It seems like everyone, myself included at times, is overly focused on how what we want will manifest. How it will happen. How it will unfold. In what way or manner, by what means.
- You want more abundance in your life. How?
- You want to attract a romantic relationship? How?
- You want to grow your business? How?
- You want more freedom in your life. How?
Focusing on how when you don’t know how is a momentum stealer.
The moment you shift from focusing on your desire to how it will happen, all the wind goes out of your sails. You’ve experienced that, right?
You’re getting really excited about something you want to manifest, a goal you want to achieve or shiny penny you want to acquire. You’re feeling good, you’re feeling the high vibe of positive expectation and enthusiasm…and then you douse it with But how? How will it happen? How do I make it happen?
Focusing on how blocks intuition. Focusing on how bogs you down in details and tactics, many of which you simply don’t know and don’t have access to at a certain stage in your desired manifestation.
Here’s an example. Just prior to attending an Abraham workshop, I had an intuitive nudge to offer a group coaching experience. It was a clear message I was receiving. I had this very clear inner knowing that co-creating in a small group coaching setting would be a really fun and beneficial experience for everyone involved.
I was feeling incredibly excited about the whole concept, with one inspired idea after another coming to me. It felt like I was getting this download of inspiration.
Over the next few days, I noticed when I stayed in the what and why—so what I wanted and why I wanted it—it continued to be a free-flowing, high vibe experience.
But whenever I shifted into how, into the details, the do this-do that, whenever I started to make how my focus, the downstream flow stopped. The high vibe dissipated.
Going to how slowed or altogether stopped my momentum. How introduced friction into what had been flow. Focusing on how created doubt and made what had felt like fun start to feel like work.
I’ve had this experience so many times since my obsession began with all things Law of Attraction. When I let the how unfold in a downstream way, it does so beautifully. But whenever I go prematurely to how, I’m headed upstream in a flash, and then the efforting and manual way of making things happen begins.
“When you talk about what you want and why you want it, there’s usually less resistance within you than when you talk about what you want and how you’re going to get it. When you pose questions you don’t have answers for, like how, where, when, who, it sets up a contradictory vibration that slows everything down.” —Abraham
That so lands for me! I’m sure you can relate to that.
Many of my clients are posing questions they don’t have answers for, and doing so rains on the parade of what they want.
Doing so lowers their vibration and doesn’t feel good.
- Posing questions you don’t have answers for makes you doubt yourself and your ability to manifest what you want.
- Posing questions you don’t have answers for takes you out of the fun and flow of pure desire.
- Posing questions you don’t have answers for cuts you off from inspiration and introduces friction.
Now, if you are posing questions for which you do have an inner knowing, that’s downstream. That’s high vibe.
But it’s when, as Abraham says, you pose questions for which you don’t have answers, that you’re getting in your own way. And you are getting in the way of the Universe.
Focusing on how is incredibly short-sighted.
You might be able to conceive of a dozen ways to get what you want. Well, the Universe has an infinite number of ways to deliver to you what you want.
A dozen ways vs. an infinite number. Hmmm… which do you want to tap into? I know I want to align with the infinite number of possible ways, not the paltry dozen.
Often we don’t even have a dozen ways for how. Instead, we think there are one or two ways to get what we want.
For instance, a client tells me she wants to earn more money and the only way she can conceive for how is get a raise at work or change jobs. But there are so many other ways money could flow into her experience. Focusing on how is limiting what can show up in her reality.
In fact, Mike Dooley, the creator of Notes from the Universe and author of Playing the Matrix
Oh my goodness! That feels so juicy to me, and definitely not the way most of us are operating, right?
- We want something and we immediately start asking how.
- We have a desire and instantly our minds start down the thought path of How will this happen?
By saying get rid of any conception of how you’ll get what you want, Mike is encouraging you to stay in your lane. Your lane is what you want and why you want it. Your lane is not how you will get it.
“The “how’s” are the domain of the Universe. It always knows the shortest, quickest, fastest, most harmonious way between you and your dream.” —Mike Dooley
How is not your domain, my friend. How is the domain of the Universe.
Just imagine for a moment that you really embrace the Universe knows the shortest, quickest, fastest, most harmonious way between you and your dream.
- What would you do differently if you believed this?
- What would you stop doing?
- How would you feel knowing how is the domain of the Universe?
I don’t know about you, but that feels like an enormous relief to me!
“The Source within you knows everything you want, and where everything you want is, and your proximity to where it is, and the path of least resistance to get you to it.” —Abraham
The path of least resistance to get you to it is the how.
But you don’t know what this path of least resistance is in the sense of steps or To Do lists or project plans. But you can feel your way along the path of least resistance. And that’s what I want to talk about next.
Why do you want what you want? Why do you want the promotion or the new house? Why do you want the relationship or the travel? What do you want the money or the wellness?
I’ll tell you why. Because you think the promotion, the relationship, the money will make you feel better.
“Everything you want is because you think you will feel better in the having of it.” —Abraham
That’s why you want what you want. Now, you can get more specific than “feel better”. You might say:
- I want the promotion because it will make me feel empowered.
- I want the relationship because it will make me feel secure.
- I want the money because it will make me feel free.
All those specific emotions are simply flavors of “feel better”.
You want what you want to feel better.
Which means to be a vibrational match to what you want, you have to feel better now.
That’s what Step 3 of Manifesting, Receive, is all about. Receiving mode is about being a vibrational match to what you want.
So let’s back up. Law of Attraction 101: When you ask it is given. Asking is Step 1 and Believing what you want has been vibrationally created is Step 2. So Steps 1 and 2 of manifesting are done.
Which brings us to Step 3: Receive. Are you in receiving mode for what you want? Are you a vibrational match for what you want?
Because if you won’t feel better—if you won’t feel empowered, secure, free—until you get what you want, then you are not a vibrational match.
Let me connect all this back up to how.
Focusing on how what you want will manifest probably means you are not in receiving mode. Because you are not feeling an emotion that vibrationally aligns with what you want. You are offering one vibration, but the vibration of what you want to manifest is another.
For instance, let’s say I’m focusing on how what I want will manifest, but I don’t know how. And because I don’t know how, I’m feeling a lot of uncertainty, confusion, doubt, frustration. Those emotions are not on the frequency of what I want.
If the vibration I’m offering, because I can’t get my attention off how, how, how is uncertainty, confusion, doubt, and frustration, I can’t attract what I want. I’m not a match to what I want.
Quite simply: Focusing on how usually prevents being in receiving mode.
Now if I effort enough I might manually make what I want happen. Maybe. But it won’t be a high vibe journey. Taking a manual approach and focusing on how means I have to do the heavy lifting instead of letting the Universe work its magic.
If you find yourself questioning, I want X, but how will it happen? then you have an amazing opportunity to clean up your vibration and align with the vibration of what you want.
This post is about staying focused on why you want what you want, not how it will manifest. Because when you stay focused on why—which is always a feeling at the core—and then align with that feeling now, you pave the way for the manifestation.
In other words, you are a vibrational match to what you want—and then what you want will manifest.
“We want you to savor the manifestation of the emotion. If you can enjoy the manifestation of the emotion, you’ll move fast to the manifestation of what you want.” —Abraham
When you focus on what you want and how it will manifest, you introduce friction in your vibration, you block the support of the Universe, and you slow everything down.
This might seem like a strange way to phrase it: But let’s talk about how not to focus on how.
Because even if you’re buying into the notion that focusing on how introduces friction in your vibration when you don’t know how, you might be thinking, What’s the practical application? What do I do instead? How do I avoid going to how?
Here’s really the only how you need to know: Enjoy the manifestation of the emotion.
That’s the how; it’s not all the tasks on a To Do list that you were thinking make up the how.
“Keep your focus on how you want to feel and let the Universe fill in the details.” —Abraham
The question is not:
- How will I get what I want?
- How will what I want happen?
- How will I make it happen?
The question you want to ask is this: How will I feel when it happens?
Then your work, your opportunity, is to feel that way now. Because that makes you a vibrational match to what you want to manifest. When you are a vibrational match, what you want or better will manifest into your reality.
Here’s an example. I work with a client who has her own business and is a consultant. She said, I want to add an extra $2K in revenue each month. Her inclination was then to ask how. How will that happen? How could it happen?
Instead, I asked her how she will feel when an extra $2K in revenue is coming in each month. She said, Appreciative, empowered, at ease.
The “how” of her desire is to feel those emotions now. To feel appreciative now. To feel empowered now. To feel at ease now.
Remember: The emotion is the first manifestation. When she feels those emotions now, my client will know she’s on the right track to what she wants manifesting into form.
Here are 11 guideposts to get on the path of least resistance.
In thinking about times I’ve turned how over to the Universe and truly been on the path of least resistance, I came up with these 11 guideposts. I’m sure this is not an exhaustive list, but these 11 are a really good place to start if you are ready to manifest with a whole lot more ease!
- Stay close to what you want and why.
- Identify the feeling you are after and activate it now (feel it now). If you’re getting hung up on feeling that specific emotion, simply feel good. That works too!
- Know the emotion is the first manifestation.
- Trust the Universe. Trust the Universe can deliver.
- Be open to being surprised about how what you want unfolds. There’s something really sweet about living in the mystery and letting the Universe delight you.
- Allow what you want to unfold in its perfect timing rather according to your timelines and deadlines.
- Listen to your intuition. Your intuition is a wholly different guidance system than a manual approach to making what you want happen.
- Take inspired action. Staying out of the how doesn’t mean you won’t take action. But only take inspired action. Abraham says: “Action that comes from the feeling of inspiration is action that will produce good results, for you are allowing the Laws of the Attraction of the Universe to carry you.”
- Manage your mind. Think thoughts about your desire that feel good. Practice beliefs that support what you want to create. “The path of least resistance is a thought path not an action path.” —Abraham
- Let go of the need to put a project plan in place to make what you want happen. Now, if a project plan feels like the highest vibe thing to you, then do it. But for many of us, that is not the case and a project plan, a task list, a bunch of self-imposed marching orders are signs of efforting your way to how.
- Turn your desire over to the Universal Manager. The Universe is your project manager. Or can be, at least, if you allow.
“You are never going to come to the end of your pile of desires. Every time a desire is born within you, and you line up with the feeling of it (not the feeling of the absence of it), it will flow easily into your experience.” —Abraham
