It was the day before New Year’s Eve 2014. I woke up in the morning to sad news: my husband’s grandfather had passed during the night. We knew this meant an unplanned road trip from New York—where we currently live—to the funeral in Texas.
Except we were flat broke.
After he told me the news, my husband said to me, “How are we going to afford this trip when we don’t have any money?” This type of question wasn’t uncommon for us. We spent a lot of time struggling financially over the years.
But something felt different that morning.
I had, at the time, been doing a lot of work around manifestation and using the law of attraction to bring my dreams to life. And one of the things that was stressed in my training was acting “as if” you already have what you want.
So I had a thought: What if we just pretend we have the money for the trip?
My response to my husband was that we needed to focus on love, not fear, and that meant we had to spend the day acting “as if” the Texas trip was already a done deal. And that’s exactly what we did.
First, we got our suitcases out and started packing. Then I made a list of everything we’d need to do in order for us to get on the road within the next 24 to 48 hours.
Since we knew we’d be driving down, my husband took the car over to our friend’s shop, to see what it would cost to do the repairs. While he did that, I got on the phone and canceled or rescheduled all of the appointments we had that week.
About an hour went by and he called to tell me the repair total: about $200. Both of us knew we didn’t have the money to cover this. But since we were acting “as if,” I told him to go ahead and do the repairs, even if that meant going negative in the bank account.
Within a couple hours of taking these actions, something beyond incredible happened. I can, without a single doubt in my mind, say that this was Universal magic in action.
I had a payment come in from a new client that I wasn’t expecting. And he paid in full. Somehow, within a few hours of making the decision to act “as if” our Texas trip was happening, I manifested $2,500—and made the trip a done deal.
Acting “as if” is a powerful manifestation tool that not enough people use. So here’s how to use it in your life:
- Figure out what you want—Get really clear on it. Until you are clear, you can’t manifest anything.
- Work backwards—Once you know what you want, you can work backwards to determine the actions you would have to take to get it. For example, if you want to manifest a new car, you know automatically you’ll need to do things like, decide exactly which one you want, go test drive it, look into auto financing, etc. Start taking whatever actions you can right away.
- Play pretend—The element of magic comes in when you start pretending. Not just taking actions you know you should take, but also pretending to be the person who already has what you want. For example, what would a person who already owns the car you want be doing? How would she act? How would she feel? Playing pretend will inspire you to take actions you weren’t even considering before. As another example, whenever I want to bring new clients into my business, I act “as if” I already have the new clients. I do things, like set up their contracts and prep their course materials. Doing this brings me the clients I’m asking for every single time.
Adults don’t often spend time playing or pretending, because we’re taught that those are children’s games. But playing and pretending are two of the biggest ways to start manifesting the things that you want for your life.
What actions have you taken to manifest things in your life?
