Can You Manifest the Life You Want? 5 Steps to Try

We took a friend to Portsmouth, NH for dinner recently. It was a busy Saturday night, so my husband suggested the parking garage. “You’ll never find a parking space on the street near the restaurant,” he said.

“Of course I will,” I said, and I did.

“Good parking karma,” our friend suggested.

Is there such a thing?

“You just have to visualize what you want, say your affirmations, and it will come to you,” says another friend who is a big believer in the power of positive thinking. She’s extremely successful in her writing career, but is that because she’s using the power of visualization to manifest what she wants—known in pop psychology circles as “the law of attraction?” Is she lucky? Or is she simply outworking everybody else?

Social media has been flooded with young women reciting affirmations like “everything works out for me” and declaring how “lucky” they are, a practice the media quickly dubbed “lucky girl syndrome.” Here, the fundamental belief is that, if you think of yourself as lucky (in love, finances, health, or whatever), then you will manifest your own good luck.

Do any of these manifestations and affirmations work? Or is this the adult equivalent of leaving cookies for Santa?

I say it’s worth hedging your bets.

My first real visualization of “the writing life” began when I was in my twenties and housesitting for a professor one summer. I spent a lot of time sitting on the deck and pretending to read every morning because I was spying on the neighbor across the street. This woman was a well-known writer and I admired her books. Every morning, she drove her children to camp after her husband went to work, and then brought her laptop out to the deck. She wrote for hours out there.

And I do mean hours. Sometimes this woman didn’t move until someone dropped her children off and her husband came home. After dinner I’d often see her outside again, sitting with her husband and drinking wine while the kids played in the yard.

I very badly wanted what she had: a creative life filled with love.

Fast-forward to the present. I am a writer, a mother, and a wife. My house doesn’t have a deck, but it has a patio and a porch; I have spent countless hours writing in both of these places while my kids were at school and my husband was at work.

Did I manifest this life by visualizing it?

Not a chance. I worked countless side jobs to put myself through college and an MFA program. Like most writers, I’ve had more rejections than acceptances, and in the early years I had to work in marketing to sustain myself as a writer.

On the other hand, if I’d never seen that professor’s life, if I’d never believed it was possible, I couldn’t have wished for it. I might not have spent years working to achieve that visualized goal of being on a lifelong creative journey.

And the parking karma? That’s the same sort of thing. I believe I will find a parking space because I’ve done this before and the odds are in my favor: somebody will be leaving as I arrive, and that space will be mine. I just have to be in the right place at the right time to seize that opportunity instead of giving up.

So maybe that’s what manifesting really is: knowing something is possible, wanting it, and using all of your passion, intellect, and problem-solving skills to achieve it.

Try these five steps for fun:

1. Think of something you want that seems out of reach.

2. Imagine yourself living the life of someone who has that thing you want, whether it’s a toned body or a successful career.

3. List all the ways your imaginary person could have achieved your fantasy goal without inheritance or nepotism. Did they likely go to college and study a certain subject? Go to a gym five days a week? Work two jobs so they could buy that fun car?

4. Finally, list practical steps you can take to achieve that same thing. Start with the tiniest, easiest one, like taking an online class or spending a weekend afternoon researching your options. For instance, I’m thinking of writing a biography. I’ve never written one before and have no idea how to go about it, but I signed up as a member of Biographers International Organization to find resources.

5. Keep taking more tiny steps every day toward your goal while continuing to imagine yourself as someone who has achieved it.

Will this work? Maybe not. But, whatever happens, you will be moving forward.