The other day I had a good laugh with a friend. We were talking about two very different experiences I had creating courses related to my work.
And the laugh my friend and I shared started with the names of the two courses. So here they are:
- Course #1: GainControl
- Course #2: Manifest with Ease
Can you feel the difference? GainControl vs. Manifest with Ease.
I get such a chuckle at the contrast.
So let me give you a little context for GainControl.
Early in my life coaching career, I was fascinated by something called tolerations. Tolerations are all the things you’re reluctantly putting up with that create friction and drain energy.
Well, I was fascinated with tolerations. Back then I saw these as the barrier to a life well lived. One or two tolerations is generally no big deal, but I had found most of us have hundreds of them, and they cause us to leak energy all day long.
So a lot of my early work was around tolerations. It was life changing for me when I got rid of these energy drains, and I saw such a difference in the lives of my clients when they addressed the things that they were reluctantly putting up with.
Well, that all sounds pretty good, right? But what do you notice?
All that tolerations work—professionally and personally—was around the energy of unwanted.
Tolerations are unwanted, not wanted. Back then I thought to get rid of what I didn’t want, I had to focus on it. I had to think about it, strategize about it, and tackle it.
If you’ve studied LoA, you know that’s a flawed approach. Giving your attention to what is unwanted is not the way to go. Ever!
But that’s what I was doing with my tolerations work. I’d come to actually specialize in this area. I was an expert on tolerations. I did workshops, coached clients, and did speaking engagements—all about tolerations.
That’s backdrop to the course I created a few years ago called GainControl.
GainControl was all about getting rid of the tolerations in your life. And it was, in its own way, a fantastic course. It was professional and comprehensive. And most of all, it worked. It helped women identify what they were putting up with, address their tolerations, and stop the energy drain.
But this post is about manifesting. Specifically, about how I manifested my latest course called Manifest with Ease: Law of Attraction Simplified versus how I created GainControl.
I’m going to be completely honest: There was nothing remotely related to ease in how I went about creating GainControl.
Instead, I created the course by efforting. By working hard and hustling, by pushing and trying. I had a long To Do list with lots of deadlines. I took massive action—much of it feeling forced, as in have to, should, must. There were seemingly endless problems to be solved.
I will confess: I didn’t once tune into my intuition during the creation of GainControl. Nope, not once.
Instead, I followed the paths of others. There was a lot of This is the way it’s done and I have to do it this way. I followed the formula for successful courses. I looked around to see what other course creators were doing and did the same—even when it rubbed me the wrong way. Even when my own intuition whispered, That’s not the way for you.
Now, I say all that with so much compassion for myself.
I have so much compassion for myself because I simply didn’t know any other way.
All I knew back then is if there was something I wanted, if I wanted to get from point A to point B, the way to do that was to make it happen. To take a bunch of action. To hustle and work really hard, to push and effort my way forward.
So, of course, that’s how I approached creating GainControl.
Back then, it didn’t matter if the process itself wasn’t really enjoyable. In fact, enjoyment would have seemed like an unreasonable requirement.
No, the point was to do whatever was necessary to make it happen. Even if the journey wasn’t particularly enjoyable, the end game would be worth it. That was my mindset. The payoff at the end of the goal achieved, the shiny penny acquired—in my case the course created—would be worth it.
Creating GainControl was very much about suck it up, do the hard work, and pay the price with proverbial blood, sweat, and tears. So that’s what I did.
In the end, I gained control of GainControl.
The course was launched. There was a lot of relief when it was done. And I was proud of myself for creating the course and going to all that effort.
In fact, back then I wore that effort like a little badge of honor. Look at me: I work hard. I push through. I make things happen.
That might have been the end of the story. If not for my subsequent obsession with all things Law of Attraction, I probably would have continued down that same path for any future courses I created.
But this isn’t really about course creation, it’s about manifesting. It’s about how you want to show up in the world. What do you believe about what it takes to get what you want? Do you want to effort your way to what you want? Or do you want to ease your way?
I took a decidedly manual approach to manifesting when I created GainControl.
It was all upstream. It was forced action and massive action, but nary a bit of inspired action. It was efforting and pushing. It was Making.Things.Happen.
The irony is not lost on me: I was creating a course about tolerations while experiencing a ton of frustration and friction. Creating that course was a toleration! And through it all, I kept thinking: I just need to try harder. I just need to work harder.
Well, trying harder and working harder are warning signs. If you find yourself thinking or saying you need to try harder, you are not manifesting with ease.
Don’t get me wrong. As I created GainControl, I felt a certain satisfaction getting things done, as exhausting and low vibe as all that action and efforting was. Whenever I marked a To Do off the list, I got a little hit of dopamine, the feel-good chemical. But it certainly wasn’t the easeful, enjoyable satisfaction of inspired action. More on that in just a bit.
Here’s the bottom line: You can get things done, achieve goals, and acquire shiny pennies the manual way. You can make things happen.
I’ve lived most of my life that way. Maybe you have too. And it works, right? You do achieve goals. You do acquire shiny pennies. You do, indeed, make things happen.
But what if there’s a different way?
An easier way. A more fun way. A way that feels good and yields what you want.
“Endless ease and flow and fun and clarity is the way it is supposed to be for you.” —Abraham
Oh my gosh—that’s what I want! Isn’t that what you want too?
Creating GainControl offered me so much contrast, which clarified my preferences for not only creating a course, but for manifesting in general.
Which brings me to part two of my story—and that is how Manifest with Ease: Law of Attraction Simplified came into the world. Happily, it’s a much more fun story to tell.
I just love that I manifested this course with ease!
It would be very strange to have efforted my way to a course called Manifest with Ease.
So here’s the thing: I actually had no plans for a Law of Attraction course. In fact, I was at work on a daily meditation book for Law of Attraction and having a lot of fun in the early stages of researching and writing the book.
Then one day, while totally absorbed in writing my book and in a really high-vibe state, I had an idea, seemingly out of nowhere. Actually two ideas—the name of an LoA course and the five modules I would include.
Now, keep in mind, I wasn’t working on a LoA course. I wasn’t even thinking about one at the time. And yet, there it was—the name of the course: Manifest with Ease: Law of Attraction Simplified. And I intuitively knew there would be five modules that would explain in simple terms the core essentials for manifesting.
In that moment I felt so much excitement and positive expectation. I could see and feel the completed course.
“By visualizing my desired outcome, the perfect action is always inspired.” —Abraham
Now, at this point I had just jotted down the name of the course and the topic for each of the five modules. But did I even have a desired outcome at that point? You bet I did!
My desired outcome was two-fold.
I wanted to:
- Practice manifesting with ease
- Simplify the core essentials of LoA
Abraham says if I visualize my desired outcome, the perfect action is always inspired. So I truly trusted that inspired action—and only inspired action—would manifest the course.
And it absolutely did!
I was never tempted to effort in creating Manifest with Ease.
Instead, it was all inspiration, aligned action, and flow. I smiled my way through creating this course.
Just to share a few tangible examples:
- I had so much fun selecting the photos for each of the course modules. It felt like play—not work—to select the images. Each module has a different visual theme, and the course design is incredibly high vibe.
- My partner, Gumroad, who helps me deliver the digital content, is a dream to work with. They made setting up the course so easy and intuitive. I just love my relationship with Gumroad and how good I feel about working together.
- The actual content of the course flowed out of me. I’m not saying it was channeled, but it was very much a “to me and through me” sort of experience. These are the core essentials for leveraging Law of Attraction. These are the essentials that emerge with every client who wants to manifest with greater ease.
I didn’t have a project plan or even a To Do list to create Manifest with Ease.
Before my obsession with Law of Attraction, I was a master list maker. But in the past those lists turned me into a taskmaster with myself, which was very low vibe.
So If I didn’t have a project plan or To Do list, how did I go about creating the course?
Well, very simple really: I just made sure to get in alignment and then take whatever inspired action flowed from that aligned state.
And I trusted—big time.
The contrast of my GainControl experience had clarified for me that this time around I would listen to and trust my own inner wisdom.
So I trusted myself. I did not look outside myself for answers. I trusted my own inner guidance in what to include in the course, the format, how to launch, the price, everything.
I also trusted the Universe. I didn’t worry about knowing all the steps upfront to create the course. I wasn’t concerned whether I knew everything I needed to know. Or had all the resources I would need. There was none of that scarcity thinking. I trusted the Universe would provide and the how would be revealed.
And it was!
Now, of course, I did my part to manifest this course.
I got in alignment. I appreciated in advance. And from my state of elevated emotion, of a high vibration, inspiration followed. I heard my inner guidance. The Universe revealed the path. I went with the flow, noticed opportunities, connected dots, and acted on inspired ideas.
And all the while allowing the process to be easy. Manifesting with ease.
Regardless of what your relationship to efforting has been in the past, you can manifest with greater ease starting now. To help you do just that, let me share four distinctions about making things happen versus manifesting with ease.
1. The first distinction is efforting vs. inspired action.
Efforting is all about trying to MAKE things happen. Exerting, trying, pushing, forcing, struggling. You are working hard when you’re efforting.
Inspired action, on the hand, naturally has an ease to it. Even though you’re taking action, you’re doing so in an easeful way. You’re taking action you want to take, that you’re excited to take.
You enjoy inspired action whereas efforting is typically something to endure, to get through.
“Your Inner Being will never guide you toward the most efforting way. Your Inner Being is always lighting up the most delightful, most satisfying, most intoxicating, most life-giving, breath-inspiring way.” —Abraham
Just let that really sink in: Your Inner Being will never guide you toward efforting.
There is this underlying expectation that to get what you want has to be hard. This belief that if it’s not hard, you’re not doing it right.
No! It’s the opposite. If you have to effort your way there and force yourself forward, that’s not manifesting with ease. That’s the old school manual way. Stop expecting hard. Anticipate ease.
Let me dispel a myth that you don’t take action when you manifest with ease. You most certainly do take action.
- But it’s alignment before action.
- Action that is in alignment.
- Aligned action.
So here’s my question: Are you willing to let go of efforting and start taking inspired action? What would this look like in your life?
2. The next distinction is control vs. flow.
My old way of showing up in the world and trying to make things happen involved a ton of control. Or at least it involved me trying to have a ton of control.
Control over when, where, who, what, and how. I wanted to know upfront all the steps, decide on the timelines, and know exactly how everything would happen.
Of course, most of the time, all my efforts to control were fraught with friction.
- I would be disappointed X didn’t happen when I wanted it to.
- I would worry I didn’t know Step C before I’d taken Step A and B.
- I was frustrated when this person or that resource didn’t line up with my plan.
Control is a slippery thing. The more you want it, the more you begin to realize how little you actually have over all the external—the circumstances, people, events, situations, and things.
These days, I often ask myself: Jennifer, are you going with the flow or trying to control? And I admit, even 2+ years into Law of Attraction, I’m amazed how many times my honest answer is, Flow, what flow? I’m trying to control!
Of course, there’s no flow when you’re in control mode. Flow and control are opposites. The beautiful downstream flow where everything you want is, is only possible when you let go of control and stop going upstream against the current.
So here’s my question: Are you willing to let go of control and go with the flow? What would your life look like if you trusted the Universe to connect the dots and just headed downstream?
3. Next is a really important distinction: Outcome-oriented vs. feeling-focused.
Know this: If you are solely outcome-oriented, it’s very unlikely you are manifesting with ease.
Manifesting with ease comes from a state of elevated emotions, like love and appreciation, positive expectation and excitement, empowerment and freedom. In other words, emotions that feel good.
If you are solely focused on the outcome you’re trying to achieve—the goal you want to accomplish or shiny penny you want to acquire—you may sacrifice how you feel along the way to what you want.
In contrast, if you are feeling-focused, you not only pay attention to how you feel, you actually prioritize feeling good. In fact, feeling good is your fuel for manifesting.
Here’s my question: Are you feeling good along the way to what you want or have you been postponing feeling good until what you want manifests? If the latter, are you willing to shift from being outcome-oriented to feeling-focused?
For me, this meant changing my old beliefs about hustle and hard work and creating new beliefs about ease. I had to be willing to take off my effort-and-hustle badge of honor. Maybe you want to take yours off too.
4. The fourth and final distinction is whether you’re focused on a future payoff versus the payoff of the present moment.
If you’re willing to sacrifice feeling good in the present for some payoff in the future when you think you’ll feel good, you’ve got it backwards.
How you feel in this present moment matters. The future isn’t better than right now. You really do have the same capacity for joy right now—in this present moment—as you do when you achieve the goal or acquire the shiny penny. Really let that sink in.
Here’s the great thing: Being feeling-focused and placing value on a present payoff isn’t counter to manifesting what you want. Quite the contrary, it puts you in receiving mode, which speeds and magnifies manifestation.
Being feeling-focused and interested in a present moment payoff has the added benefit that you feel good, you feel happy, along the way to your manifestation, not only when it arrives.
Are you willing to shift the payoff from the future to the present?
Those four distinctions have been helpful to me in understanding how to manifest with ease.
I encourage you to reflect on those distinctions and think about how each one has been showing up in your life. Here’s a quick recap:
- Efforting vs. Inspired action
- Control vs. Flow
- Outcome-oriented vs. Feeling-focused
- Future payoff vs. Present payoff
In case you’re wondering, here’s what happened to GainControl.
It’s been a few years since I create the course. It was done. It was available on my website. I received income from course sales.
I suppose there was the momentum of inertia, if you will, to just leave the course as is, continue to offer it, not necessarily promote it, but leave well enough alone.
But then a few months ago I realized something: Offering GainControl didn’t feel high vibe to me. Perhaps because of how it was created—through the energy of efforting. Perhaps because my work—and my life—is so much through the lens of Law of Attraction these days.
Bottom line: The topic of the course and its origin story are simply not aligned with my energy and outlook today.
So a few months ago, I gently, but firmly let the course go. I didn’t archive it or run a final promotion. I simply closed the course down and deleted all those many, many friction-filled hours of efforting.
When I did this, I immediately felt my energy lift. That’s the wonderful thing: We are always elevated in the letting go of what no longer serves us.
“Everything you want is there and it is easy…if you would go with the flow. It is only hard when you don’t.” —Abraham
