I recently revealed that I manifested my dream life, giving a detailed introduction to my realistic manifestation method (A practice I’ll always swear by.) Throughout my three-part method, I circle back to two essential themes: clarity and planning.

When manifesting, you’re in the driver’s seat. But before shifting gears forward, you must know where you’re headed. More importantly, you have to know why.

So what questions must you ask yourself before you hit the road? How do you finally get clear to reveal where you want to go? It’s easier than you think to find the answers that you seek, and I’m sharing the prompts you can reflect on to get the most out of the process.

Know Your Why

We’ve seen this advice a thousand times, but how does it apply to manifesting your best life?

Oftentimes, the desire to manifest is prompted by feelings of dissatisfaction. When you’re unhappy with your current state, you aim to get to a better place. Unfortunately, we can sometimes limit ourselves to the “what” of our desire for change. (Meaning we only focus on what we want to be different.) Focusing on what we want to change can make a distraction more enticing than a goal we wish to achieve. As an example, let’s talk about careers.

You may encounter dissatisfaction or demotivation in several ways along your professional journey. If you seek to manifest change rather than achieve a clear goal, you may end up accepting a new job for the sole purpose of leaving your old one. Without a goal, you may accept a new role as an escape and end up in a position that is just as dissatisfactory as your previous role. In other words, you get the short-term satisfaction of something new without the long-term joy of something right.

So how do you avoid this cycle of hopping from one misaligned position to another? You find the “why” behind your “what.”

The desire for a new career can occur for several reasons. Perhaps you have a great skill set but cannot leverage those abilities in your current role, so you feel limited. Bearing that in mind, a goal could be to find a job where you can leverage your skills to the greatest extent. Or, like when I was working in finance, you might find yourself in an amazing position where your skill set is challenged and recognized, but you don’t feel fulfilled or aligned with your purpose. Your goal is to find the courage and resources to create a fresh set of skills, network, and plan to jumpstart a new career path.

Even though the dissatisfaction with work is the same (the “what”), the reason is different (the “why”). Therefore your roadmap for tackling your specific issue will vary and require deeper introspection. Here are a few prompts to get you there:

Test Your Resistance

As part of my manifestation method, you must rely on your grit. Grit is your ability to persevere in adversity to reach long-term goals. This is a common barrier for most manifestors. As we often find ourselves questioning our resilience.

Manifestation can sometimes be a long game with no clear markers of progress. The concept relies heavily on believing you can and will obtain your goals. If you encounter detours on your journey, you may talk yourself out of your desires or succumb to impatience by settling for the “easier” option.

A way to combat this is to test — and predict — your resistance. This requires honesty with yourself and others to create systems of support and reassurance to keep you on your path. Some prompts to get curious about your resilience could include:

Notes for Nourishment

The last piece of my method is building your mental muscle. This is all about caring for ourselves across the board — mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and intellectually — to enhance our overall well-being and stay focused on our manifestations. 

If you manifest a better life, you must help create the environment for it to thrive. Start by auditing your habits, relationships, and mindset with key prompts:

What prompts are you processing this week? Share your favorites in the comments!