Can You Really Manifest Your Way to Wealth?

I’ve never really believed in the idea of manifesting wealth. Imagine yourself wealthy and become so? That sounds crazy right? If it were that easy everyone would be rich. Yet one of the old classic books about wealth I enjoy is Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, the main premise of which is that our thoughts create our reality, when it comes to wealth as with so much else. Sounds a lot like what the modern ‘finfluencers’ call manifestation.

Hill’s argument was that if we get clear in our minds about what we want and have faith we will get it, this will inspire us to create a plan, and pursue it single-mindedly. Put like that the whole concept is starting to feel a lot less like hippy woo-woo magic and a lot more like common sense.

So just how much do our beliefs impact what we get out of life? Quite a lot actually, and not only in a good way. This struck me most forcefully when I watched Kelly McGonigal’s viral TED talk in which she admits that she had to face a very uncomfortable truth about the power of the mind.

As a physician, McGonigal had constantly told her patients that stress is a killer, and should therefore be avoided. Then new evidence emerged that suggested that stress does kill you, but only if you believe it will. Seems that well-handled stress can be perfectly healthy. But those who fully believe that stress is a killer are more likely to die from stress-related diseases.

In her book Get Rich Lucky Bitch, author Denise Duffield-Thomas explains the whole concept of how mindset impacts results when it comes to money, better than most. She talks about the money blocks we all carry from our childhood, and how these cause us to sometimes focus on our negative experiences with money, or the negative aspects of having money.

A classic example would be the child of an affluent but broken home who remembers money being a major source of conflict in his parents’ break-up. This can lead to a strong belief in the concept of “more money, more problems”. Will that attitude actually make his paycheck smaller? Of course not. But it might discourage him from pursuing high-paid jobs and opportunities. It might even mean he spends money every time he gets it, to avoid the big surplus that caused his family arguments.

So what does science have to say about manifestation? Tchiki Davis, Ph.D., writing in Psychology Today, admits that as a scientist, she’s not going to be recommending the classic manifestation bibles like The Law of Attraction or The Secret, but she does admit there is a lot of evidence for the idea that the mind creates self-fulfilling prophesies, good and bad. In fact, she points out that changing the way people think is at the center of how practicing psychologists work. As she puts it:

“Of course we can manifest positive things in our lives—if we couldn’t then what would be the point of therapy, wellness interventions, or any of the tools we use to help people?”

Mindset and outcome are linked. No matter how much we like to think they aren’t. I don’t believe in the magic of imagining money coming to you and seeing it miraculously arrive.

I do believe in the magic of hard work, good decisions, wise investing and mindful spending. And I definitely believe that those things are linked to the way we think and the things we believe.

Thoughts, however, can be quite unruly. We often don’t feel fully in control of them. At the heart of the concept of manifestation is the idea that we can actively change our thoughts and beliefs.

So How Do We Manifest Wealth in Practical Terms?

The key is not just “thinking positive thoughts,” but rather fully attaching to the goals we have when it comes to money and genuinely believing that we will reach them. Manifesting isn’t just planning. It involves thinking (and sometimes acting) as if something is already true. This is why a goal might be phrased as “Earn $100,000 this year,” but a manifestation might be something like “I make money while I sleep.”

This in turn will impact the actions we take each day. And much as writing down goals leads to more positive outcomes, it seems feasible that writing down our manifestations works the same way. At least it does for me. Having fallen down the rabbit hole of manifestation research, I’ve been doing some experimenting. I’ve been trying the “I make money while I sleep” manifestation, writing it down daily, and guess what? I have in fact been making money while I sleep.

It turns out that if making money while I sleep is top of mind, then before I go to bed I’ll take action with regards to one of my passive income streams. I’ll send out an email to my website subscribers, recommending an offer from an affiliate partner, or create a social media post reminding my followers that my ebook is currently on sale. Small actions, quickly done, but likely to result in at least a few sales happening overnight.

I’m not suggesting for one moment that manifestation alone is a fool-proof way of becoming wealthy. But a positive attitude and a big dose of self-belief probably can’t hurt. And more money may just be a potential and positive side effect.