Follow These 14 Steps to Create the Life You Love
Are you manifesting what you would truly love to manifest in your life?
Are you following a daily formula to assist you in creating the life you would love?
Fifty-two years ago I began compiling the following 14-step manifestation formula to help myself and others manifest what we would love to achieve in life. Since then, I have further researched, written about and taught this formula to millions of people around the world. When followed, this formula can help you more effectively manifest what you’d love in life.
Step 1. IDENTIFY YOUR UNIQUE PURPOSE/MISSION
You have a unique and evolving set of priorities or hierarchy of values. Your top priorities or values are the intentions or objectives that are most important in your life. Whatever is highest on your list of values—what is most important and meaningful—will underlie and drive your teleological purpose, mission or calling or that contribution you would love to make in the world.
In this highest value directed area, you’ll tend to excel the most, have the highest achievements and have the greatest, clearest and most inspired intentions.
If you’re uncertain about your highest value, please consider taking advantage of my Free and Private Value Determination process on my website, Dr Demartini.com, to help you identify and clarify what your life demonstrates is most valuable to you. Take the time to do this introspective step with honesty and integrity so you can identify what’s most important to you instead of what you think it “should be,” “ought to be,” “supposed to be,” “got to be,” “have to be” and “must be.”
Do it once. Then do it again in a week. Then in a month. Then redo it quarterly until you feel certain and you have a tear of gratitude when you reveal what your life already truly demonstrates is important to you and what you’re already committed to and that your life shows you are dedicated to.
If you require motivation from the outside to do what you say is important to you, I am certain that it is not truly as important to you as you may imagine.
Step one of the 14-step manifestation formula is identifying what is truly the chief aim or primary objective that you feel is your purpose, your contribution or your mission in the world. It may be raising a family, a social cause, a business, building wealth, keeping fit or a spiritual quest or a composite made out of more than one area—whatever your life truly demonstrates is most meaningful to you.
I often say that people who live by design go farther than people who live by duty.
Step 2. DOMINATE YOUR THOUGHTS ON IT
Once you identify your highest value or purpose, you will not be able to avoid thinking about it. It spontaneously emerges from within your mind if it is truly most important. Your innermost dominant thought becomes your outermost tangible reality because what you think about you tend to keep in your awareness, make decisions more efficiently on and take spontaneous action on,
Your dominant thought is an expression of what you value most. So, whatever it is that is most important to you, you will automatically dominate your thoughts on it. You’ll notice and filter your sensory reality according to what you value most. Your highest value will automatically determine what you think about most. Because you dominate your thoughts on your highest value, you increase the probability of having a momentum-building achievement.
Step 3. VISUALIZE IT IN DETAIL
An old proverb says, “Those with a vision flourish; those without a vision perish.”
If you set a goal aligned with your highest value and you dominate your thoughts on it, you will be more likely see it or visualize it in your mind’s eye. The medial prefrontal cortex of your brain—the executive center—is involved in inspired vision, and it is neurologically linked to your visual associative centers in your occipital cortex. This allows you to more effectively envision and strategically plan out the fulfillment of your mission and how to navigate through any obstacle.
So, when you have a purpose, and you dominate your thoughts on it and see it in your mind’s eye and focus on ever finer detail, you’re most likely to manifest it. If you take the time to create a detailed visual image of what you would love, you increase the probability of achieving it.
Step 4. AFFIRM IT
When you have that clarity on your purpose or mission and you can clearly visualize it, you can articulate it fluently and affirm it in your mind. An earlier meaning and definition of the term affirmation means “to make FIRM in one’s mind.” The only thing that is likely to be “firm in your mind” is something that you are truly committed to, the objective that wakes up your brain’s executive center so you can visualize it clearly in your mind’s eye.
Certainty does not come from the lower amygdala area of your brain or when you pursue your lower values. Instead, certainty comes from knowing what is truly meaningful to you, thinking about it strategically, seeing it clearly in your mind’s eye, and articulating what you would love to create in detail. Any detail you are unable to articulate fluently is something that is unclear in your mind. So, a sign you have a clear vision and that you are inwardly dominating your thought on it is that you can articulate it fluently. When you can articulate it fluently and clearly, somebody else can also see it as you speak it.
When I was speaking in Australia over a decade ago, I shared an inspired story with the audience about the night I met Paul C. Bragg and had my epiphany. A famous artist named Andrew Tischler came up to me at the end and said, “Dr. Demartini, your story inspired me. I am an artist and painter, and I would love to be able to paint what you just described.” My vision was so clear in my mind that I could articulate it clearly to others, who could then see it in detail.
A sign you have a clear vision, that you are dominating your thoughts on it, and that it is clearly a mission for you, is that you can articulate it fluently in a way that inspires.
Step 5. EXPERIENCE TRANSCENDENT FEELINGS
Once you have gone through steps 1—4 above, you’ll likely experience a different set of feelings. Instead of the polarized emotional feelings like joy, sorrow, happiness, sadness, elation, depression, infatuation and resentment, you are likely to have what I call “synthesized feelings” or “transcendent feelings.” These include grace, love, inspiration, enthusiasm, certainty and presence.
These six transcendent feelings are confirmations that you are in a state of authenticity and living congruently with what you value most:
- Your ontological identity revolves around your highest value.
- Your teleological purpose is an expression of your highest value.
- Your epistemological area of expertise is in line with your highest value.
You also automatically absorb, retain and apply information according to what you value most, which is why you tend to have the highest degree of achievement in that area. It is also where you are likely to be the most disciplined, reliable and focused.
If you identify your highest value, dominate your thoughts on it, visualize it, can articulate and affirm it, and feel inspired by it, you are likely to be on track to manifesting it. Transcendent feelings of gratitude, love, inspiration, enthusiasm, certainty and presence are all signs of authenticity and living congruently.
Steps 6, 7 and 8. WRITE IT DOWN IN SPACE AND TIME
When you are in this congruent and authentic state, you’re likely to spontaneously want to write what is inspiring you down to capture it. You have probably had special moments when you have been so inspired by something that you spontaneously wanted to write down what inspired you, so you would not lose the idea.
So steps 6, 7, and 8 are to WRITE it down in SPACE and in TIME.
In other words, write down:
- What inspires you.
- Where would you love to create it?
- When would you love to create it?
When you have clarity around your vision and can fluently articulate it, you tend to create a space and time-oriented achievement strategy in your mind. That is the beauty of your brain’s executive center—it can articulate to you and design for you. So in that way, it is also the design center of the brain.
I often say that people who live by design go farther than people who live by duty.
People who conform and subordinate to other people’s values are not generally the people who are the visionary leaders that go on to do extraordinary things. They are less likely to be great manifestors as they tend to be the ones who wait to see what happens instead of making things happen.
If you are inspired by your vision, can articulate and write it down, and can put down WHERE you want to do it, and WHEN you want to do it, you are more likely to manifest it.
Step 9. TRACK THE METRICS
When you are truly committed to achieving some objective, you will more likely desire to keep metrics on it and measure your actions and milestones relative to what you are striving for.
If the metrics don’t reveal progress, you would be wise to relook at whether your purpose or goal is truly in line with your highest value. If it is really important to you, you will be spontaneously inspired from within to act on it without needing external or extrinsic motivation and you will demonstrate progress.
External motivation is a symptom and not a solution for great achievement. Track the metrics to see if they reflect progress towards what you would love to achieve in life.
Steps 10, 11 and 12. TAKE ACTION WITH ENERGY ON MATTER (RESOURCES)
At this point in the manifestation formula, you are likely to want to take spontaneous action. That action is likely to be filled with inspiration and enthusiasm or energy. I learned a long time ago that energy is infinite once you recognize the source, and that your vitality is directly proportionate to the vividness of your vision. If you would love to have more energy, it is wise to:
- Get clear about what you are truly committed to—your highest value-based purpose and mission.
- Focus on the service of making a difference.
- Be observant of the resources around you.
If you do, your energy will most certainly increase due to the clarity of your mission and vision.
When you are truly living in alignment with your highest priority—according to what you truly value most, you tend to be inspired and have incredible energy, focus and discipline. You don’t need to be reminded to do what you truly love to do every day. Conversely, if you are not disciplined or focused, it is because you are unknowingly attempting to do low-priority tasks.
You will spontaneously act and have energy when you are doing something truly inspiring and meaningful to you. When you do, you will also be more observant of the resources you have all around you. There is no lack of resources, but you are unlikely to notice them if you are not living congruently with your highest value.
Conversely, when you do something low on your list of values, you tend to have a kind of attention deficit disorder, retention deficit disorder, and intention deficit disorder. When you do something high on your list of values, you will have a surplus of attention, retention and intention.
There is synchronicity with people, places, things, ideas, and events that surface in your life that align with what you value most. You will start to be acutely aware of them and act upon them when you live congruently with your highest values.
Step 13. FEEL DESERVING
Once you live in accordance with your highest value and take actions with energy on your surrounding material resources, your self-worth will rise. You will feel that you deserve to manifest what you would love to achieve in your life. When you are centered and authentic, living by your highest values and objectively pursuing something deeply meaningful, your self-worth will become elevated and your deserve level will automatically emerge and rise and you are likely to feel worthy of having what you dream about.
14. PRACTICE GRATITUDE
The final step of the manifestation formula is gratitude. I believe in writing down daily what you are grateful for because if you are grateful for what you have, you will experience, receive or have more to be grateful for.
When you are grateful for what you are, do and have, your mind becomes more resilient and adaptable, and you live in a state of authenticity and grace. It is in this state that you are the most profound and powerful you. The magnificence of who you are in this state is more profound than any fantasies you may attempt to impose on yourself.
If you follow this 14-step Manifestation Formula, you will increase the probability of manifesting what you would love to achieve in your life.
Purpose, plus thought, plus vision, plus internal dialogue or affirmation, plus inspired feeling, plus writing objectives down in space and time, plus keeping metrics, plus taking actions with energy on material resources, plus feeling deserving, plus being thankful, increases the probability of bringing about what you would love to manifest in your life.
Dr. John Demartini is a human behavior specialist, polymath, international speaker and best-selling author.