Top 8 Manifestation Tips to Empower the Writing Process
Manifestation can be a loaded concept that, at first, may not seem so germane to the writing process. After all, isn’t writing successfully all about honing our craft, putting in the grit, and learning how to navigate the agent and publishing process—and probably a good dose of luck besides?
(7 Mindset Shifts for Writing Your Best Book.)
Sure, those aspects are helpful, perhaps even essential. But I believe manifestation is the missing layer, and that when we learn how to harness it, writing and publishing become easier and more fruitful. Here are my top tips for using manifestation to empower your writing.
1. Get clear on what you want.
Many books have been written on manifestation, which I will not attempt to reproduce here. But in brief, manifestation is a multistep process that posits that our vibrations influence our reality. It can be summed up as “ask, believe, receive,” or “like attracts like.”
Underpinning the theory is real science, and how quantum physics relates to manifestation is explored in fascinating detail in, for instance, Joe Dispenza’s excellent books. We are inherently creators of our own reality, and the truth is, you’ve been manifesting all your life, maybe largely unconsciously. But manifesting with intentionality is a powerful practice. And the first step is to get clear on your desires.
Is your goal to produce a book you are proud of, that lights you up as you write it? Or to attain a top agent or traditional publishing deal, or to hit a certain sales number? The prelude to receiving what you want is getting clear on exactly what that is in the first place.
2. Believe you get to have what you want.
The second step of manifestation is to believe that your desires are accurate guidance—and that you are worthy of them. This requires you to look at any “funky” beliefs and feelings clogging up your creative pipes.
The industry is, frankly, rife with lack mindsets about what is possible for creatives, which many writers have absorbed as their unchallenged truth. Step two thus entails uprooting those old beliefs and ruthlessly questioning them.
You must be willing to see things differently than you ever have before, and even differently from your colleagues, friends, family members, and social media follows. It involves creating new stories and empowering mantras, and feeling the feelings of how it will feel when what you want is yours.
3. Release, be led, and receive.
The final step is to release all to God, the universe, or whatever higher power you believe in. And to be led to taking inspired action—for example, you may feel called to hire a writing coach, or enroll in a workshop, or query a particular agent.
Manifesting means owning your part, but once you take the steps that feel aligned, it is time to open your arms to receive, trusting that what you want will come at the perfect time, in the perfect way. This is the hardest step, because it requires a lot of faith.
A mantra I lean on during this step is: It’s this or something better. And: It’s working, it’s working, it’s working. And finally: Everything is always for my good and working in my favor.
4. Appreciate what is going right.
Now that you know the basics, here is a technique sure to amplify your results: Appreciate all that you have right here and now. Abraham Hicks, one of my favorite manifestation teachers, suggests “appreciation rampages,” which are just as they sound.
I love directing appreciation towards my writing, and my rampage lists are replete with, for instance, appreciation of how much joy I am experiencing writing my current book, how fun it is to research a particular story element, and how much I adore working with my amazing agent, editor, and publishing team. Appreciation is potent as it broadcasts your readiness for more things that match this high frequency.
Of course, my writing life is not always sunshine and rainbows—sometimes a book just doesn’t appear to be working, or I receive a negative review, or I fear if and how a new book will sell. But once I’ve felt those feelings and shifted the beliefs underpinning my fears, I lean into appreciation, to put my focus back on what is going right. Because what we focus on expands.
Check out Jaclyn Goldis’ The Main Character here:
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5. Watch out for common lack beliefs.
Look out for lack mindsets that proliferate and can be sneaky masqueraders of truth. The creative industry is replete with matter-of-fact statements like Getting a traditional book deal is close to impossible and Writers make no money. Be wary of accepting what anyone else has decided is true for themselves, or even what may objectively be true for a majority of people, as true for you.
Jealousy, too, is pervasive among creatives and stems from the incorrect perception that another’s success impinges on your own. I’ve certainly felt jealous—I can’t imagine a writer who hasn’t! Jealousy is natural, it’s what you do with it once you notice it that matters.
One fun exercise is to wish even greater abundance on all the authors you see succeeding. Why? Because the alternative is a sticky vibration that clouds your manifestations, and above all, it feels good to celebrate others and wish for them all the things we want for ourselves. See those who have what you want as confirmation that you can have it, too.
6. Look for evidence that what you want is possible.
Train yourself to notice an expanded range of what is possible, no matter how rare or unlikely you might imagine some permutations to be. Notice, for instance, the authors writing books you admire and making a good living from doing so. Or even the successful author who writes a fairly clean first draft, dispelling the widely accepted notion that every first draft must be a messy one.
Notice, too, and celebrate your own successes. Once you’ve written one book, even if it didn’t succeed as you wanted it to, you know you are capable, and you can use that as ammunition to fuel your next foray. This practice helps to create new neural pathways via which you believe in bigger potentialities.
7. When it looks like it’s not going to happen, keep believing.
Sometimes we want something very badly, but it just isn’t happening. This is not the time to give up, rather it’s the time to double down on your faith. At the crux of real success stories are people who perhaps shouldn’t have achieved what they did based on their backgrounds or circumstances—but in fact did. If you’re ever feeling disappointed, by all means feel it, but then shift out of the funk and stay a match for what you want.
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8. Infuse your writing life with joy.
The truth is, we only ever want something because of how we think it will make us feel when we have it. You’ve long dreamt about writing a book? I’m guessing it’s not because of how lucrative you anticipate it will be, but rather due to the joy you’ll experience through the writing and sharing of it. And the empowering fact is that you can make your writing joyful now.
Choose a concept that makes you smile every time you dig into it. Pick characters whose inner lives feel intriguing to unpack, and a setting that you are bursting to explore in word form. Write in places that bring you joy; for me it’s my beloved bustling coffee shops where I type away on sun-soaked outdoor patios. Make every part of the writing process as joyful as you can, and then don’t be surprised when the results are joyful, too!