? You’re probably sure you’re good at it. Got only F’s on English? You know you’re not good at it.
We experience our life on so many detailed levels, that we start to accept the things we’re not good at, and decide that it’s just how it is. We remember something, so we know. Right?
Sure, we all have our talents and the things we like. Cognitive capacity is a true thing.
The problem starts to occur when we apply this to everything in our life. Experience equals reality. And that’s too general. There’s way more nuance than we think there is.
I had the belief that I wasn’t good at creating attraction with women. I thought you were either born with that talent or not. And I was clearly not. Only by ‘accident’, I met a woman that fell in love with me. So I thought. After our divorce in 2012, I discovered however that this is a skill anyone can learn. Communication techniques, psychology, sociology, and reading body language are the ingredients to master that skill. But I first had to change my belief that I could learn this. After that change, the 90% was done.
We value our experience more than we dare to make our dreams come true.
And that’s the first belief you need to change. Because it’s not true.
Here we use the flaw in our subconscious mind. Only your conscious mind can recognize reality from the past, present, and future. Your subconscious mind can’t make that distinction.
That’s why you get scared again when you think back to something that made you scared before. Just by thinking about it. You tap into your subconscious programming with your conscious mind, which will fire hormones and other biological processes. It’s why we can feel sad when we think back to a sad moment or be happy when we think back to happy moments.
But let’s be real. A memory is not real. It’s in the past, and just a memory. The only thing that is real, is what happens right now, in this moment. Nothing else.
So, if we believe our experiences to be true, and we base our decisions on them, we kind of live in the past, don’t you agree? We make decisions based on memories. Not on what’s happening right now.
And since our subconscious mind doesn’t know if we’re remembering something, or it is happening right now, it will respond the same. Even if we make it up.
That’s right, even when it didn’t happen, but we just think about it, and our subconscious mind will be triggered. Empathy for the win.
You don’t have to be hit by a car to know that’s not a good idea to try for yourself. Again, it’s all part of our biological survival system.
If you start to base your biological survival system and decision-making on this empathic system, you are able to make drastic changes.
Use your dreams to build experience
Say you want to make more money. But you struggle because ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’ and you’re stuck in your career. Your subconscious mind will be fed by your memories and experiences that keep acknowledging this.
We now know that we can feed our subconscious minds with different thoughts. So how would your life look like if you had a belief that making money was easy?
Try to imagine what your life would look like. What home would you have? What car would you drive? Would you invest money or save money in the bank? Would you have a job, or be an entrepreneur? How would you spend your money?
Make it as detailed as possible. What would a regular day look like? What would your life look like in summer? Or in winter? How often would you go on vacation? And where would you go?
You can even write this down in a journal. So you can read it back whenever you want.
(Re)program your subconscious mind
A belief is a thought that you’ve been repeating over and over again. That’s how beliefs are formed, so that’s one thing you should do. Don’t just do this once, write it down and forget about it. No, (day)dream as often as you can about this.
Meditate on it. Take 10–15 minutes a day, preferably in the morning when you just woke up, and just sit still in a quiet place. And imagine it again. See the colours, smell the scents, feel the warmth of the sun. And just let your imagination take you on this trip.
Then, during the day, let these images be somewhere in the back of your mind. When you see the car you’ve bought yourself in your dream, drive by in real life, smile, and recognize the dream again. That’s your car! How sweet.
You will reprogram your beliefs based on your dreams, not on your past. So, you can start living in your future, instead of your past.
If you keep doing what you did yesterday, your today will be a copy of yesterday. Break the cycle, by deciding your future is what you want. Make it a daily practice. Challenge all your beliefs and recreate them in your future mental state.
Reality will change. It has to. Because what you think and feel forms your decisions. And the decisions will create your results. Based on your future mind, instead of a repetition of your past.
