Do I dare wish for more?
First, a hard truth: if you don’t learn to commit, you may never figure out how to manifest your dreams. Now, the good news: commitment may bring about showstopping, movie-like moments to your life and it may be way more fun and less daunting than you think. Dreaming is incredible, but can living be even better?
Previously, I explored how in committed growth, there is no place for desperation (for morale boost, read my mantra for achievement). Here, I tackle commitment (aka energetic alignment) and how without it, you may always feel like you’re settling.
Dreaming without committing
It was thanks to energetic decision-making that I decided to quit the corporate world and write a book. For a long time (sixteen years?), I dreamed about being a novelist. Dreaming is one of our more fantastic faculties as humans — but it’s not quite the same as claiming something. All I was doing was talking to people about my plans. When they clapped back with specific questions like the hows and whens, I parried them well, serving them the vague fantasy. Everything had been thought out, only it all belonged somewhere in my bright and shiny future. None of it had any place in the present: neither the beauty nor the everyday grime that goes into achieving anything. Sounds familiar?
Maybe I had tried a little bit, for a week or two, and when it had become hard or life had got in the way, I had receded into dream mode again.
I was deflecting. I hadn’t done the work of asking myself what it would take to become a novelist. There was no commitment yet. Maybe I had tried a little bit, for a week or two, and when it had become hard or life had got in the way, I had receded back into dream mode.
Then, one day, work promoted me, again, for the second or third time that year. This promotion would involve an uptake in responsibilities, too. Once this hit me, so did the realization that I could keep doing this – postponing my dreams – my whole life if I wanted to. I would never make time for writing, unless I made a different decision.
How to Manifest Your Dreams
Years had gone by without a word on the page. Three months into the promotion that woke me up to the eternal delay of my dreams, I had 80, 000 words and a title. Two more months elapsed and my draft had approached 120, 000 words (too many, to be honest!).
It sounds shocking, but it’s simple. I had suddenly begun to create the circumstances for my vision to exist. This is the pace that something happens at once you’ve made the decision. So, if you are where I was, pining after an unspecified moment in the future, think about what your version of the-corporate-promotion-that-made-me-quit-and-pursue-writing would look like. And what is it costing you to stay here, in the fantasy?
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Choosing a dream
Years ago, when I was applying to corporate jobs, I reached the final stage interview with several companies. In the end, they never offered me the position. It seemed as though I was always being told I am great but just not quite right. Funnily enough – and I can only appreciate this now that I am no longer after these roles – I felt the same way about them. At the time, I needed work, and I often convinced myself that these pharmaceutical, marketing, or legal services companies were exactly where I wanted to be working. They weren’t – I just wanted the job. Of course that no matter how well I sold myself, it didn’t translate.
One company, a younger and in my eyes more impactful startup, invited me to a role play of a client call. This was their final stage, too. Quickly my nerves got the better of me and my lack of experience shined forth. The interviewer told me I just wasn’t up to the standard of everyone else. She wished me luck and prepared to end the call – but I had come this far, and I felt that this job sat differently with me. I felt a true potential match. In recognizing this, I was learning how to manifest my dreams.
The decision to act
Despite hearing the rejection – and as final as it sounded – a surge of energy pushed me forward. I struggled to reconcile what I was feeling, as the interviewer had already said no. It would be embarrassing to insist otherwise. Still, there was a spark inside me that was telling me to. I chose to trust it.
I understand your decision, I said, the role play did make me very nervous. Is there any other feedback you have for me? She said no, that that was the only issue, and that she was disappointed with the outcome, too. We had built a connection over the last couple conversations. She had wanted me to pass. I could feel this, too.
The truth is I had decided to work there. It was a strange feeling. On an energetic level, none of the other jobs belonged to me in the way this one did. I knew that much. So I made the ask I couldn’t make any other time: if the role play is the only thing holding this back, would you consider giving me just one more chance at it?
What is energetic alignment?
The interviewer took a second to mull over my request. My heart was still while the fates above and below conversed. Then, a nod. She agreed. 20 minutes – we just do the role play, and that’s it. Monday morning.
Just like in the movies, an orchestra burst into celebration as the air around me rose with the heat of my power. (Okay, this bit only happened in my head, but I do have a penchant for making films, so the theatrics are a must!)
Truthfully, though I had persuaded her, I didn’t necessarily feel powerful in that moment. But I did leave with a deep sense of gratitude for the second chance I was being offered. That fired me up to use it and manifest the dreams I had committed to.
I don’t think that, on an energetic level, I had truly decided that any of these jobs belonged to me. I had with this one.
Before dropping off the call, the interviewer mentioned the name of the methodology I should be applying in the role play. She said I could find some tips on it online, but I made my way to the bookstore and bought the book. I devoured it over the weekend and come Monday, I SLAYED the call (or at least that’s how it felt). This time she smiled. I had got the job.
Practicing commitment
Can this showstopping Can I try again? resilience trick be applied to any dreams you want to manifest? I am not sure that it can. There are probably only a handful of moments of fate that invite you to want something this badly (although who’s counting!).
However, it would never hurt to try. Even if this isn’t your time, practicing courage can be deeply enlivening and it will prepare you for these bigger moments when they do come. The outcome of your effort is also significant: if you do get the job/ relationship/ dream, then how beautiful and affirming of your power is that? And if you don’t, pause and reflect: how much did you truly want this and, heart on your chest, were you fully ready to receive it? Perhaps it was a no that later aligned you with something much better. Or maybe it was a no that guided you to the prep work you needed. Without this no, how would you ever bounce back and return bigger, bolder, and a match to even greater things?
My work is all about deepening your alignment to yourself — because I’ve been there, and I know what it’s like not to decide or to be too scared of mistakes. But once you know, by way of remembering what is already inside you, there’s simply no place for indecision. You become energetically aligned.
If you are in that limbo of weighing desires against outside expectations or if you are not certain of your desires or how to manifest your dreams and that ball of everybody else’s yarn has got you spinning in circles, let’s have a chat. You never know what it might spark.