You’ve probably seen the TikToks. Someone is sitting in a perfectly lit room, holding a rose quartz crystal, claiming they "manifested" a six-figure salary or a blue Range Rover just by thinking about it. It sounds like magic. Honestly, it sounds like a scam. But then you see professional athletes or CEOs talking about "visualization," and you start to wonder if there is actually something to it.
Does manifesting really work, or are we all just collectively hallucinating a shortcut to success?
The answer isn't a simple yes or no. It’s more of a "yes, but probably not the way you think it does." If you think you can sit on your couch, vibrate at a high frequency, and wait for a check to drop from the ceiling, you’re going to be waiting a long time. Manifesting isn't about wishing; it's about the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and—arguably—a bit of selective attention.
The Science of Noticing Things
Most people think manifestation is about "attracting" things from the universe. In reality, it’s mostly about your Reticular Activating System (RAS). This is a bundle of nerves in your brainstem that acts as a filter. Your brain is constantly bombarded with millions of bits of data every second. You can't process all of it. If you did, your head would basically explode.
The RAS decides what gets through to your conscious mind.
Have you ever decided you wanted to buy a specific car, like a red Jeep, and suddenly you see red Jeeps everywhere? They weren't missing before. You just told your brain that red Jeeps are important, so your RAS started flagging them. Manifestation works similarly. When you focus intensely on a goal, you aren't magically creating opportunities; you’re training your brain to stop ignoring them.
Dr. Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and former psychiatric doctor, explains this in her book The Source. She argues that manifestation is really just "value tagging." By focusing on a goal, you tag that idea as important in your brain, which makes you more likely to notice resources, people, and paths that help you get there.
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It Is Not Just Positive Thinking
There is a dark side to the manifestation world called "toxic positivity." This is the idea that if you have a bad thought, you'll ruin your life. That’s nonsense. Human beings have roughly 6,000 thoughts a day, and a lot of them are weird, dark, or just plain annoying. If thoughts alone created reality, the world would be a lot more chaotic than it already is.
Manifesting isn't about ignoring reality. It’s about cognitive priming.
Jim Carrey is the poster child for this. Back in the early 90s, when he was broke, he wrote himself a check for $10 million for "acting services rendered" and dated it for Thanksgiving 1995. He kept it in his wallet. He didn't just sit in his room staring at the check; he went to every audition. He worked. He failed. He kept going. By 1994, he landed Dumb and Dumber for exactly $10 million.
Did the check "bring" him the money? No. But it kept his focus sharp. It acted as a constant psychological anchor.
The Placebo Effect and Expectancy
We also have to talk about the Expectancy Theory. Psychology shows that if you expect a certain outcome, your behavior subtly changes to make that outcome more likely.
- If you believe you’re going to fail a job interview, your body language becomes defensive.
- You might stumble over your words.
- You might not even prepare as hard because "what's the point?"
Conversely, if you truly believe—or "manifest"—that you are the right person for the job, you walk in with a different energy. You make eye contact. You speak clearly. You've basically tricked your nervous system into being "ready" for success. This isn't mysticism; it's social psychology.
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Where Manifesting Fails
We need to be real here. Manifesting has a massive "survivor bias" problem. You hear from the one person who manifested a lottery win, but you don't hear from the 50,000 people who meditated on numbers and lost their rent money.
The "Law of Attraction" suggests that like attracts like. This can lead to some pretty gross victim-blaming. If someone gets sick or loses their job, a hardcore manifestation "expert" might say they "attracted" that with low-vibe thinking. That is factually and ethically wrong. External factors exist. Systematic inequality exists. Bad luck exists.
Manifesting is a tool for personal agency, not a replacement for acknowledging the complexities of the real world.
Actionable Steps to Use Manifestation Effectively
If you want to try this without the "woo-woo" fluff, here is how you actually do it. It’s about alignment, not magic.
Write it down in the present tense.
Your brain struggles to distinguish between a vivid imagination and reality. When you write, "I am a confident public speaker," you start to build a self-schema that fits that description. Avoid saying "I want" because that reinforces the feeling of "not having."
Create a "Vision Board" that actually works.
Don't just put pictures of yachts. Put pictures of the actions you need to take. If you want to be a writer, don't just put a picture of a bestseller list. Put a picture of a coffee cup and a laptop. This primes your brain for the work, not just the reward.
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Practice Mental Contrasting.
Gabriele Oettingen, a professor of psychology at NYU, developed a method called WOOP: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan. Manifestation usually stops at "Outcome." Mental contrasting makes you visualize the obstacles. This actually makes you more likely to succeed because you aren't blindsided when things get hard.
Specificity is your friend.
"I want more money" is vague. Your brain doesn't know what to do with that. "I want to earn an extra $500 a month through freelance photography" gives your RAS a specific target to look for.
The 24-Hour Rule.
After you spend time visualizing or "manifesting," you must take one physical action toward that goal within 24 hours. Send the email. Buy the domain. Do ten pushups. This bridges the gap between your internal thoughts and the external world.
Manifesting is basically just extreme goal setting with a better marketing team. It works because it forces you to decide what you actually want, which is something most people never do. It keeps your goals top-of-mind, sharpens your intuition for opportunities, and boosts your confidence.
Just don't forget to do the work. The universe is a lot of things, but it isn't an Uber Eats driver for your dreams. You still have to go pick them up yourself.