Manifestation 101 – How to Attract Your Dream Life

Have you ever considered what your DREAM life would look like in 10 years? 20 years? Maybe you’ve thought about it, but the heaviness of your current reality makes you question if you could ever achieve it?

There is this common misconception in our society that in order to achieve your wildest dreams, you need to grind it out – day in and day out. That you have to work your fingers to the bone to achieve everything you want in life. And while hard work and dedication are absolutely important in reaching your goals, what if I told you there’s an easier way to ATTRACT your dream life to become your reality?

This is the power of manifestation and the law of attraction!

Manifestation and the law of attraction are buzzwords that are thrown around quite a bit these days. While it’s quite a popular topic, there’s a lot of misunderstandings around what they really mean and how it all works.

When I first heard about manifestation and the law of Attraction, I definitely wasn’t sold on the idea. It all sounded a bit “woo” to me – this idea that we can attract our biggest desires in life by just thinking positively. It took me some digging and reframing my mindset to really understand the power of manifestation and to recognize that it’s SO much more than just thinking positive thoughts and hoping for the best.

So, let’s start with the basics. The Law of Attraction and manifestation are actually two completely separate concepts, but they are directly related to one another. The Law of Attraction is one of 12 universal laws that were formed way back in the ancient pyramid times, and they are written ways that the universe operates. The LOA states that “like attracts like” meaning that similar energies are attracted to each other. If your vibrational energy is a match for another vibrational energy, then your vibrations will connect and be drawn to each other.

Think about it this way: If you are constantly complaining and thinking negatively, do you think you are going to attract really happy and positive people into your life? Hell no! You are going to repel them away. Similarly, if you are a happy and upbeat person with optimistic emotions and feelings, you are most likely going to attract other high vibe people and situations into your life.

Okay, so what is manifestation then? By definition, manifestation is “the theory that through regular meditation and positive, constructive thought, you can make your dreams and desires become reality.” It’s basically an act to harness the power of the law of attrition to create a better life.

According to the rules of manifestation, in order to attract the things that we most desire, we have to become a vibrational match for it. Your vibration is the energy that you’re emitting at any given moment.  Think about it like a radio station – you have to be tuned into the right frequency to listen to that specific radio station. You can’t be listing to AM and expect to listen to an FM station.

Similarly, you can’t expect to manifest things in your life if you’re not a vibrational match for them. For example, if you want a high-paying career that you love, regular vacations in the Bahamas, and a partner who is your biggest supporter and best friend, you can’t be vibrating at a low frequency and expect those things to just fall into your lap by chance.

But here’s the catch: nothing in our external reality can really change unless we change on the inside first. Only by raising our vibration to MATCH our desired reality can we really start to experience the meaningful & lasting changes that we want in our lives.

It’s like a boomerang – what you put out into the world is what comes back to you! But it’s also more than just thinking some happy thoughts and having all that you desire become attracted to you. Here are the 3 basic steps to manifesting your deepest desires:

 1. Understand what it is that you actually want

 You can’t manifest your dream reality and not know what that looks like for you. Consider it as a GPS system – you can’t ask it to bring you to a specific location if you don’t know the address or name, right? The universe can’t help you get to where you want to go in life if you have absolutely no idea what that looks like for you.

Take some time to sit down with a pen and paper and write out exactly what your dream life looks like in 10 years. What kind of job does this version of you have? What does their house look like? Where do they live? What kind of morning routines do they have? What do they wear? What are their daily routines? What kind of activities do they do during the day? Get CRYSTAL CLEAR on what your dream life looks like and write it all down.

Once it’s on paper, place it somewhere in your house where you will look at it every single day. Read it out loud. I have mine typed up and on my wall in front of my computer and I read it to myself every day as a reminder of where I’m going and where I want to be. This can also look like a dream vision board or even a digital inspiration board on Pinterest.

Also, know that it’s okay to change your mind. I have had to print out many copies of my goals over the years because I realized that I didn’t actually want to manifest something, or I decided to add something to the list. You are of course allowed to change your goals at any time, just as long as you keep them in the forefront of your mind and refer back to them consistently.

2. Use your thoughts and feelings to become a vibrational match

Now that you have the roadmap created, it’s time to embody that person who is living your vision and become a vibrational match for them. Really consider this person who has achieved all the goals you wrote down. How does it feel to be you in your dream life?

Does this version of you feel anxious, sad, and depressed? Do they usually act lazy, unmotivated, and sulk when things get hard? Or are they upbeat, determined, and happy? I’m guessing the ladder. Work to embody this next-level version of yourself TODAY!

For me, my dream self in 10 years is incredibly confident. She works out on the beach daily, she eats amazing vegan foods that nourish her body, she feels good inside and out, and she’s genuinely the happiest & healthiest version of herself.

In order to become this 2.0 version of me, I have to align my vibration with hers. Take an inventory of your thoughts and actions and ask yourself “do my current actions align with my highest self?”

This is where mindfulness really comes into play. Start to listen to your thoughts in the present moment as if you were an outsider looking in. Are your thoughts about yourself positive, or negative? Are you often putting yourself down? Are you afraid of other people judging you? Are you holding onto anger and bitterness toward others who wronged you? Now ask yourself, do these actions and feelings align with my highest self? If the answer is no, that’s okay! In fact, it’s great, because now you know what you need to change.

We get to choose which thoughts we turn into beliefs!

If you are not thinking good thoughts about yourself, choose another thought that better serves you and focus on that! Write it on a sticky note and read it out loud every day. Read affirmations and change the energy that you emit on a daily basis. This will help you start to raise your overall vibration and become a match for your dream life!

Gratitude can also be a powerful tool to help raise our vibration and become a vibrational match for what we desire.

When you are in a state of gratitude, you are putting yourself into alignment to bring in more of what you want into your life. When you feel gratitude for something that you want and don’t have yet, you help yourself create the energy to match the future that you desire!

For example, one of my big goals is to lead yoga and meditation retreats all over the world one day. In my gratitude journal, I like to write down what I’m grateful for as if I already have achieved it. So, my journal entry might look like this: “I’m grateful for all the women who have signed up to go on my sold-out yoga retreat in Tulum this month”. Although it hasn’t happened yet, I’m aligning myself with that energy to manifest it into my reality. 

The most important part of this is to really FEEL what it’s like to achieve these goals and start to embody that energy today!

3. Take ALIGNED ACTION

This is the part that a lot of people forget. Yes, thinking positive thoughts is extremely important, but you also have to take aligned action to get you to where you want to be!

Decide on what actions will help you reach and achieve your goals. Want to start a business? Sitting on the couch doing nothing is not going to help you get there. Start taking small actions to get you closer towards your dreams.

Also, be wary of your need to know the “how”. This is the step where people often tend to get stuck. Instead of focusing on how you are going to achieve your goal and all the massive steps you will have to do in order to achieve said goal, just focus on the try looking at the step in front of you rather than the whole staircase. Once you release the “how”, you will find a lot more freedom in your ability to take messy, imperfect actions (which are usually the best of all!)

There is often a lot of fear that comes up in this step. Your inner voice will start to say that “you’re not ready” or that you don’t know enough. Trust me when I say that at no point will you ever feel ready. Sometimes you just have to make the jump!

When you follow these steps, you will start to see major shifts in your life. Remember, where your attention goes, energy flows! If you are always focusing on what will go wrong and how you’ll never archive your goals, that is the energy that you are attracting manifesting in your life. But when you focus on everything that can go right, that’s where the true magic happens!

I would love to hear from you – what are you manifesting in your life right now? And what questions do you have about manifestation and the law of attraction?

Let me know in the comments below! 

Photography by Shanti Knight