When I first started on my “manifestation” journey it was all very quantitative.

I wanted change in my life.

I craved change in my life.

And I was starting to realize the change could all come from within me.

So, I started where all of us need to start, by focusing on my thoughts. I spent my time paying attention to where I was focusing on scarcity and fear and began intentionally choosing to focus on what I wanted instead of what I was scared of.

But looking back I can see now that basically all I was doing was throwing numbers everywhere.

I thought what I wanted was more money, more stuff and to weigh less, all by a certain time.

I had a piece of paper on my desk filled with numbers. Some were many digits long and some were less. But overall, I was sure what I needed was more (or in the case of my weight, less).

Fast-forward a couple years later, to now, and as I look up at the world that surrounds my days I am kind of in shock to see that all my dreams I’ve been working on manifesting have come true.

But without any of those quantitative goals being met.

It appears needing more money and less weight were just illusions because I seem to have hit a “sweet spot” in terms of feeling like everything in my life is going just the way I want it. But the truth is my bank account is no bigger and my waistline is no smaller (okay, maybe my waistline is a little bigger).

How do I know I’ve hit my “sweet spot”? Well, I’m just the right amount of busy during the week doing things I like to do, and I have just the right amount of stress—not too much, but with a few things happening to keep my mind excited. And I feel like I have just the right amount of success for where I am right now. Not so much that I’m hanging over an edge but enough that I feel like I’m doing what I need to do in the world and still have time to chill out at the end of the day.

Is this what balance is? I’m not sure. I don’t remember feeling like this before.

What is so interesting is that nothing that’s going on in my life these days even closely resembles any of those numbers I once wrote down so fervently.

And so it seems that what we want in life might not be found in the numbers.

What I am learning is that what we want in life can be found by relaxing into the moment. When we fight what is, it becomes impossible to get what’s possible. Does that sound like a riddle to you? It isn’t.

If we can’t settle down in this moment, which moment are we going to be able to settle down in?

That is why the first step to manifesting our dreams is:

Taking Stock of What We Already Have

On my manifestation journey, I was in such a rush to “get more,” I wasn’t even noticing I already had most of what I wanted. Appreciation and gratitude can take us far.

So before we start dreaming up new dreams, we first need to recognize the past dreams that have become reality right in front of us and savor them. It doesn’t mean we need to stop growing, changing or adding new additions to our life experience. But we also need to take the time to notice that many of our dreams exist in this very moment already.

Looking back on my past I see that believing that each new project I was working on was a crisis was an exhausting and actually damaging way to live. Flying into flight or fight response over a deadline or a sink filled with dirty dishes or child’s nap missed or garden projects that just had to be done was actually taxing my nervous system and lead to a big crash and burn that left me exhausted in bed for many months.

Now instead of always being focused on what I perceive I need to do in the future to be safe and successful, I focus on what’s happening right now that feels safe and successful. And from this place of high self-esteem and feeling content we are then ready for step number two of the manifesting journey.

Moving Forward with Baby Steps

Yup, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

And it is from this place of seeing that we have so much that we can move ahead to build our own personal Rome—but in a way that is relaxed and without striving.

Every day, we can work toward our goals. We can talk to someone about them. We can do some research. We can spend some time on the dirty work that needs to get done. We can also daydream. We can ask for help. We can see that our dreams have changed from last year or last week, just as we are changing. And we can choose to do this from a relaxed, joyful place instead of from a state of deprivation.

Because really, step number one and step number two are two steps in the same dance number. We hold them both at the same time. We love our present life and we dream of the new things to come. One doesn’t discount the other. We see how much we have and we look where we want to grow more.

Two steps. One dream. All of it manifesting at the same time.

Relephant:

What to Let Go of to Get What We Want.

Author: Ruth Lera
Editor: Catherine Monkman
Photo: Nick Saltmarsh/Flickr