Manifestation Goal Setting

Manifestation is using the law of creation to alter reality according to your will. When people discover this art, some may fall short and act like a child in a sweetshop and the whole thing becomes an exercise in materialism. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with obtaining material things and making life easier, but to grow it is necessary to become a spiritual adult and ask deeper questions.

What are the benefits of goal setting?

The benefit of the practice I'm about to present is that you can first take all the 'sweet shop' desires you have, and chunk up to some common, unchanging themes. Nine (or less) in fact. Why nine? Because the second thing you can do is link those to themes to a simple, visual memory system so that they are recalled consistently, in the same order.

Next, the themes are orientated to be about service or other people in some way (yes, you can still manifest material things for yourself, but all can also have a deeper purpose) and lastly incorporate these themes into a daily practice. So, in recap, the steps are:

1 - List all your material desires
2 - Extract nine or less common themes
3 - Orientate the themes towards service/giving
4 - Create a consistent daily practice

How to start manifestation goal setting

First of all, I was lying about nine themes... you're only going to get six. The first two and the last are pre-chosen (by my long practice of this technique). Now there are all sorts of exercises about deciding your life goals and what is important to you in life. Many people already into the manifestation scene already have a list of all the things they are trying to manifest and ideas about where they will be in five years and so on, which is great. Now what you need to do is 'chunk up' everything into six themes.

Goal Setting Example

I can give you an example from my personal life of what I mean by 'chunking up'. Things I have manifested (consciously) in the past were teaching jobs, volunteering opportunities and share houses. The 'chunk up' from these things was a single theme. I was teaching for years and the school folded and I was between jobs for ages but then found a position in a cinema that included shared accommodation with other staff. Before that I was in a 'teacher house' full of colleagues.

Looking back, the last teaching position was with a private apartment and I taught weekend classes where I was the only teacher on premises, which I absolutely hated. What I realised is that what I really liked in these experiences, including other things I've sought out in the past (practicing Zen in monasteries, public speaking clubs etc.) is that what I really like is community. I like to be part of a team. I don't like close friendships or relationships so much, but to live with people that I am connected to. It makes me really happy, and times in the past when I didn't have this, then I was really unhappy.

For most of my youth I was either agoraphobic or socially phobic, and compared to life now I realise how much community, in whatever form, is important to me. That's great because it's about giving, I'm part of a team. I'm supporting something. I'm giving my gifts.

What about material things. What if you want a flash car? How do you want to feel? Do you want to be noticed or respected, because that could come down to wanting connection to people. As another example, if a major goal is to physically look better or younger, then the need could be intimacy (and there's nothing wrong with that).

When you are deciding these themes, think to yourself, would I always, in the past and always into the future, be happy burning this theme into the energy of my aura and making it forever a part of myself? So say with community, there was never a time I wanted to be totally isolated in life, and I'm pretty sure I won't in the future, and if I die here and carry onto some other world, I hope it's not me alone in an alternative universe somewhere but I can still be part of a community. So yes, I am happy to make this an unchanging theme of my manifestation practice.

So now to introduce the memory (mnemonic) system to keep the coming practice consistent. This is based on a system by Tony Buzan which I have used all of my life (similar alternative here). There are nine shapes and each one is actually shaped like a number. The first is a candle, because it is shaped like a number one. The second is a swan or duck, because it is (kind of shaped like) a number two, and so on. So the numbers are:

One - Candle
Two - Ducks
Three - Breasts
Four - Chair
Five - Hatstand
Six - Golf club
Seven - Fishing rod and line
Eight - Snowman
Nine - Helium balloon on a string

I'll include a couple of graphics below courtesy of Dall-e so you get the idea.

The next step is to create a little scene illustrating each theme, linked to the mnemonic to keep the practice consistent. Each scene should have you in it and have you moving or performing a movement in some way. Also it's better to be experiencing something through each of your senses (to help feel yourself into the scene). Each scene also has a basic affirmation of the theme. I'll give you the first two examples as I'm suggesting you use the same themes as are presented for the first two.

So I'll give you the example from my own practice. The first thing I created is spiritual awakening. I've always been a spiritual person, and my lifelong interest and practice makes me think there is an ultimate state of awakening, nirvanah, an extinguishing of self and ultimate realization, and it is my first goal.

Now perhaps you don't have that exact belief. But people who come to manifestation do tend to be thinkers, and spiritual people must believe in spiritual advancement, even if we don't know what the ultimate goal is in a current unenlightened state. I think that however you envision the end result of human spiritual endeavour, I would recommend that you make it the first and last goal, because it imparts meaning and purpose and there is a safety to it.

If you were fully spiritually realized, how would that be? What scene could convey that? For me I see myself in a Buddhist temple. That's not quite as exotic as it sounds as I spent extended periods, more than once, living in a Zen monastery. I see myself kneeling before the Buddha shrine and wafting incense. This wafting movement is important as it 'anchors' me in my inner/imaginary body, plus I can smell the incense and hear the meditation bell and feel the incense stick. There is a lit candle which is prominent (to remind me the order and keep it consistent). The abbot is with me and telling me I should now be a teacher because of my realization. The affirmation 'I say at this point is:

I give thanks for my full awakening in this life time. May I teach and bring spiritual peace to many'.

The second goal for myself is health. I would also recommend this as your second goal, because it is universal, no one wants to be sick. It's altruistic because everything we could ever do for other people depends on being healthy and alive. You might be in good health now, or you might have some issues you want to work with. Personally I have a genetic disease that affects my muscles, so I focus on managing this a little. It affects the muscles in my face and makes me look a bit older and tired.

The main scene I create here centers about a comedy club I go to. One of my hobbies is stand up comedy. I see myself talking to my comedy buddies and them complimenting me on my appearance before I go on stage. There is (in reality) a large screen that shows scenes from the theatre, and the camera focuses on me so I am visible on screen and I have the appearance I want. My main friend there has a teeshirt with a swan on it (to anchor the number sequence for me). I can smell the customers' food and hear the applause as my name is called and I bound up onto the stage (I walk with an affected gait in 'reality').

I often add another scene here of working out and being massaged by a partner as my body being touched helps 'feel' myself into the body, the movement of exercise anchors me into the body. As I'm being massaged, then I can feel the tautness of the strong muscles and again, it helps 'feel' myself into the scene, smell the oil etc.

The affirmation is:

I give thanks for the healing light which shines in me. Everyday all my muscles grow bigger, my mind grows brighter and my body grows stronger. May I serve all living beings.

So now you get the idea you can fill in another six (or less) according to your own life. As a point of interest my themes are abundance, safety, to be prolific, intimacy, community and teaching.

I can add a few tips to help you with this manifestation goal setting. One thing is that a scene that is hard to create visually, you could be telling a friend about your success. For community I want to start an NGO that helps people overcome addiction, so I see myself managing a suitable property I (will) own, giving a friend a tour and explaining to him what I do to help people and his impressed reaction.

One more reason goal setting is important

Alright. So, I'm going to make a suggestion for the ninth (or a smaller number if you have less than six self-chosen themes) and that is dying. ... U-huh. I suggest the last theme should be to manifest your death.

Now just wait a minute and let me explain myself. People never directly include this as a goal. The thing is, it's going to happen, and personally, if I have the power to choose a certain death scene I would much rather consciously create it. Rather than just see what happens and when. I'd like it to be a long time from now, peaceful, that I'm mobile and productive to the end. Hopefully I don't leave too much mess behind me, just a sizable legacy for the charities I support (I have no dependent family).

So it's necessary to see yourself much older than you are now! But peaceful, at rest and at a distance. I think of a funeral, with a picture of a me that is much older than I am now, but smiling and standing unaided. I imagine all the people I transformed with my NGO type work and writing, attending and applauding. I hear a Buddhist Abbot outline my achievements in life. I mentally say an overall, central affirmation:

I give my life to community, awakening and service and I ask for guidance in this.

Then in the visual scene of my funeral, an attendee lets a balloon go into the air and I watch it rise up and disappear into the sky's blue ozone with a sense of surrender.

So with this, I have nine images, or scenes, showing the fulfilment of my themes. If there's ever a specific, material thing I need, I can include it into the pre-existing scene until it has manifested (or afterwards as this, like all magick, is a gratitude practice), and although it took a long time to write it all up, the visual scenes are actually quite brief and can be cycled through in a short amount of time.

The main point is that, they are going to be largely unchanging for the rest of my life. Thus the pure intentions will become a permanent part of my energy of consciousness, which, I believe, I will take with me beyond this body. A direction of being safe, abundant, protected, compassionate and giving.

Manifestation goal setting as an ongoing practice

When I lived in the Zen monastery there was a practice we had to do once a week. I really liked it because it was easy and everyone was focused on a text, meaning I could relax my posture, stretch a little and not get caught! The practice was that the Abbot would read a small text by the Zen master Dogen, and we had a little book and would follow along. It was quite short and took ten minutes or less. It was called Rules of Meditation (download pdf), and basically summed up the essense of what we were doing in the monastery, i.e. the advice you need to become enlightened. So it was really to keep us on course.

I think this translates really well to a manifestation practice, or manifestation as a way of life. Elsewhere in my writing I recommend manifestation scripting, i.e. writing a spontaneous manifestation script twice a week on the moon cycles, as part of practice, to condense the script into a glyph for practice. So the manifestation script changes slightly every two weeks as it is rewritten.

This goal setting document is different in that I recommend typing it up once, and it then remains largely unchanged. By typing it you can make sure each goal has a movement in (like me wafting incense or dancing), perhaps write that movement in a different colour so it is obvious.

I suggest simply reading the document once a fortnight in-between the moon cycles. So if you are manifestation scripting on new and full moons, then you would read the goal setting document seven days after each new and full moon - that means you will have a brief practice to state your intentions each week.

The manifestation script is spontaneous, changes each week and tends to state material goals. The goal setting document is more about themes and life purpose. My experience is that to do this weekly practice is not so often that it becomes a chore, but not so infrequent that your unchanging intentions are indistinct to your mind and energy field.

Another way to work with this manifestation goal setting is as a type of 'salutation to the sun' type practice. Throughout the world, people perform brief rituals to mark the passing of the day, like Muslims praying to Mecca (no, you don't have to go that far). I like the practice outlined by infamous occultist Alistair Crowley which involved four 'salutations' to Egyptian deities of dawn, noon, evening and night with a mudra (special hand position) and a brief verse to say.

Now this is going to be too much for most people, but what I would suggest is the same practice in terms of time. This can be briefly performed (without speaking or gesturing) on waking and sleeping, plus midday and sunset. Each of these times, briefly go through mental images and mentally voice the affirmations. It should take less that half a minute, but do it with a strong sense of certainty and emotion. See my other teaching about energy as it will help to know what kind of energy is in you at the time you are performing it and how to change it if need be.

This is a great practice to do for the rest of your life as it will be firstly increasing your power of mindfulness, to keep yourself on track to remember to do this, but it's also beneficial to be frequently resetting the course of the mind. There will be times when a bad mood or negative daydream will need to be interrupted and reorientated to complete the manifestation practice and this in itself strengthens your manifestation goals.