If you've been around the coaching industry for longer than three minutes, you'll have seen someone promise that you can have whatever future you want - you just need to manifest it (they'll even let you in on a little Secret). Basically if you believe in something, repeat your belief, and remain in a positive mental state, your dream future is yours.

Let me be clear, I love this idea like I love my sour cream & onion "healthy" knock-off pringle chips. I would just sit there and eat them all day if I could.

And I've tried to eat this manifesting stuff all day, but I can't quite stomach it (unlike those chips, where I can crush half the stack in the time it takes you to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious). 🤤

Probably most of us would agree, that no matter how hard I manifest, I will never be an NBA player. 🏀 I'm almost as tall as Kyle Lowry, but I can't really pass, or shoot, and my style sense just isn't up to par for an NBA-player. Sure I could work on some of these (and I have been known to rock a decent scarf-game), but let me be clear - my NBA days weren't aborted, they were never even conceived.

And yet ... and yet, there's something to this manifesting. I know it. After all, a belief that a relationship is going to implode can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. A belief that you suck and can't do anything can sabotage all your efforts (often before you even begin). So you can definitely manifest negative things.

But can you also manifest positive things?

I think so.

My coaching business has gone way better when I've properly "manifested" it (particularly when I focused on the part about getting, and staying, in a positive state of mind). I've been writing a story, and I recently hit the 100,000 word threshold. That's about 350-400 pages of paperback novel. I never would've got there if I hadn't believed I could write it.

So where's the threshold? If I cannot manifest NBA success but I can manifest business success, where's the line actually drawn? Could I manifest more business success? What about health success?

A well-read and well-thought buddy of mind thinks that manifesting works well with general goals (i.e. if you want to be healthy, successful, rich or famous, you can manifest that), but that it can have a harder time with specific goals (i.e. make it to the NBA, become dean of Harvard, get your cancer gone).

This idea of manifesting is more seductive to me than those pringle knock-offs, but every time I buy into it and don't get the results I want right away, I keep hearing this voice in my head:

"What bro, not manifesting hard enough?" 💪

This is like a gym rat looking you up and down at the gym before telling you to get lost. Do you even manifest bro? You don't belong here.

And unfortunately, that undermines you. When you try something and don't see the success that you want asap, the last thing you need is a voice in your head telling you to get out of the game because you don't belong.

You see, this manifesting idea makes you personally responsible for ALL of your success and ALL of your failure. Which, on the one hand, isn't terrible. Most of us would do well to take a bit more responsibility for our part.

On the other hand, this is terrible. It ignores the truth that life sometimes isn't fair.

When the cards are stacked against you and shit isn't falling your way, do you really need to carry the guilt on top of it that it's all your fault? That really, life isn't racist/sexist/clique/unfair/slow, you just suck.

Basically, you're at fault for everything in your life that isn't perfect. And who here has a perfect life? 😒

What do you think? Is manifesting a super-power? Is it even real? Or is it like a "healthy" chip (just really real, it just likes to pretend it is)?

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do you even manifest bro?