manifesting Archives | The Aligned Life

Manifesting For Beginners: How To Get What You Really Want

by: Jenn

It’s true: if you first heard about the Law of Attraction through the bestselling book The Secret, you might have some mixed feelings about it.

Perhaps you were really excited about manifesting at first! I mean, getting what you want through the power of your thoughts? Who wouldn’t want that to happen?

But then, reality hit. And it turns out making your crush fall in love with you or getting the promotion at work wasn’t quite as easy as you’d hoped.

Many beginner manifestors easily lose faith in the process. But that mostly happens because they’re trying to do something really big before their training wheels are even off!

There’s a big misconception here: manifesting is actually about much more than making a wish and sitting around waiting for it to happen! Successful manifesting takes practice, just like anything else in life.

Manifesting is simply about aligning your thoughts and beliefs with your desire, so that your desire has no choice but to actually appear in reality!

Yes, the Universe is lining things up for you behind the scenes. But you are the one putting things into motion by deciding on what you want and putting in the work to go after it. It’s about true belief and trust: in yourself, in the Universe, and in your dreams.

It’s definitely not about waiting for something to happen! In fact, the more you think you have to wait, the longer you will be waiting.

It’s actually about making your dreams happen and taking the initiative to start making the necessary changes from the inside out.

So tell me now: are you still interesting in getting what you really want and manifesting the life of your dreams? I certainly hope so because that’s why I put together this quick start guide especially for beginner manifestors like you:

Manifesting For Beginners: How To Get What You Really Want

How To Get What You Want Step #1:

Get Specific

I’ve said it before and I’ll surely say it again: but if you haven’t actually picked a manifestation goal for yourself, you haven’t actually started manifesting! Saying things like “I want to be rich/thin/etc” doesn’t actually have much meaning. The Universe is trying to give you what you want! But if you don’t know what that is, then what’s going to happen? So please don’t be afraid to define exactly what is that you want right now.

Just remember, manifesting isn’t a one-time-only affair! It’s meant to be used over and over again, as you grow and change. So don’t worry about failing or changing your mind down the road. Commit to what you want right now and take it from there.

How To Get What You Want Step #2:

Stay Realistic

Here’s another important point for successful manifesting that most manifesting teachers won’t tell you: it’s also important to be somewhat realistic with your manifesting intentions.

That’s right: all of you who are trying to manifest a Lamborghini in the next 7 days, I’m talking to you!

So let’s get this part right: it’s not that you can’t create crazy amazing miracles for yourself. I’ve experienced miracles and I know many others who have as well! But you have to realize it takes a lot of inner work to create the space for those miracles to happen. If you’re just starting out, you don’t have a lot of practice. So that would be like trying to run a marathon without any training at all!

Imagine this: if you pick a crazy goal in a super-short timeline and it doesn’t work out, how is that going to make you feel? Probably not too great. At best, you’ll think you’re not a good manifestor and at worst, you’ll think the whole thing is a bunch of lies! So I want to avoid all of that.

If you’re just starting out with manifesting, I want you to pick a goal that’s juicy but not completely over the top. It has to feel tangible to you or you’ll just be putting extra blocks in your own way.

How To Get What You Want Step #3:

Align Yourself

As you might have guessed by the title of this site, I’m a true believer in the importance of alignment! To me, alignment is defined as having your thoughts, feelings and actions all in alignment with your goals. In practical terms, that means you aren’t saying you want one thing but acting in a completely different way.

So let’s start acting in alignment with our intention right now! Take a moment to imagine your life with your manifesting wish in it. How do you feel? What would you be doing? What would you be saying? And what would be different than where you are right now?

Pay close attention to those differences because they are the keys to your castle! It’s time to give up on the idea that you won’t have to change at all in order to get what you want. Of course you’ll have to change things, including your thoughts, feelings and actions.

So just keep coming back to this important question: how can you start to be more of who you really want to be? Start practicing being that person more and more every day and you’ll be in alignment before you know it!

How To Get What You Want Step #4:

Do The Work

Sorry my dearest honey babes but manifesting simply isn’t a guarantee that things will be easy (or fast for that matter!). While using the Law of Attraction isn’t about effort-ing in the “normal” sort of way, it does still involve effort. (This is yet another of the top misconceptions about manifesting!)

The Law only works as well as you do. So of course that means: half-assed effort equals half-assed results. Again, the Universe is just trying to give you what you want. But it’s paying attention to much more than just your words. For example, if you say you want to manifest losing weight yet you haven’t changed your diet or your workout routine–or more importantly, your thoughts and beliefs around working out–then what are you really telling the Universe? Perhaps it looks like you’re just happy with life exactly the way it is.

The change starts within you, always. That’s a beautiful thing because it means you don’t have to wait on anyone else to get things started! But you do have to start showing up for yourself, each and every day.

How To Get What You Want Step #5:

Follow The Pings

The Universe wants to help you. It wants you to be happy and it wants you to grow and expand into the person you were always meant to be! That means you will receive help along the way to your goals. The only problem is that many people don’t even realize that this is happening!

That’s because the Universe doesn’t exactly write you a step-by-step letter with a game plan. Instead, it speaks the language of our subconscious mind: through symbols, synchronicities and light-bulb moments of clarity and inspiration. So please don’t miss the signposts! They’re meant to help you on your journey–but you have to notice them and also, take action when you do!

So keep your eyes open. Notice your sudden bursts of inspiration of creativity or desire to take action. Get curious about the world and be brave enough to keep asking questions. As long as you stay committed to the journey, you’ll keep finding the clues that’ll take you on your manifesting journey.

Now tell me love: what are your biggest questions about manifesting? What else do you need to know in order to get what you really want?

If there’s only one key take-away you get from this post, make it this one: change always within your hands. There’s always something you can do right now to start making your dreams for tomorrow come true today. So stop waiting and start creating!

Thank you so much for reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts below in the comments! I’ll see you back here next week for the latest one.

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How To Prime Your Mindset For Massive Growth

by: Jenn

You’re responsible for everything you currently have in your life.

You created it all.

Yup. That means the Good. The Bad. The Icky.

It’s all yours. You called it all in.

This can be a tough nugget to swallow but it’s absolute truth.

It all began in your mind.

If you’re settling for an unfulfilling relationship, it’s because you’ve justified it to yourself in your head. If you’re stuck in a dead-end job, it’s because you think you don’t really deserve anything better.

We think the thoughts that allow these things in. We create emotional states that put us at a disadvantage. We’ve created blocks and mindsets that actively interfere with the pursuit of our own happiness.

Few people actively set out to make themselves unhappy. But many of us accept unhappiness as life being just the way it is. (Shit happens, right?) These bad attitudes spread like diseases. And if we’ve been only ever been around people who are unhappy, we might not be able to even conceive of life in any other way.

It’s only after you realize there is another way that you can begin to change. So if you’re ready to dig in, let’s walk through the steps to program your mindset for massive growth.

How To Program Your Mindset For Massive Growth

Program Yourself For Massive Growth Step #1:

Locate Your Blocks

Internal blocks are one of the biggest challenges we all face on the path towards creating a happier life. We can truly be our own worst enemy. Sure, we all say we want successful and happy things in life. But what happens if there’s a little hidden part of us that isn’t so sure?

After all, growth is scary. Fame and recognition are potentially terrifying concepts. Maybe we don’t really think we deserve to get paid for something we find so effortless to do or maybe, despite all our successes, we still feel like an imposter in our field.

Recognizing the ways in which we hold ourselves back is the first key to the puzzle.

You don’t need to work on changing your thoughts quite yet. Just become aware of all those times when you think or say “Oh this always happens to me!”, “That’s just the way it is” or ”

Nothing is ever so absolute. So why allow our thoughts and emotions to operate that way?

Program Yourself For Massive Growth Step #2:

Work Them Out

To get past our old patterns and entanglements, we need to do some shadow work. There’s no question about it: taking a deep unflinching look at ourselves is difficult. But it’s the only way to get through it.

And it’s not all as scary as it sounds.

If you have old issues hanging on from your childhood (and we all do), it’s time to learn how you can reframe them. Start by looking for those thought patterns that you picked up from someone else. Are your thoughts and beliefs truly your own? Or were they learned? It’s often surprising to see the truth behind the way we view the world.

It’s only once you can see where some of your internal beliefs have stemmed from, you can begin to change them.

If you have worry or anxiety, let yourself go with it for a while. What would it feel like if you failed? If you lost? If you get burned? Let yourself feel the terror. Cry, scream, do what you need to do to feel that uncomfortable fearful place.

Once you’re done ask yourself what’s really changed. Aren’t you the same person at the core? Even if everything else went away, you would still be here. Once you have the ability to find yourself amidst the chaos you’ll become stronger, braver and more confident in what you have to offer the world as a person.

And please know that shadow work isn’t a one-time only affair. Putting stop to negative thought patterns or reframing harmful belief patterns is an ongoing process. But as with any other skill, the more you work at it, the easier it becomes.

Program Yourself For Massive Growth Step #3:

Focus On The Future

Now that you’ve checked in with your Shadow, it’s time to reassess. What are you looking to accomplish next in your life? The choice is all up to you! So whether you’re focusing on health, mental well-being, work or family you can put in the work.

The biggest challenge in making change is setting course to actually make change. Meaning? Goalsetting! Setting out on a journey without a destination can lead us to some unexpected places. So don’t be surprised if you end up somewhere you didn’t really want to go.

Goal setting is not the time to be wishy-washy. Get real with yourself, what you want, why you want it and where you want to go next. Setting a goal is simply the first step for yourself and the Universe. So make a few. Write them down. Keep them somewhere you can see them!

Program Yourself For Massive Growth Step #4:

Pick Your Poison

There are loads of different ways we can prime ourselves to reach our goals. The methods I suggest here are less important that the regular practice itself. So whichever one you try, just make sure you do it consistently!

Vision Boards – Place your goals on a pin board and place it where you’ll see it every day.
Visualization – Set aside some time to imagine yourself having achieved your goals. Concentrate on making the experience as real as possible. Think touch, smell, taste, and most importantly feeling.
Mantras – Focus on a short saying or few words that invoke your goal. Repeat your mantra to yourself regularly, whether that’s while you’re on the bus in the morning commute or during meditation. Don’t worry if your words feel “holy” or not! Transcendental Meditation is simply about repeating mantras over and over again. Why not update the practice for this purpose?
Manifesting – I love to incorporate my goal-setting practices into daily routines. The only secret ingredient in changing a mundane task into a magical one is intention.
Feng Shui – Wash away the things you want to get rid of and create space for the new. Remember that voids need to be filled. If you want to allow new things into your life you have to leave space for them to appear. (The same thing also applies on a personal level, just FYI.)

I hope this guide helps you release those blocks and set yourself up for what’s next! Let me know how it all works out.

PS Looking for more? You might also want to check out this post about how to change your frequency or this one about how to work with feng shui colors.

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How to Use Visualization To Manifest

by: Jenn

You’ve probably noticed that almost every week I’m here saying something about how wonderful meditation is. And that’s because it is.

(BTW you’ve made meditating a regular practice, right? Ok good.)

But there’s another tool that’s equally as important that I also encourage everyone to use in their daily practice.

Visualization.

But before we get into why it’s so important, let me ask you a question:

When was the last time you sat down and thought about all your goals in full-color glossy glorious detail?

I’m gonna wager a guess that it was a while ago, if even ever at all.

Which is too bad. Because our thoughts have power and the more time that we can spend tightly focused in on our goals, the more quickly and easily we’ll achieve them.

Visualization is an intensely powerful tool for getting what you want.

Being able to see what we want is the very first step towards making it happen. Everything begins as mental imagery.

It’s all too easy to say I want to meet that person, win that award or achieve that goal — but do we really understand what that would feel like or look like? Have we spent any amount of time at all imagining it? The more weight and power we can put behind that intention, the more likely we’ll be to achieve it.

Our mental images are important. They have weight, both psychologically and spiritually. And they really can change your reality.

You can think things into existence.

Evidence for Visualization

Need proof?

A study of four groups of Olympic athletes using different combinations of physical and mental training yielded some powerful results.

Group 1: 100% physical training
Group 2: 75% physical training, 25% mental training
Group 3: 50% physical training, 50% mental training
Group 4: 25% physical training, 75% mental training

As you might have suspected, it was Group 4 that performed the best. Which is crazy! The athletes spent the least amount of time physically training had the best results. It seems that time spent doing the work in our own mind is more valuable than time spent actually doing the work.

Scientists now believe that we may experience real-world and imaginary actions in similar ways. Your brain lights up in the same way whether you are just thinking about something or actually doing it.

How To Visualize

So now that you know that it works, how can you start to apply visualization techniques to your own life? Here’s an easy three-step process:

How To Visualize Step #1:

Find Your Goal

So what do you want to achieve in your life? What are your goals?

Right now I’m not going to get into what you’re dreaming about (and why). The only important thing here is to have something to aim for.

Remember that it’s okay if your goals change frequently (and they probably will!).

You don’t need to imagine the same thing every day, in exactly the same way. Just don’t try to target more than one thing at a time: imagine your dream vacation one day and meeting a new SO the next.

How To Visualize Step #2:

Set Your Timer

The important part of visualization is making it a regular practice. Doing something once and then forgetting about it for six months won’t do much at all. So instead of trying to spend 45 minutes in visualization today, I encourage you to tackle a more manageable amount and then stick to it.

For me, that means five minutes. Yup, that’s it! I set a timer and tack my practice on to the end of my meditation practice. But unlike meditation, you can practice visualization anywhere. Why not try it out the next time you’re commuting home on the train or while you’re waiting in line at the grocery store? Just make sure that you use a timer so that you know you’ve hit your target.

How To Visualize Step #3:

Visualize

The only trick to visualization is to make it as real as possible. So begin to focus on what it would really feel like to achieve your goal.

How would you feel physically and mentally?
What would it feel like to call your friends and family with the news?
What would it actually feel like to talk to your new boyfriend or new business mentor?
What would it feel like to accept the award? To wear the outfit? To hit the milestone?

The more weight we can put into vividly imagining these scenarios the more likely they are to come true. So walk on stage or through your new apartment door. Look around you. Feel it as much as you can: sight, sound, touch, smell.

Again, don’t feel the need to visualize things exactly the same way every time. Stay open to new possibilities. Maybe you’re suddenly inspired to picture a bigger and better apartment or a more prestigious work award. Go for it! The more excited you can get about what you’re imagining, the more effective the exercise will be.

It might not be a matter of wiggling your nose Samantha-from-Bewitched style but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work! And besides, envisioning a happy future is fun exercise and a great boost for when you’re feeling low or uninspired.

Please play around and have fun with your new visualization practice! I hope you manifest and change your life with ease and grace. See you again next week!

Manifesting For Beginners: How To Get What You Really Want