The idea that your thoughts shape your reality is often dismissed by most people as pseudoscience.It lives for the sceptical, somewhere between all those things like vision boards, ‘The Secret’ film, sage smudging and women being told they could “manifest” a better life if they just believed hard enough.
It is easy to mock. And to be fair, some of it deserves mocking. There is an awful lot of woo woo bullshit out there from online coaches, setting themselves up as gurus, telling us the only thing between us and the success we want are the right rituals around manifesting, a stellar crystal collection and aligning everything we do with the current planetary positions.
I like to think I am very down to earth but with a smidge of this woo. Not the kind of woo that isn’t based in any robust thinking and where you just have to ‘believe’, but the kind where maybe there is something solid to all this, if we are more scientific about it, because the science is there.
Before we go much further I also want to say this clearly: We don’t have ultimate control and not everything that happens in our lives is because all our ‘thoughts become things’.
There is a whole world around us and interacting with us, so whether things do or don’t happen to us isn’t all about how hard we are manifesting them to happen. Bad things don’t happen to us because we are somehow ‘attracting them’ to us with our negative thinking and to be told that, when you are experiencing illness and loss and struggle, is very damaging.
However, some of the situations we repeatedly find ourselves in are shaped by us, and we owe it to ourselves to remember that. Because we do have more control than we think.
If you are skeptical of concepts and words like manifesting and raising your vibration, let’s switch to terms like cognitive behavioural psychology. Neural pathways. Confirmation bias.
Let’s think about how scientific research shows that our brains filter information according to what it already believes to be true. That we are programmed to see and believe some things, and not others. That we can change the way we think and respond to things through neuroplasticity.
Whether you call it manifestation or neural processing, raising your vibration or being a clear thinker, I want you to know that how you see yourself and how you also see the world and what it has to offer, are shaping the life and business that you build.
I believe we are all manifesting, all the time. Because manifesting simply means using clear intentions to create the desired outcome through our chosen decisions, actions and behaviours. That’s it. Not a whiff of magic or sage in sight. It doesn’t mean we always get what we want, but it does make it more likely or have us heading in the right direction
If we can’t see what we are doing to ourselves with all this unconscious ‘manifesting’ (sorry! there’s that word again!) then all the conscious ways we try to make changes in our lives will be slower and harder. We have to get to that slightly hidden stuff first.
If you believe you are ‘just not very good at business’, you will behave like someone who is not very good at business.
You’ll avoid the numbers involved in developing new ideas.
You’ll delay sending a proposal.
You’ll decide not to apply for a grant/ residence/ job.
You’ll underprice everything because charging properly feels really uncomfortable in your body.
You’ll tell yourself you are ‘not a salesy person’ as if that’s a personality trait rather than a story you are telling yourself an that will impact how much marketing you do and what kind.
If you believe you are ‘not that confident’, you will shrink yourself in any situation, before you even realise you’re doing it.
You’ll make your social bios a bit wishy washy, lacking in clarity and bite.
You will resist the kinds of marketing that require you to be visible, demonstrate your worth.
You’ll hesitate before pitching yourself for the opportunity (or won’t go for it at all).
You’ll stand in the corner at networking events and social gatherings. Leave early.
You’ll interpret any silence or lack of response to your ideas, pitches and offers as a rejection, a signal that someone isn’t interested in your work, art, collaboration, idea and therefore never follow up.
And then, when the results do match the belief, you’ll call it the proof and evidence that you were right. They didn’t want to work with you, they can’t afford your prices, they don’t want to swim in the same pond as you.
This is not the universe withholding success from you specifically and personally, not at all.
And, with the caveat that sometimes things don’t work out no matter how self assured you are, I want to make this point: When things don’t work for us, sometimes it’s us doing that. And given all we can really control is ourselves and our own behaviour, it’s a shame that we don’t take the opportunity to do just that.
Your brain is wired for coherence and repetition and safety. It would rather you stay familiar than expand by going beyond what seems possible. Even if the familiar version of you is exhausted, under-earning and frustrated. Even if she is saying ‘why me?’ or ‘why not me?’ a lot of the time. When she is constantly resentful or triggered into self shaming when other women seem to be moving faster.
Two creative women can have the same level of talent, similar experience, comparable opportunities and privileges, and build wildly different businesses.
One believes she is allowed to take up space, to earn well, that it’s safe enough to be visible, that she is as good as others, maybe even better than some.
The other believes she isn’t as good as others and also, she is very caught up in messages that tell her that she must stay modest, be grateful for what she has, to not be too much or be too pushy.
These two women can have the same external situation and prospects but with a very different internal identity and stories about what’s possible.
So, what am I saying here to you today?
If your results are consistently below what you are capable of and you often do not get what you want, your self confidence is probably in need of support and attention. Because you’re awesome! Did that make you flinch or shrink?
If you are always the under-charger, the over-giver, the one who launches but doesn’t quite do it loudly enough so not enough people hear about it, the one who waits to be invited rather than pulling up a seat at the table and saying hi, the one who gets overlooked for opportunities – that isn’t just your circumstances and ‘the way it is’. It’s your identity, how you see yourself, playing out. Your self-image is still doing powerful work to hold you back.
It is deciding which opportunities you notice. Which risks feel tolerable. Whether you follow up on that thing or let it fade. Whether you try again when you do not at first succeed. Whether you believe a bigger version of your business or your life is actually for you.
We don’t usually get what we say we want. We get what matches who we believe we are and say we are. And what talks quite loudly are things like body language, tone of voice, level of resilience, how we present ourselves, the clothes we wear, how much eye contact we give, how confident our language is.
So the work we do to grow what we are doing in our businesses and work is not just about having the right offering, being experienced/ qualified enough, clever content plans and launches and new offers.
It’s about asking, honestly: who do I currently believe myself to be as a creative woman in business? Do I take myself seriously? Do I value myself and believe in myself?
And more provocatively: who would I have to believe myself to be for the next level of my work to feel normal, not out of my league?
That question is far more radical than writing another marketing plan.
Because when your identity shifts, your perception of others and the world shifts. And when your perception shifts, you see things differently, you start making different decisions almost without noticing. Behaving differently. Not because you’ve become someone else, you’re still you. But because you’ve stopped operating from the smaller version of yourself that felt safer.
That’s not pseudoscience or ‘woo woo’ manifesting a better life. It’s self-concept shaping reality, creating a better life, one step at a time, every single day, because you have a different lens to look through.
If this stirred something in you, if you felt that little flinch or flicker of recognition, then that’s probably not an accident.
Because this kind of identity work is very hard to do alone.
We cannot always see the beliefs we are swimming in. We normalise them. We defend them. We build entire businesses and lives around them without realising we are doing it. And trying to “just think differently” on your own, without someone gently reflecting back what they see, is just so hard and you’re already working hard!
This is the work I do with women in my coaching.
Not teaching you how to align with the moon or manifest a Range Rover from the lotus position. But helping you uncover the stories running underneath your decisions. The ones shaping your pricing, your visibility, your confidence, your willingness to take up space. How you deal with or don’t deal with fear.
We look at the inner critic. We strengthen the inner mentor. We examine what feels normal but unhelpful for you and expand it carefully, safely. We untangle the thoughts and beliefs that have kept you smaller than your actual capacity. All so you can get on and do the things you want to do and get the results you want to get.
It isn’t about becoming someone else either. It’s about becoming more fully who you already are, without the outdated story that says you can’t, because you’re already much better than you think.
To talk to me about how I can help you with all of this, book a free 30 minute coaching session today.