Making Life What You Want
In this post I’d like to examine some of the things Mike Dooley, author of both Infinite Possibilities and Manifesting Change has to say about manifestation and the Law of Attraction.
In short, how can you take control of your life and what manifests in it?
Well, the basic principle at work here is “Thoughts Become Things”.
What this means is that the primal mover, the first principle, is “thoughts become things”. So if that’s true, if that’s a universal law, then you can probably grasp your power to make reality manifest.
When you engage in manifestation, you set forth an intention.
This can be done by thinking about something with intense desire, or forming a clear picture of something in your mind, there are certain spiritual and physical laws within the universe which instantly begin to operate.
These laws can arrange coincidences, serendipities, and what may look like mysterious events so that your thoughts literally become events, circumstances, people and things in your life.
Often people say to me, “But what if millions of other people are trying to manifest the same thing – or what if they’re trying to manifest something that conflicts with what I want?”
It’s an interesting question isn’t it? You see, the thing is most people on this planet aren’t really focusing on anything at all. They’re living their lives by default, and certainly not living in an active, consciously-creating way – not working at manifestation in the way that you are (or the way you are learning to).
And if that’s so, does the universe favors your wishes over everybody else’s?
No, not at all – but what it does mean is that the universe has the opportunity to bring your desires, when they are intensely felt, and clearly imagined, into being, simply because you are one in a very small number of people who are trying to change their reality.
Let’s face it: the harsh truth is that unless a person actually makes some effort to change reality, they are going to be the victim of circumstance – and that’s how most people live their lives. What they manifest, by the absence of conscious manifestation, by the absence of conscious co-creation, is disorder and chaos.
And if that sounds too dramatic, then please substitute the words “lack of fulfillment” and “aimlessness” and lack of spiritual purpose.
So: you don’t have to believe that you are actually part of the divine source, the infinite intelligence, the great mystery, or the cosmic consciousness (use your own words here for what some people call God) to make manifestation work.
Making things happen by manifesting them is an interesting phenomenon – and it is enough simply to be human and to know what needs to be done to make the whole process work.
You Are Already Manifesting Reality
As Mike Dooley rightly observes, no-one has to learn how to make thoughts become things: all you have to do is just look around yourself, right here, right now, to see how you are creating your reality all the time.
Mike describes an exercise in which he lists on a piece of paper, his “thoughts that have become things”. You can do it too – list your thoughts which have become things: your job, your relationship, your children, your work, your money situation… whatever it is.
Leave alternate lines blank, and in between the lines on which you’ve written the things you’ve already manifested, write those things you want in your life in the future.
As he explains, the simple act of associating prior successes at manifesting with the successes you wish to experience in the future will empower you and remind you that you’ve been here before… It will remind you that turning thoughts into things isn’t new and that there are no new tricks to learn. You already know how to do it. Or do you?
Could that be right? Could it be that you’re actually already a master of manifestation? That you don’t need to learn how to make your thoughts become things? Let’s find out.
Manifestation works from the endpoint backwards. In other words, you imagine the end point, your desired outcome, and this effect forces the causes which bring about manifestation. To put it more simply, you think about the endpoint, and this forces the manifestation.
So let’s have a look at what Mike defines as the three steps of manifestation:
Step one: define what you want as an end result.
Step two: physically move in the direction of your dreams. You don’t have to try and work out every aspect of how your dreams can manifest, but you do actually have to do something which demonstrates commitment to your chosen outcome.
Step three: the universe creates a brand-new manifestation.
Hmmm… that sounds very simple, doesn’t it? Yet if you think about it, most of it matches up to what we already know about manifestation and how we make things appear in our lives.
We start by envisaging the end result, and sometimes that’s just an image in the mind, and sometimes it’s a physical plan, but it’s always the result of a thought process. Everything that we have around us started as a thought in somebody’s mind.
Note that if you’re visualizing the endpoint to kick off a process of creation, you’re working outside the boundaries of time and space, because you’re effectively visualizing the endpoint before you’ve started the process of making it happen.
To put it differently: it isn’t your job to work out how your dreams will manifest, as long as you’re moving in that general direction.
In other words, you have to do something that demonstrates to the universe that you’re serious about what you’re trying to achieve. You don’t have to pay to attend to the small details. Those are the “cursed hows“, and most writers on manifestation agree that they are no concern of yours. The universe knows how to deal with them – indeed, it has to deal with them.
And remember that if you imagine your dream coming true in the future, that’s often where it stays! You have to live as though your dream exists right now for both your mind and the universe to respond to your expectations and desires.
The critical factor here appears to be that you see your new and desired outcome in your imagination as if you are living it right now.
If you want a new car, that’s the car that you see yourself driving, as you imagine a picture yourself in the driving seat, with the other details as you wish them to manifest played out: the car is owned outright, sitting in your driveway, shining, in the color of your choice… And so on. Dream your dreams!
Mike sets out an interesting idea: that only when YOU start from YOUR desired endpoint can the universe construct the sequence of events that leads up to that outcome.
And in saying this, he makes another interesting point – our brains are much too small to be able to deal with all of the invisible intricacies that make manifestation happen.
All we have control over is the end result, the thing that we’ve chosen.
This means that by necessity we have to focus on the end result, on our desired outcome, and we have to do so without even considering the “cursed hows” – in other words, the events that need to happen to make something manifest for us.
It’s an amazing thought, but it certainly seems logical. It certainly seems convincing. It certainly seems to fit with what most people writing about manifestation have to say on the subject. Here’s what Mike Dooley says….