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What is Roxie Nafousi’s Manifest about? What’s the key message to take away from the book?
In Manifest, Roxie Nafousi presents her method for adopting the mindset necessary to manifest anything you want in life. According to Nafousi, there’s more to manifestation than simply picturing the thing you desire.
Below is a brief overview of Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life by Roxie Nafousi.
Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life
What if you could create your dream life through the power of thought? In her book Manifest, Roxie Nafousi explains that this practice, called manifesting, is achievable for anyone.
Nafousi is a social media influencer turned self-development coach and author. She’s also an ambassador for the Mental Health Foundation. However, Nafousi claims that she didn’t always lead such a successful life—she previously struggled with mental health issues and addiction, feeling trapped in an unhealthy lifestyle that she didn’t know how to overcome. This all changed in 2018 when she discovered the concept of manifesting and began working toward her ideal life. She now regularly writes about self-development for publications such as Marie Claire, Female First, and E! Online. Her second book, Manifest: Dive Deeper, elaborates on her methods in Manifest and discusses how to harness your full potential and create lasting change.
This guide will explore the manifestation method that took Nafousi from her darkest moments to her ideal life within a few short years. First, we’ll explain what manifestation is and how it works. Then, we’ll discuss the five main principles that Nafousi claims are crucial for altering your mindset and manifesting the life of your dreams—creating a clear vision, loving yourself and practicing gratitude, overcoming negativity, matching your actions to your goals, and having faith.
Throughout this guide, we’ll supplement Nafousi’s arguments and recommendations with advice from other experts on finding success, such as Rhonda Byrne (The Secret), Brianna Wiest (The Mountain Is You), and Daniel Walter (The Power of Discipline). We’ll also examine some of the scientific discussion around manifestation.
What Is Manifestation and How Does It Work?
Nafousi defines manifesting as the process of attracting what you want in life using a positive mindset—a combination of positive thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. Manifestation is based on the Law of Attraction, which states that the energy we put out into the world attracts similar energy back to us. In other words, a positive mindset will attract positivity into our lives and propel us toward our goals, while a negative mindset will attract negativity into our lives and prevent us from reaching our goals. So, to manifest the life of your dreams and become the best version of yourself, you must adopt a positive mindset—everything you think, do, and feel must attract the life that you desire.
The Law of Attraction is based on quantum physics—everything in the universe is made up of atoms that vibrate at different frequencies, and atoms with similar frequencies attract each other. Nafousi argues that thoughts, behaviors, and emotions all impact the vibrational frequency that we emit—a positive mindset causes us to emit high vibrations that attract high vibrations in return, while a negative mindset causes us to emit low vibrations that attract more low vibrations.
In the following sections, we’ll discuss the top five principles that Nafousi says will help you develop a positive mindset and manifest the life of your dreams.
Principle #1: Create a Detailed Mental Image of Your Desires
Nafousi argues that the first principle of manifesting is to create a clear, detailed mental image of what you want. This step (what Nafousi calls “visualizing”) is crucial to manifesting because our brains respond to mental images as if they were real. In other words, imagining exactly what you want will trick your brain into believing that you already have it. You’ll then experience positive emotions and emit high vibrations that will actually attract that thing into your life.
The Process of Creating a Clear Mental Image
To create a clear mental image of what you want, Nafousi recommends following a few steps.
First, include as many details as you can about your desire. For example, if you want to move to a neighborhood near the beach in a foreign country, start by imagining the details of this neighborhood—how far apart are the houses? Are there children playing outside? Is it grassy? Can you see the ocean?
Next, Nafousi argues, imagine how you’ll feel once you’ve achieved your desire. For example, you may feel anticipation to meet up with your new friends, peaceful to be in your sunny new home, grateful to have the ocean right outside, and loved because you’re surrounded by positive people. Focus on these emotions and try to feel them.
Then, Nafousi recommends, identify how this future version of yourself differs from who you are now. How do they think, feel and act? What habits do they have? What are their relationships like? How do they handle difficult situations? And so on. For example, maybe future you lives with their partner, starts their day with yoga every morning, gets to work by 8 a.m., and enjoys an hour of self-care before bed each night.
Principle #2: Show Yourself Love and Practice Gratitude
Nafousi explains that the second principle of manifesting is to show yourself love (what she calls “self-love”) and practice gratitude—these are the two cornerstones of a positive mindset. These practices will raise your vibrations to the highest possible level (which will attract positive, high vibrations back to you), and they’ll also help you resist negative thoughts and actions that can lower your vibrations and sabotage your positive manifestation.
In the following sections, we’ll explain what it means to love yourself and practice gratitude, and we’ll discuss Nafousi’s technique for cultivating these two abilities.
What Does It Mean to Love Yourself?
Nafousi notes that to love yourself is to believe that you’re worthy and capable of achieving anything you want in life. Loving yourself requires you to act in your best interest, overcome negative self-perceptions, forgive yourself for flaws and mistakes, and fully embrace who you are.
Loving yourself is the most vital ingredient of successful manifestation because it fosters the belief that you can accomplish, and deserve, all your desires in life. This belief combats all forms of negativity, such as the fear of failure or self-doubt. If you don’t love yourself, these negative thoughts, behaviors, and perspectives will lower your vibration and hinder your progress toward positive manifestation.
How to Cultivate Love for Yourself
Nafousi makes two main recommendations for regularly cultivating love for yourself.
First, be conscious of your actions and their impacts. Pay attention to the choices you’re making in life and whether those choices are in your best interest. If they’re continually causing you distress or unhappiness, or they’re hindering your progress toward your goals, identify what you can do instead to cultivate more positivity—show yourself love by doing what’s best for you. For example, if you realize that hanging out with a certain friend always makes you feel grouchy, acknowledge that this friend might not be a good match.
Second, accept your current state. Each day, acknowledge how you’re doing—mentally, physically, and emotionally—and do what you can to help yourself if you’re not feeling great. If this means staying in bed and drinking tea all day, then do so. If this means forcing yourself out of bed and going on a run to clear your mind, then do that. Loving yourself means caring for yourself in whatever way you need right now.
If you push yourself to do too much when you’re not feeling good, you’ll self-criticize and feel guilty when you inevitably run out of energy and can’t achieve what you want. This will only attract negativity into your life.
What Does It Mean to Practice Gratitude?
Nafousi explains that gratitude is a crucial element of a positive mindset because it’s one of the highest-vibrational feelings. Gratitude works as a positivity magnet—when we express our gratitude for the things we already have in life, the universe matches that vibration by sending us more things to be grateful for.
However, Nafousi warns to be careful when expressing gratitude—focus only on what you’re grateful for without using “buts” (what Nafousi calls “caveats”). For example, don’t say “I’m grateful for my partner but I wish they would clean more”—this expresses gratitude and lack in the same expression. When you express gratitude along with something you lack, the negative vibrations of lack cancel out the positive vibrations of gratitude and get you nowhere.
How to Cultivate Gratitude
Nafousi makes three recommendations for cultivating gratitude and practicing it in your daily life.
First, keep a gratitude journal. Each day, chronologically record everything you experience that you’re grateful for. For example, as you progress through your day, you might write “I’m grateful to have a coffee machine in my home,” “I’m grateful for the comfortable pair of shoes I walk to work in,” “I’m grateful for the rain that watered my flowers while I was at work,” and so on. You’ll develop a positive perspective by becoming more aware of all the things you should be grateful for on a daily basis.
Second, use gratitude to respond to negative feelings. Whenever you start to feel down—unlucky, unworthy, sad, and so on—list things that you’re grateful for. You’ll overcome negative thoughts and feelings and replace them with positivity.
Third, focus on the present moment. Many people get caught up in negative emotions contrary to gratitude, like anxiety or dread, because they’re focused on the past or future rather than the present. For example, you might be feeling anxious and regretful over something silly you said five minutes ago rather than listening to your child tell you how much they love you.
To cultivate gratitude and avoid the thoughts and emotions that contradict it, Nafousi recommends focusing on and being thankful for the present moment—express gratitude for the sights, sounds, and emotions that the present moment evokes and for the people you’re currently with.
Principle #3: Overcome Negativity
While loving yourself and practicing gratitude are ways to prevent negativity, Nafousi argues that you should also develop a few techniques that will target and eradicate negative thoughts and emotions when they make it past your firewall. She recommends three main techniques for doing so.
Technique #1: Quell Negative Thoughts and Emotions With Positive Affirmations
Nafousi argues that one of the best ways to overcome negative thoughts and emotions when they arise is by reciting positive affirmations—statements that encourage positive beliefs.
To create positive affirmations, listen to the limiting beliefs of your inner voice and craft affirmations that state the opposite. For example, if your inner voice is telling you that you’re not good enough, your positive affirmation can be something like “I’m worthy and capable of achieving anything that I dedicate myself to.”
When you notice your inner voice reciting negative thoughts, choose to actively drown them out by reciting positive affirmations in your mind. Nafousi notes that this will override your negative inner voice and stop it from bringing down your vibration.
Further, Nafousi recommends reciting positive affirmations aloud and integrating this practice into your daily routine. For example, every morning on the way to work, you could recite your list of affirmations: “Today is going to be an amazing day where I maximize my productivity,” “I’m a beautiful and unique person inside and out,” “I’m capable of achieving anything I dedicate myself to,” and so on.
These positive affirmations don’t only have to combat your negative inner voice: They can pertain to any area in which you want to improve your confidence. Reciting these affirmations regularly will start to alter your beliefs little by little until the positive statements become personal truths and entirely replace your more negative beliefs.
Technique #2: Turn Jealousy Into Motivation
A second way to overcome negativity is to combat jealousy. Nafousi argues that jealousy is one of the lowest-vibration emotions that people commonly experience. When we see that another person has something that we want, we develop negative feelings toward them and ourselves. We feel resentment toward them because we think they’re better than us, and we feel bad about ourselves because we believe that we’re unworthy or undeserving of gaining what the other person has.
While these responses are natural, they push us farther away from gaining the object of our desire because they cause us to emit low vibrations and attract negativity. To overcome the corrupting effect of jealousy, Nafousi argues that we should channel the emotion into positive motivation—feel happy that another person is experiencing joy and reaching their goals, and channel this emotion into a desire to improve yourself and achieve your goals.
For example, if you see someone on social media posting about their lovely trip, rather than feeling jealous of them and angry at yourself for not being on vacation, be happy that they’re having a great experience and start working toward your own dream trip.
Principle #4: Take Action Toward Your Goals
One of the biggest misconceptions about manifesting is that positive thoughts and emotions are all you need to materialize your desires. Nafousi explains that in reality, you must also alter your behaviors so that they help you make progress on your goals. If your actions don’t align with your desires, you’ll never make progress.
There are two main ways to match your actions to your goals: stepping out of your comfort zone and creating good habits.
Technique #1: Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
Nafousi explains that changing your behavior to make progress toward your goals can be difficult because you’re often forced to do new or challenging things that make you uncomfortable. To make this process easier, she recommends regularly stepping out of your comfort zone so you get familiar with the feeling of discomfort. You’ll realize that you’re more capable than you think and that hard, scary tasks aren’t actually as hard and scary as you thought.
Nafousi provides a few recommendations for making the most of your experience outside your comfort zone:
1. Set intentions. When you’re preparing to do something uncomfortable, be clear on why you’re doing it. This will keep you focused and help you push through the discomfort of the experience.
2. Expose your excuses. When you’re afraid to do something, your mind will always provide excuses to justify not doing it. When these excuses pop into your head, immediately debunk them by coming up with reasons and ways to do the task.
3. Persevere through barriers. You’ll always face obstacles when you try something new—this is an inevitable part of the process. If you allow these barriers to stop you, you’re simply using them as an excuse to give up. Pushing through will help you build your self-worth, self-confidence, and resilience in difficult situations.
4. Jump in headfirst. When you’re about to step out of your comfort zone, you’ll often experience a flood of limiting beliefs that tell you you’re not good enough and encourage you to give up. Rather than letting these thoughts paralyze you, take a brief moment to collect yourself and then take action. For example, if you’re about to raise your hand in class but get nervous, take a deep breath and do it anyway.
Technique #2: Create Good Habits
Nafousi argues that truly altering your behaviors so you make progress on your goals requires you to take action daily. One of the best ways to do this is by creating positive habits—activities that are ingrained into your daily schedule.
To create positive habits, identify what you want and who you want to be. Then, identify the daily activities that will help you make these factors your reality.
For example, imagine that what you want is an expensive tropical vacation. You might practice the following habits to make this a reality: adding leftover money to a change jar at the end of each day, making your coffee at home rather than buying Starbucks, or researching some aspect of your trip like accommodations or activities for a few minutes each day.
Similarly, imagine that who you want to be is a good parent. You might practice the following habits to make this a reality: packing your child’s lunch every night so you don’t forget in the morning, letting your child pick their own outfits, or using consequences rather than spanking to correct behavior.
Principle # 5: Have Faith
Nafousi argues that having faith in the process is one of the most crucial principles for successful manifestation. This is because your beliefs about reality shape your reality. If you don’t fully believe in the process of manifestation—that the universe will return the positive vibrations that you emit—then none of the previous principles will work to attract your desires.
Having faith in the manifestation process requires you to believe that everything in life happens when and how it’s meant to, and that everything is leading you toward a higher purpose. Nafousi explains that the manifestation process isn’t a smooth and straight path to your desires. You’ll face obstacles and surprises along the way, but you must maintain your belief that things will fall into place, you’ll reach the end of the path, and you’ll achieve your desires.
Nafousi makes two main recommendations for staying on course and keeping the faith:
1. Don’t settle. When we find something close to our desire, we often trick ourselves into thinking it’s our best option. Nafousi argues that this is a test of the universe—if you give up and settle, you’ll never reach your highest potential. Don’t stop working toward your goal until you’ve achieved everything you desire—“good enough” is not enough.2. Overcome disappointment by finding the silver lining. Everything happens for a reason, so find that reason. For example, maybe your relationship didn’t work out because you need independence to become the highest, most confident version of yourself.
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- How to create your dream life through the power of thought
- Why manifestation is not just about picturing something you desire
- How to effectively manifest by altering your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions
