Even those of us with pinpoint focus and iron clad wills can find ourselves changing our mind when something we so passionately pursued at first cools our desires once we've experienced it.
That's okay! It's a healthy and natural part of the manifestation process to veer off course. If, despite your best efforts, some things on your
actions list didn't go as planned, don't ditch your plans or give up in frustration. Take Step 4 of the
IPAEN 5-Step Strategy to Manifesting Your Dreams and evaluate your
goal plan instead.
Evaluate your plan to check whether you are still on course and whether your actions are getting the results you want. In a constantly changing world, the ability to modify and alter course helps you stay afloat and continue to navigate toward your ultimate goals.
Any setbacks you've encountered are actually good news. You can use the information to better tailor your ideas to fit your vision as you move forward. And you've learned some things along the way, haven't you?
Here's how to maximize your experiences so far, evaluate your results, and use your detours to get back on the path to success:
- Stress Test - Did you write your wish list from a place of true desire or from desperation? Check to make sure you are wishing for what you truly want. If you put "A new place to live" on your list when what you secretly wanted was a better relationship with your current roommate, for example, having to suddenly move out when that wish is granted can be a big setback.
- One Size Fits All? - Are your goals diversified? Just as a hiker benefits from going on trails of different levels of difficulty—easy, moderate, advanced—goals of differing time frames and attainability stand the best chance of being fulfilled. Big dreams give you something to work toward and make you energetic about the future. But setting out to achieve something small and immediate triggers your brain's reward centers. That gives you the confidence to forge ahead toward the bigger goals.
- Grading on the Curve - Are all your dreams crowded into the "long-term" section of your mind's graph? If so, add in more short-term goals to give yourself, and your manifesting muscles, more immediately gratifying challenges to meet. On the other side of the spectrum, if you notice that most of your goals are easy, small-detailed or short-term, they may all be pointing to a bigger picture that will come into focus as you build toward it, or it may mean you're not giving your goals enough fuel to last into the future.
- Reality Check - Did one or all of your goals sound so much better in your head or look so much better in your imagination? When a hobby or personal skill turns into a job, it's very easy to lose the joy. One woman who loved to bake decided to turn her bread making into a small business by offering to supply her favorite local restaurant. Soon, the demand for weekly deliveries outweighed any enjoyment she got from testing recipes and pounding out fresh dough for her single loaves. Although her goal was to open her own bakery one day, she adjusted her wish list to reflect her desire to master the art of bread making, one loaf at a time, in her own kitchen. When she did finally open her business, she was able to confidently supervise and advise the professional baker she hired.
- Re-Source - Chances are, many of the people, places and things you had at your disposal at the outset of your manifesting exercise have either moved away, lost interest, gone out of business, given you bad advice, had a change of heart, or even died somewhere along the way. It's always prudent to keep your resources—suppliers, classes, friends, contacts, etc.—up to date. Keep yourself informed of trends, news, social organizations and even software updates for your mobile devices such as tablets and cell phones. Nothing can be more nerve-frazzling than discovering that your favorite business card printer moved out of state or having that long email you wrote to your overseas translator bounce back unread.
Once you get good at examining the results of your recent actions and honestly reassessing your goals, you can get back on track with manifesting your goals. And, by evaluating your progress so far, you'll feel even more confident in your ability to manifest whatever your heart (truly) desires.