Is Manifesting Real?

In 1903 the NY Times claimed it would take a million years to build a flying machine.

Of course someone wrote that.

People get stuck in their ways. No one thinks something can be done until it’s done. They believe they understand how the world works and that’s that. Mind closed.

Voltaire said, “Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.”

Boy, ain’t that the truth.

Today, I watched a piece of archive British news footage from 1967. It was filmed in a pub on the weekend before the government introduced the drink-driving laws. Everyone interviewed in the video were strongly against the idea. Most called the law stupid.

What struck me was how they all believed they’d thought about this issue deeply and came to their own conclusions, when of course, it was the times and context they were living in that dictated their views.

If you asked those same people twenty years later if drink driving laws were good or bad, they’d insist they’re not just good, but vital.

A flying machine sure is a stupid idea - Until it’s done

Less than a week after that New York Times article was published, the Wright brothers had their first successful flight. Less than a week! The journalist believed he was writing a genuine piece of news, but nope, he was just writing his closed-minded opinion.

The human condition means we cannot think beyond the realms of our reality, for the most part. We limit ourselves by making assumptions about what is fact now, not what could be fact later.

Here’s another example.

Roger Bannister ran a four-minute mile in 1954. “Experts” said it was probably impossible, man had been trying for a thousand years to break this time barrier and had failed. Even in the 1940s, the record of 4:01 stood for nine years.

Yet a couple of months after Bannister’s record-breaking run, another two athletes broke the four-minute mark. And on it went. Now a four-minute mile is the standard of all professional middle-distance runners.

Sure, you can argue about improvements in nutrition and training reaching a tipping point, but once again, something was deemed impossible – until it wasn’t. The moment Bannister showed it was possible was the moment the flood gates opened in people’s minds.

Dorian Yates, six times Mr Olympia, brought a new mass and size to the bodybuilding world. He dominated the sport for six years. He said:

“In any sport, things evolve, and when somebody achieves a certain standard, everybody starts achieving it, so really it’s a psychological barrier.” — Dorian Yates

So what’s all this got to do with manifesting results in your life?

The barriers to your progress are psychological. There is a limit placed in your mind by yourself, and others, that says, “This is my level”.

Most don’t want to believe this as they don’t want to take responsibility for their failings. It’s difficult to admit you’re an underachiever, let alone accept you’re the reason.

Instead, it’s easier to blame; blame genetics, blame lack of opportunity, blame unfairness, blame others. Blame feels powerful but it does nothing but rob us of the power to change. It makes that limit in our minds stronger, it reinforces the idea we’re weak against the forces of life.

Loom, no one is expecting you to create a flying machine or break a running world record, but no one asked the Wright brothers or Roger Bannister to do it either. They did it off their own backs. And it is you who has to do things off your own back if you want to achieve.

Either you do the work or it doesn’t get done. If you want something bad enough, you can have it, one way or the other.

It’s the limiter in your mind, it’s the psychological barrier Dorian Yates mentioned, that keeps you in place.

Sure, a zillion things combined created that limiter but only one thing removes it: You.

The secret is action. That limiter is based on assumptions and lies. It’s not based on reality. Action is reality. You need to show yourself what you’re capable of, and then the limiter will crumble.

The journalist who wrote the flying machine article was working with his limiter, the Wright brothers were working with action.

They too might have had doubts. Huge doubts, but the doubt was slowly dismantled through action; failing and trying again, seeing and experiencing progress, understanding possibility — Bannister might have doubted his ability, but action showed him his mile run times were getting quicker and quicker. Like the Wright brothers, he began to believe.

Sitting on the couch and blaming others will steal your whole life from you. They say hell is dying and meeting the person you could have been. Don’t let it happen. Remove the limiter. Embrace action. It’s time to stop believing nonsense and start showing the world what you can do.