How I manifested my income in 2022 & 2023

You get what you want, or find what you need.

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Image created by me in DALL·E 3

I was stuck for ideas to write about, so I turned to my close friends.

“What would you like to know about me and work?” I asked them on WhatsApp.

“How you manifested your income to a precise figure every month,” Asha recalled something I had totally forgotten.

Ah, manifestation. Why had the thought to write about it escaped me?

It’s quite possibly the most magical thing about my work.

I realised that I didn’t think anything of it because it came naturally to me. Our inherent talents are not impressive to us, because they are hard to pinpoint, deconstruct, write about.

It's the achievements earned through struggle/perseverance that truly impress us, probably because they are more teachable and easier to describe.

My income manifestation story, deconstructed

I went fully self-employed in January 2022.

The only potential income sources were my 2 blogs – Lucky Attitude and Slasher Career. which up until that point had only made £300-600 a month. My other potential income source was my vintage fashion business, which I was planning to launch in March 2022.

The excitement about my vintage business gave me boundless energy and dedication. I had no problems waking up before 7am in winter to work on my website, branding, and marketing.

From January to March, I worked from 7am-6pm 6 days a week.

This is the power of working on something that excites you. You get in flow and are in alignment. You want to keep doing it. It doesn’t feel like work.

First rule of manifestation: you get what you give

January 2022, my first month of income independence, was also the first month I reached £1000 since I started blogging in 2013.

Two new agencies reached out, signed me as one of their publishers, and sent me several orders immediately.

This may sound woo-woo, but I reckon the universe has a way of sorting you out when you put in the effort.

I genuinely believe that this boost in income was the universe's reward for my dedication to my vintage business.

It was like:

“I know you need money to live on while you are building your thing. I don’t want you to give up and go back to office work. Here, have some universal basic income.” 🙃

Rewards are not always direct, but they are always there.

Sometimes, you get rewarded directly by succeeding in what you do, other times rewards come in unexpected ways.

You always get what you give.

Second rule of manifestation: rewards are always there

When you start something new, you have to give it your all without the guarantee of an immediate payoff or, in my case, without any guaranteed income.

I’ve never been afraid of putting in the work now to reap the rewards later. The need for immediate gratification doesn't concern me. I'm confident that dedicating myself to my passions will naturally open unexpected doors, leading me closer to my calling.

I trust that by focusing on something I like, things I like start to happen.

Here’s what usually happens when I start a new venture:

a) I either get what I want

b) I get something I didn’t know I wanted

c) I find out that the thing I thought I wanted, is not what I actually want (read here why I decided to close my vintage business)

In any a b c case, putting your attention and energy into something you enjoy doing is never wasted. Even if it’s an exercise of elimination.

I don’t understand why young people fret over quitting a dead-end job to chase what lights them up. Worst case, you get another job. Best case, it will work out.

Unconventional ways to get what you want

I go for things that interest me because I’m curious to see what happens.

I don’t focus on the money. I focus on the effort.

For most people, this is an incomprehensible idea. They equate work with immediate payoff and external recognition, which limits their capabilities and future potential.

If you focus on money, your time will be tied to it directly. But if you focus on effort, you may create an asset/brand/skill that breaks free from the tedium of such basic exchange.

I made £200K blogging. What’s my ‘secret’?

Third rule of manifestation: you get what you ask for

My goal for February 2022, was to have another good month, and by ‘good’ I meant at least £1000.

I need to preface that this income is 85% passive, I don’t do much to get that money, so I don’t expect much either.

I ended up making £1488, and realised I have limiting beliefs.

Why couldn’t I aim to make £2000? Plenty of people make £5000, £10,000 and £50,000 every month online.

We get used to earning what we earn, it becomes ‘good enough’ and we stop aiming higher.

I decided to aim (aka manifest) £2000 for March.

I made £2267.

That’s almost £800 more than the month before.

Was I actually manifesting now? Because I surely didn’t do anything differently.

Except for one thing:

I wrote down a numeric goal for each month, and what I would use the money for.

I kept increasing my income goal just to see what happens, and here's the outcome:

Aimed for £2500 in April, earned £2523.

Aimed for £3000 in May, earned £3130.

Aimed for £3200 in June, earned £3189.

See the pattern here? The universe gives you exactly what you ask for. So have fun with it.

Since then I’ve been making an average of £4000 every month.

That’s more than what I made in digital marketing, and I have way better quality of life.

I can sleep longer if I feel like it, go to Tate on weekdays when it’s less busy, slow down in August to enjoy the Edinburgh Fringe festival and book flights whenever there are better deals.

That’s exactly the life I want: simple, slow yet abundant.

Fourth rule of manifestation: you can only have what you can visualise

Visualisation is fundamental to manifestation.

Because you can’t have what you can’t visualise.

Many people struggle with visualisation, because their subconscious beliefs are not aligned with their conscious desires.

You can consciously want to be a millionaire (lazy example, I know), but if subconsciously you don’t think you going to get there, you are going to be in a conflict with yourself.

Instead of just imagining the goal, imagine becoming the person who can achieve it.

Making changes in your life almost always means changing who we are, our everyday habits.

For most people, who are not millionaires, imaging being a millionaire is subconsciously impossible.

This is because millionaires have millionaire habits and most people don’t know anything about them.

One thing I do to honour this trust and wealth of abundance is that I give 5% of my income to random people.

When you think of who you need to become (instead of what you want to achieve), the process becomes more important than the goal-post, and as you slowly change to a better version of yourself, your conscious and subconscious goals align.

Only when conscious and subconscious are aligned, manifestation can happen.

Manifestation is not magic

Everyone can agree that everything you have now was first just a thought.

Once you realise that, you can be more intentional about your thoughts.

There’s nothing supernatural about it.

I now enjoy the financial rewards of my blogging because I put in the work in the early days.

I grew into that person, who is worthy of this success, so I got it.

If you want to explore manifestation, I highly recommend these 3 meditations:

Now, I want to hear your stories. Let’s inspire each other in the comments.