“Manifestation is a fusion of science and wisdom; it's a life philosophy and personal development practice that helps you live your best existence.” – Roxie Nafousi
Manifest is a very popular book published in the last year, written by Roxie Nafousi, a quite famous personal development coach from Great Britain, who presents us in 7 steps a method of ambition to actually succeed in doing what you want in life (a short battle plan, in which you will also do some introspection exercises).
Overall, the book is very nice, with common sense advice, practical exercises that will challenge you to do a little "soul searching" and some personal stories that you will discover once you read these pages.
Step 1: Get a clear vision
In short, to manifest means to make something happen, as the author says. This means that if you really want something, you should take the necessary steps to make it happen.
But, as the first chapter says, STEP 1: Get your vision clear, you need to know where you are going and what you really want to do, and for this, the method that the author proposes is to make a vision board, on which we write down exactly what we want (as a small reminder) , and then put it aside.
Step 2: Eliminate fear and doubt
The real work with ourselves begins only in the second chapter, entitled: STEP 2: Eliminate fear and doubt. This chapter begins with a very well-chosen quote: "Fear and self-doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential."
Here the main topic is how to get rid of the fear of failure and increase your self-esteem. Here are some introspection exercises to help you determine what fears you have when it comes to your ultimate goal (probably the kind of exercises you'd do with a life coach if you had one).
Step 3: Harmonize your behavior
Chapter 3, or STEP 3: Harmonize your behavior, describes and exemplifies the types of proactive behaviors that actually take real steps toward achieving the ultimate goal. In short, if you really want something, you will have to take certain steps in that direction, not just dream about it.
For example. if you want to become a yoga instructor, you have to do certain classes and training to get your certification. If you want to have clients, you need to promote yourself and work on a portfolio, otherwise people have no way of knowing about you. And here, as in the previous chapter, some exercises are presented that encourage you to write down the concrete steps you are going to take.
Step 4: Pass the tests of the Universe
The advice in this chapter is mostly about not falling into the trap of old bad habits. If we want to really change something in ourselves or in our life, we must learn to be patient and trust the process - TRUST THE PROCESS. The author mentions the fact that we have to trust ourselves that what is ours is set aside and not deviate from our plan for a faster alternative that may satisfy us for the moment, but not in the long term.
Step 5: Embrace gratitude
In order to have a positive mindset and not let ourselves be demotivated in difficult moments, the author recommends practicing gratitude. This means that in times when we feel down, we should shift our focus to the good things in our lives to change our mood and gain strength to move on. For those who are not used to this kind of practice, I can start from some generally valid things, such as the 3 categories mentioned in the book:
- Gratitude for yourself
- Gratitude for life
- Gratitude for the world
Step 6: Turn envy into inspiration
Envy is a feeling that everyone feels, in one way or another. What matters is how you react next. The way we think, perceive and decide to interpret certain things can change us a lot. So before we get into a bad mood when we see something we want, we might try to feel inspired by that thing and try to manifest it ourselves.
This chapter also covers the topic - Social Media - and the bad influence it can have on our mood. After many studies on this topic, it has been found that many people have a much lower mood after social media consumption. This is due to the fact that we are presented with an ideal world, without flaws, various products launched every day, without which we are led to believe that we will not be happy, etc.
The solution here is not necessarily to give up using these apps altogether, but to limit them and filter the content. We can follow people and channels that really inspire us, instead of being bombarded with more ads for various products that we don't need.
I'm going to make a little parenthesis here about a podcast I recently discovered: “On Purpose with Jay Shetty". It's full of inspirational content from various celebrities and well-known people. Here I even found an episode with the author of this book:
Step 7: Trust the Universe
As I mentioned above, TRUST THE PROCESS.
"Impatience is the enemy of manifestation." If we have a well laid out plan, we know exactly what we want and we have started taking steps towards that goal, then we must also have the patience to get there. What we want cannot be accomplished overnight, but if we are consistent, we will get where we set out to be.
Speaking of which, I recently saw a podcast also by Jay Shetty, with Arnold Schwarzenegger where he talks about releasing a new book – Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life. He also talks here about visualizing goals and not believing in plan Bs. He says that he always had a clear picture of what he wanted to do and did everything in his power to get there (but more more on that soon in the next review.).
Until then, remember, define your target very well, try to visualize what you want as best as possible, make a well-planned plan and give it a shot. And don't forget, trust the process!
For those interested, Bookzone (not sponsored) offers a discount on the package containing both books by the author:
https://bookzone.ro/carte/pachet-manifest-cartonata-bkz
