The internet is obsessed with manifesting — but what is it and does it actually work?

However, this is not manifesting; at best, it’s wishful thinking — more of a ‘cross-your-fingers-and-hope’ approach — as there is nothing that can be done, neuroscientifically speaking, to turn the outcome of those situations into a success story.

So what exactly is manifesting? Author of The Neuroscience of Manifesting, Dr Sabina Brennan, explains that it is simply “goal-directed behaviour”.

The practice uses techniques such as affirmations, journalling, gratitude, scripting, ‘faking it’, meditation, and visualisation to try and achieve what we want, and whether you were aware of it or not, it is likely you have had a manifesting journey of your own at some point in life.

Brennan’s book is an educational tool that tells us what is going on in the brain when attempting to manifest and the effect each of the above techniques has on it. Her two cents is that once you understand how your brain works, you understand how you work a little bit better too.

“Manifesting just means to make something happen,” Brennan explains over a video call.

She tells me that she, in fact, manifested her beautiful home. She kept an Excel file (“rather than a vision board”) and visualised the exact type of house she wanted — one which was waterside with plenty of green space and trees.

Brennan pans her camera across her immaculate back garden which is adorned with healthy shrubbery and colourful flora, it also has lake frontage and an impressive eight acres thrown in for good measure. Suffice to say, it worked.

In the online world, manifesting has become somewhat of a gurus’ speciality, and something which, Brennan points out, the scientific community will often label as ‘woo’.

These gurus appeal to their audience by sharing their tips and steps to manifest a ‘better you’: the right career path, your soulmate, a better self-image, a healthier lifestyle, for quite a significant sum of money.

Brennan warns that there can be a risk to clients when manifestation is treated as a business. Not only will people fall victim to financial loss by paying for these services — and perhaps ultimately to scams — but when “things don’t work out, they somehow think there’s something wrong with them”, hence why Brennan decides to focus on the science.

What conscious manifesting really does is it gets you to stop, connect with yourself, and actually start asking that question of, well, what do you really want?

“And of course, a lot of the social media manifesting is, ‘oh, manifest £10m or a Gucci handbag’ or whatever, but if you really get to the core of manifesting, you just have to keep asking yourself, ‘why do I want that?’ And you come back to that core of, ‘I want to be happy’.

“And then I think there is sort of a secondary thing of, ‘I want meaning and purpose in my life’,” she says.

What you want to achieve and how to get there are essential steps in the manifesting journey. Brennan acknowledges in her book that when we don’t have direction, “you may find yourself manifesting someone else’s desires or the life that you think you should manifest, rather than the one you really want”.

Take, for example, life’s ‘milestones’. Society would suggest that we should finish secondary school, go to college, forge a career, meet a life partner, settle down, buy a house (are people still able to do that?), get married, start a family, work until retirement, then enjoy what few years you get until it’s lights out.

For many, that path carves out an idyllic life, but what happens when we follow that path? And what about the outliers who don’t want to just go with the flow?

“Your brain finds it easier to maintain the status quo,” Brennan tells me, “but also, your brain does need challenge and change in order to become that bit better; in order to become a more efficient brain.

“So there is that constant pull between, ‘it’s easy to stay, and yes, it is hard to change’, but then when you change, eventually that becomes easy because it’s habitual.

“And I think that’s what manifesting does, it gets you to focus on a goal.”

That message struck a personal chord. Earlier this year, I packed in a steady office job with a decent salary in place of a more meaningful and fulfilling existence abroad.

There was no great master plan or blueprint behind any of it: In fact, if you were to ask my family (not to mention my financial adviser) they would probably tell you it was an abrupt and rash decision, conducted poorly, and executed with a lot of anxiety.

Looking back now though, I wonder had I simply manifested it?

The thought of living abroad was always there in the back of my mind, but it finally came to the fore when I began to recognise that the job I had was no longer filling up my cup. I would visualise myself in a warmer, sunnier climate, where the work was low stress, where the mood was happy, the vibes chill, and — let’s face it — where the coffee was cheap and the sangria was ice cold.

I repeatedly told myself that I’d be brave enough to make the move, that at some point “I will move abroad”, “I will finally have my own place to live”, “I will secure a job in Spain”, and — in times of doubt — I repeated the most Irish affirmation of them all: “Sure it’ll be grand.” A few months on, I am writing this from sunny Valencia.

Now, the only missing piece to be manifested is a significant other.

My dating life has already been documented here in the pages of the Irish Examiner, and while there were some unfortunate echoes of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, finding someone you want to spend a majority of your time with is a serious decision.

“I think you have to start with [the] two things that I say are fundamental — and that is knowing yourself and understanding yourself — to find out what you really want,” Brennan advises me.

“I do think a lot of people have ideas about what their perfect man would be,” she continues. “You’ll even have people saying, ‘oh, I want to marry a doctor’, or, ‘oh, he has to be tall’, these kind of random, I suppose, fundamentally unimportant things in terms of how a relationship is going to last and survive.

“So I think if you understand yourself and maybe sit down and question what ideas you have in your head about a potential partner and why you have them, is it something that you genuinely want as opposed to something you think that society would want or that your parents would want?”

Where to go from here? Well, after my chat with Brennan, I brief my parents that their potential future son-in-law might not be a doctor, or taller than six foot, and I assure them that it shouldn’t matter either way: I will be manifesting a kind, charismatic, and ambitious person. If he has a face like Regé-Jean Page that’s an added bonus, the only thing he can’t be is funnier than me, I draw the line there. My parents agree, albeit rather sarcastically, but I let it off.

The take-home message has been: While I can spend the next few weeks telling myself positive affirmations (that I am worthy of being loved; that I am open to getting to know someone new; that I am confident enough in myself to meet Mr Right) and visualising a life with someone (so far I have this list compiled, Pro: Holiday accommodation will work out cheaper. Con: Do I have to feed him?), there has to be real tangible action to execute it well. 

Once I take the right steps, and get clear on what I want, I’m sure Prince Charming will present himself — at the end of the day, we all dream of having the right person by our side as we go on to manifest other life goals.

As put simply by Brennan: “Who doesn’t want to make their dreams come true? And we only have one life, we have one bite of the cherry, so you may as well give it your best shot.”

On another note I really do need that Asos package to arrive on time, so if we could all cross our fingers and toes and pray to the courier gods that it arrives, I’d greatly appreciate that.

• The Neuroscience of Manifesting by Dr Sabina Brennan, published by Orion Spring, is out now