Manifesting life: the faith of achievement?
Manifestation in the modern sense is the belief that you can attract success in life through positivity, visualisation, and behaving as if you have already achieved your goals.
This idea is now hugely popular within our society, with a high level of attention on social media - as of May 2023 the tag ‘manifestation’ has gathered over 34.5 billion views - over the last few years there has been very little research into the positive and/or negative effects of this trend in self-help, however, we now have new research which sheds light on the subject.
The studies:
Across three different studies - involving more than 1000 participants and three different models, each with control groups and personal variability (age, gender, sex, background, etc…) taken into account there were some potentially surprising results.
The results:
The general findings of these studies suggests a unified outcome which may not be as positive as the ‘manifestation practice’ makes itself out to be. The overall result is that there is a positive side and a negative side.
Positive
The encouraging effect cannot be understated, there is a definite positive effect on the participants’ day-to-day life with a change of attitude and a reinforcement of inner resolve. This helps individuals to weather daily adversity more effectively and motivate themselves to strive for more. Ambition can be powerful, but it has a key vulnerability which was highlighted in the negative side of the results of these studies.
Negative
Individuals that personally committed to the practices of manifestation had the tendency to leave themselves in a very precarious position, as most believed with complete faith that ‘everything would work out’ they did not prepare for the potential negatives of their given situation. So, they had a fantastic motivation to succeed, however, the adversity and obstacles in their life had a much greater negative effect on them if triggered. Effectively the negatives in their lives were massively amplified as they had done very little to protect themselves ‘if worst came to worst’. Some even experienced, or ended up on the path to bankruptcy, due to their ‘blind faith in manifestation’ and failing to safeguard themselves against potential misfortunes.
I cannot argue with the facts and figures in the studies. However, if there is anything constructive and truly positivity that we can draw from ‘Manifestation’ I would pick the following elements…
I find that the ideas behind manifestation are good, but the message and execution is flawed.
I would suggest that anyone exploring this practice uses the methods that natural evolution has been using forever.
Adaptation & cherry picking…
In this sense, I suggest that you take the better parts of the manifestation practice and leave the more dangerous/negative ones out of your life. The key message for me is that manifestation is positively imagining your life in the future and striving to make that future occur. However, blindly marching towards a shiny future with no work to pave the road to it, does NOT make for a stable journey. There may be one person in a million that the ‘stars align’ for and they achieve their fantastic future with no effort, nevertheless, when a person does this without working to mitigate the risks, they effectively hand over control of their lives and future to the ‘winds of fate’ which may blow them to more pleasant shores, but could take you into a storm from which there is no return.
Take control of your fate, draw down the future that you want. But, be aware of the risks involved and work to moderate the potential negatives while hoping for the best outcome.
‘Prepare for the worst and hope for the best’
Benjamin Disraeli - 1833
Having a positive vision while being aware of the risks can give you drive, happiness and lead to a positive change. But, ‘blind faith’ in your vision with no risk mitigation could in the best case lead you to your utopia, or equally likely complete ruin.
”50/50 folks complete triumph or total ruination!
Let’s spin the wheel of fate and find out what’s in store for you”
17/08/2023 - Lachlan Nicholson
This article is simply one person’s subjective opinion on the matter of ‘manifestation’ drawn from research and analysis, so please don’t take my words as absolute and as usual I encourage each of you to come up with your own conclusion independently.
Let us know your thoughts on the subject and how the execution of ‘manifestation’ could be improved to better aid those who subscribe to its message.
