Top 10 Habits to Manifest Your Dreams
1. Have a vision
Everything starts in the mind. To transform something into a physical reality, you need to see and feel it in your mind first. Ask yourself some powerful questions, talk with a friend who sparks you, or hire a coach. Get clear and specific. Throw caution to the wind, and ignore the voice in your head that keeps you small. Take a few breaths, close your eyes, put your hand on your heart, and dare yourself to express in words or images your secret wish for yourself...that thing so impossible you are almost embarrassed to say it.
2. Write it down
Once you have your vision, crystallize it further by writing it down in a journal or creating a vision board of images that represent your vision. Even if you stop reading now, you will eventually see powerful results if you do this. Sometimes you may even have images that don't yet make sense to you. This may be the Divine or your unconscious wisdom coming through. Go with it. This is the first step of bringing your dreams into your physical (rather than only your mental) reality.
3. Spend time fantasizing
When you spend time fantasizing about your dreams, you are reinforcing that mental image and strengthening that neural network in your brain. Do this regularly, and schedule it into your day or week if you need to. Imagery is a powerful way to change our physiology and our life. When you are using mental images of you engaging in your dream, use all of the senses. Notice what you are wearing, notice your surroundings. Notice how your environment feels to you (emotionally as well as your sense of touch as you interact with your surroundings). Notice the smells. Notice the sounds. Notice the tastes.
4. Realize that your desires hold the key to your life purpose and your highest calling
By desires, I am referring to your biggest dreams and secret (or not so secret) passions. What would you do with your time even if you didn't get paid, assuming money was no object? I am referring to your dream gig, your dream lifestyle. If your desires weren't part of a bigger plan and life journey, why would your Creator create you with them? By desires, I am not referring to lustful or indulgent fantasies that distract you from staying focused on what you need to be doing, or allow you to procrastinate or numb yourself out of a difficult time. I am talking about deep soul desires that make you and everyone you interact with a better person.
5. Follow your passion
This relates to realizing your desires. When you stay in touch with your passion (even for just a few minutes each day or an hour or two a week), you increase joy, decrease stress, and inch closer to it. What we focus on expands (which is why you will be more successful focusing on "being fit or healthy" rather than "losing weight"... "weight" is in your consciousness and expands).
While engaging in your passion, you will meet and attract others along the way who will support your manifestation or provide sources of abundance for you to continue your passion and live it full time. Working at something you love means you don't work a day in your life. Abundance and support follows your forward action toward your life purpose, as the Universe conspires to support you.
6. Share your dreams with only your biggest supporters or with a professional who keeps your confidence while nudging you forward
All of us have a negative voice in our head that can keep us from realizing our potential if we let it (it might be the voice planted by a well-meaning parent trying to ground us in reality, or projecting their own fears, or it might be our own doubts rising up). In coaching, we call this voice The Gremlin. We need to know how to put The Gremlin to sleep. It is certainly easier to silence a soloist than an ensemble. When you tell others your dreams without knowing you can trust them to support you and encourage you, you run the risk of adding to The Gremlin chorus, convincing yourself otherwise, opening yourself up to ridicule, or even having fantastic ideas stolen and developed without you.
7. Use discernment
When choosing a course of action, or between various paths, ask yourself: "Does this action bring me closer to my desired outcome or further from it? Does this contribute to my highest good and the highest good of others?" There are many roads to your destination, but which one gets you there faster, intact, and most prepared to stay there?
8. Take care of yourself mind, body, and soul
The act of nurturing ourselves mind, body, and soul is a form of deep, healthy, and essential self-love. Some of us were taught to love ourselves in this way by our caretakers, but most of us did not get everything we needed because our caretakers were also struggling with their own self-love (and by self-love I do not mean narcissism; narcissism is not self-love, it is self-hatred or "not knowing self" disguised as self-love). Because most of us did not get what we needed in order to be full of healthy self-love, we search for substitutes to give us that love.
While it is true that in the more severe cases, we might need "re-parenting" through working with a therapist, the reality is that we cannot have a substitute for our own self-love and be truly healthy and happy because there is always a risk that the substitute will go away. If it comes from within, you can never lose it. The more love you feel and cultivate for yourself, the more you radiate outward to share and expand and attract more love, and the more you are free to be yourself and follow your dreams.
Self-love can be practiced by eating nutritious foods and taking high quality supplements that nurture your health and vitality, rather than eating convenience or high sugar foods that take away from it in exchange for a few moments of sensual pleasure or for a few more minutes of time in your day. Just like in Use Discernment (#7), you can ask "Does this food make me feel better or feel worse?" Be honest with yourself. Sometimes we eat junk foods to unconsciously punish ourselves. Sometimes we believe we don't deserve better. Would you treat your favorite house guest this way or your beloved child? Or would you give them the best you could?
Self-love is also moving your body to give it what it desires and keep it healthy and strong, giving your body and soul the pleasure of being in nature, and listening to and acting on your soul desires. It involves being in integrity with your finances and your word. It involves being the person you would love to hang out with.
I am publishing a book chapter on the topic of Learning to Love Yourself in the New Year that details my own personal journey. Stay tuned! Pre-sale starting soon.
9. Meditate
One way to nourish ourselves mind, body and soul is to meditate. Meditation, or the practice of slowing the breath and being engaged in the present moment, teaches the body stress relief from over-stimulation, it teaches the monkey mind discipline, and it allows the soul to express itself. A daily practice of hanging out in this sweet spot is powerful for manifestation. Our soul expresses our deep wisdom.. the next steps. Our mind becomes quiet enough to hear it. Our body is receptive, not distracted by blocks and tensions. There is no wrong way to meditate, or need to worry about doing it right. It is the practice of focusing on the breath while getting quiet and still.. it is the journey that is important. You are building a muscle, and each day will differ giving you information about where you are in that moment and what you need in that moment, and moving forward.
Some people choose to integrate prayer or their own religious practices into meditation. Even better! Though meditation is part of many religious practices, using it in a secular way is not practicing one of those religions any more than eating pasta makes one Italian. In fact, there is now robust scientific evidence supporting the physiological and mental health benefits of meditation and it would be unfortunate to throw the baby out with the bath water due to religious fears.
10. Practice gratitude
If you do practice some form of prayer, you probably realize that it is not simply asking for what you want. It is also giving thanks for what you have. It is recognizing blessings already received so that you are acknowledging miracles alive in your life, and demonstrating that you will accept and benefit from more of them. It is putting in your preference, your request, but then surrendering to the highest good that is getting cooked up for you (often it is much bigger and better than your ego mind can imagine).
If you don't pray, or have been turned off from traditional religious practices, you can keep a gratitude journal. Each day write down something you are grateful for in your life. If you want to simultaneously build your self-love, also write down something each day you love about yourself. Use a beautiful journal that represents your beauty, your uniqueness, or your ideal life. Again, what we put our attention on expands, and this is a sure way to not only recognize but receive more: blessings, guidance, and desirable outcomes in our lives. Dream and believe your dreams to live your dreams!
I hope you have enjoyed this Top 10 Habits list and have some ideas of how to create some of these habits in your life. If you continue to struggle or need an accountability partner, please contact me for a free consult so that we can discover how coaching can help you with the actions needed to manifest your dreams! ~ Natasha
Email me to schedule your free consult: hello@natashaedwina.com
PS) Learn more here about my upcoming Mind-Body Skills Group!