Why we fail to manifest what we want
Most of us have been there: banging our head against the wall, working so hard to achieve a goal... and facing a brick wall. No results. Even when we replicate someone else's actions that brought them great success.
What's happening? Are we cursed? Are we just not meant to have that thing we want?
Here are a few common reasons why we at times fail to produce the desired results and achieve our goals despite all our efforts.
1. Subconscious negative beliefs or contradictory intentions
On the conscious level, you may be striving for greater financial abundance. On the subconscious level, you may be harboring negative beliefs about money: your parents may have taught you that "money is evil", or "all the rich are bad guys", or "there's no honest way to become wealthy", and you definitely don't want to see yourself as a "bad guy", so there's your subconscious block.
Alternatively, you may believe that you're unworthy of abundance, that there's a limit to what you deserve or can have, or that people of your gender/ethnicity/profession are inherently limited in what level of financial abundance and independence they can achieve.
To give an example of a contradictory intention: while you desire more abundance, you may at the same time worry about the extra responsibilities that will come with it, or the pressure to maintain a new lifestyle you won't be very comfortable with, or you may be secretly terrified of the freedom of choice (and thus the responsibility to choose wisely) that wealth will bring.
Why do our subconscious beliefs and intentions matter? Because the Universe listens not only to our conscious but also our subconscious beliefs and intentions, and the Universe reflects to us the energy we put out. So very often what we put out there energetically boils down to, "I want it, but I also don't want it, can't have it, or am afraid of it". :)
Be sure to contemplate and ask yourself:
What beliefs do I have about the thing I'm trying to manifest?
What attitudes did I inherit around it from my parents, society, or spiritual tradition?
Am I worried about any of the consequences or changes that achieving this goal may result in?
2. You don't really want what you say you want
This is different from #1. In this case, you have set a goal that reflects what your family/culture/society says you should want, but it doesn't reflect what's really true for you.
Your parents say that you must have a life partner in order to have a happy life, and the society says you're "incomplete" as a woman without a man. And you happen to be one of those folks who are better off alone. So you're working hard to meet a life partner, even though you know in the heart of hearts that you're actually happier on your own and are more fulfilled when you focus solely on your career.
It's hard to insist on our unique truth when it goes against what's considered "the norm", and we often allow the society to convince us that accepting "the norm" as our goal will bring us safety and fulfillment. And so you're busy "swiping right" and going on dates, but still cannot meet that "soulmate".
This is where it's important to tune into what we really, really want, and to develop discernment, so we can distinguish between our own truth and societal programming. Honestly, you may end up finding that most of the things that folks around you are chasing are not what you want for yourself at all! And that's okay — we are in the process of waking up from living “in the matrix” for millennia. Rejecting societal programming, with all the life goals it imposes on us, in favor of our own unique and subjective desires is an important step in unplugging from that matrix.
3. What you want is incongruent to your nature
You may have been inspired early in life by those who work tirelessly to serve their community, and so you want to be a social worker, school teacher, community organizer or what not. Let's say your goal is to serve the community in a very hands-on way, you've been looking for a job at non-profit organizations, but you keep getting rejected despite being perfectly qualified for the jobs you apply for. What's going on?
It may be that serving a community in a hands-on manner is not aligned with your nature, and by nature I mean the qualities and gifts you carry on the soul level. While most of us are free to choose what we want to do in life, some paths won't allow our soul to express its nature through its gifts. Therefore, when we set goals that would result in us essentially diverting ourselves from doing our purpose, we may face a lot of obstacles trying to reach those goals.
It might be more congruent to your soul's nature to be an entrepreneur, your own boss, making your own choices and being in your own energetic space rather than being out in the community immersed in the energy of others. In fact, that meaningful community work you were looking for may end up leaving you exhausted and frustrated rather than fulfilled! You may be facing obstacles on that path because your soul wants you to reconsider your goal and change your course towards something that would allow you to use your gifts and be in alignment with your purpose.
This is not an easy case. In fact, lots of people live out of alignment with their true nature — no wonder so many feel miserable in their careers! Be sure to examine where your passions come from, and get a taste of the goal you're trying to achieve to make sure it's something that feels "right" on a deeper level and does not only look good in theory.
4. Energetic and karmic blocks from the past
We all carry many layers of negative influences from the past, not only from childhood, but also from numerous past lives that we've lived. Those influences can manifest in various ways and occasionally interfere with our process of manifesting and achieving our goals.
You may have no trouble making money, but it feels as if you can never keep it – as soon as you earn a little bit of extra money, something immediately happens that forces you to spend it (car repairs, medical bills): sometimes we'll find that you had given a Vow of Poverty during a past life as a monastic, and the "energetic imprint" of this past promise not to accumulate wealth is now causing money to leave your hands. A Vow of Chastity, on the other hand, would interfere when you're trying to start a family by making it very difficult to conceive. A curse or an energetic program carrying the energy of isolation would make it hard for you to meet new friends or fit in with your colleagues. Or there may have been a situation in your past life where you were betrayed, which created a strong belief that "all men are trouble", and that (unconscious) belief will work in such a way that you'll be unable to attract a life partner, and instead, only attract unavailable or abusive men.
Luckily, those blocks can be discovered and cleared. Pay attention and notice if there are any emotional, mental, or behavioral patterns that kick into action in certain circumstances, as if despite your will. See if you can consciously step out of them, which will start dissolving those patterns.
5. Your manifesting process includes thoughts and feelings, but no new action at the physical level
In a nutshell, manifesting comes down to: changing our vibrational state to be in alignment with what we want to manifest. That new vibrational state then naturally attracts the goal or experience we want into our physical reality, often with some inspired action on our part.
Most manifesting practices comes down to: visualization, affirmations, vision boards, gratitude… Basically, trying to change how we think or feel.
Unfortunately, that is not enough to significantly alter our vibrational state. We also have to change our ACTIONS. That is because in order to attract the experience we want on the physical level (actual money, partner, dream car…), not only our thoughts and feelings, but also our vibrational state at the physical level has to get in alignment with that goal. And we change that state by doing things differently.
If you’re trying to manifest an experience that will give you a sense of freedom (for example, higher income), you may want to review all the many different actions you take throughout your day, and identify which actions feel like the opposite of freedom: limitation, restriction, obligation. If you’re doing things out of obligation all day, your vibrational state is obligation (lack of freedom), so no wonder you struggle to attract that extra income — you’re not in alignment with that. Changing how you do things in everyday life so that they feel more like freedom than limitation/obligation will get you closer to your goal than any visualizations or affirmations ever can.
6. How you go about achieving your goals is different from how you're designed to
Ever tried following someone else's success model only to fail miserably? The thing is, the way you are designed to shift your vibrational state, and thus attract new circumstances into your life (read: attain your goals) is unique to you, and the same course of action that brought someone to their goal swiftly may not work for you at all!
You may have been taught to focus on creating a very detailed vision for your goal, and let that vision inspire your actions. While having a concrete goal in mind helps, you may turn out to be a person who is designed to focus on the process of getting to your goal more than on the detailed vision. For you, it would be extremely important that all steps you take towards your goal are compatible with the energy of your goal and are aligned with your own nature. An action that resonates to "lack" will not bring you closer to your goal of greater abundance. Not will an action that creates dependence on another person while your true nature is independence and self-determination. A single-minded focus on the goal and "the end justifies the means" mentality will only hurt your chances of getting to your goal. In your case, it's the process that informs the goal, not the other way around, so following someone's model and creating a vision board may not do much for you.
As another example, you may have been taught that when you consistently do the same thing over and over (such as post pictures of your new products on Instagram every week) with perseverance, your activity eventually reaches a critical threshold that brings you success (your business goes viral). Well, you may belong to the 50% of population for whom this approach won't work: you'll need to take multiple different actions, both in business and in your personal life, all resonating to your goal (success, attention, etc) in order to reach that vibrational threshold that brings you success.
You can learn your unique manifesting formula that you can apply to any goal you can think of (I'll post resources below), or you can experiment on your own with various approaches and notice what produces results for you. Don't believe religiously in someone else's success model: learn from their experience, but choose a course of action that has consistently produced results for you.
© 2018-2022 Julia Nord | All rights reserved | Copying, adapting, imitating, or creating derivative works of this content is prohibited.Resources:
Soul Blueprint Akashic reading: discover your soul purpose and gifts so you can choose goals and actions that are congruent to your divine nature and lead to success, abundance and fulfillment.
How to manifest what you want using the Law of Attraction