36. How to Manifest Anything You Want

In this episode, we break down actionable strategies to manifest your biggest goals and transform your life in 2025. Learn how to create a clear vision that aligns with your most authentic desires and craft a specific plan to achieve them without compromising on your values or overworking.

Here, we cover the vital steps needed to bring your vision to reality, including setting precise goals, breaking them down into manageable tasks, and maintaining a belief in your unique potential. Whether it's breaking free from a career that doesn't fulfill you or creating a more joyful work-life balance, this episode provides a structured approach to manifesting real change.

Head to thesuccessfulcreatives.com/successplan to create your 2025 plan today!

Successful Creatives make the world brighter. Follow @theewingsstudio on instagram for weekly tips and tricks to uplevel your bookings and increase profits so that you can accomplish all of the goals on your heart.

Transcript

Happy 2025. This is the first episode of the successful creatives podcast in the new year. And I'm so glad that you're here today. We're going to be covering how to manifest anything that you want and how your creative business will support you in getting there. Since starting my business 14 years ago, I've been able to achieve a lot of really big goals.

And I'm going to walk you through exactly what they were and the simple process to achieving anything that you want in your business. I'm here to really encourage you to dream up the most beautiful version of your life and then create the plan to go and get it. And that is exactly what we're going into in today's episode.

When you imagine the most beautiful version of your life. What does that look like? Where are you working? Where are you living? What are your days like? How are you spending your free time? When you're working, what are you doing? Who are you doing it with? These are all questions that you should be asking yourself so that you can start to really bring, bring the life that you want to life.

The life that you truly want to fruition, because anything is possible. And I hope that today's episode really like highlights that for you. I'm going to share my own personal journey from where I used to be 15 years ago, before I started my business, what my life used to look like, how my vision for my life has changed over the years.

And. How I leaned into that to make my biggest goals happen so that that dream vision of my business, that dream vision of what my life was has come to fruition. And I am sharing all of this with you so that you can really see what is possible in your life. So that 2025 really does become your best year ever.

And Anything, any dream, any desire that you have on your heart was put there for a reason and it's calling you to do bigger things and there is a very simple process that will help get you there. Let's back up about 15 years ago, which is when I really started to dream bigger for my life and see possibility outside of what I had believed.

To be possible up until that point. So 15 years ago, I was, you know, on the trajectory on the path to what was my dream life back then I was working like climbing in the corporate ladder. I was working in marketing and I was really poised to get a promotion to marketing director for a startup company. I was, you know, Working a ton towards my goals towards my dreams and, you know, things at that point looked really good.

Ben and I had just gotten married. We had just bought our first house, you know, my vision for my life back then. Was moving well until I decided that that wasn't what I wanted for my life anymore. And that really happened when my son was born when my first Trevor was born and okay, so he's turning 16 in May.

So this is how long ago this journey started for me when he was born. And if you're a parent, you know, this perspective shift where you have this, this new human who is part of your world and your priorities. so much. Just shift. So, so much. And that is exactly what happened to me during my maternity break.

I had three months off and during those three months, that was really the first time that I started to use this process in my business when I decided to leave my corporate job, when I decided to leave my marketing career in, this was when I was the breadwinner for, for our house, it was just Ben and I, and he was working in civil engineering.

Um, and I was working in marketing and I was making a good profit. I was not profit at that point. That was a career. I was making a good salary, um, and I just decided that that wasn't, that wasn't what I wanted. That wasn't what I wanted my life to look like anymore. And so. That was really the very first thing that I manifested into my life was being able to leave my corporate job and I did that within that three month maternity from when I got the when I got the vision of what I wanted my life to look like to that, you know, to actually handing in my resignation it happened within that three month maternity window so.

Your goals your dreams are possible and it can happen in a really quick amount of time if you want it to some of the other things that I have been able to manifest into my life i'm going to give you a high level list and i want to share this list with you and then we're going to dive into really like the the.

Three beliefs that i had to have in order to make these happen as well as the formula i'm going to give you the formula so that you can do this within your own life and i want to start with my list of like my i guess accomplishments just so that you can see what's possible because you might be hearing like well erica i don't actually i have a corporate day job and i do my creative business on the side and i don't really want to leave my corporate day job.

That's fine. Your, your vision is going to look completely different from mine, but if I go through my list, it might start to spark some ideas on areas that you really want to up level and maybe 2025 is that year for you. And so you want to tap into the formula that I'm going to share a little bit later in this episode.

Okay. So to kind of go through the list of the things that I've manifested in order to make my most beautiful life possible was first to leave my corporate marketing job. Then shortly after a couple of years later, it was to retire Ben from his corporate job. He has the civil engineer. Um, in addition to that, we built our dream home.

We relocated to Hawaii for a month during the pandemic. Okay. Um, we traveled the globe with our two boys, including Cooper's just wild by the time I'm 11 bucket list. If you're familiar with that at all, that included traveling. What did that include going to Disney World, going to Hawaii and then going to Paris by the time that he was 11, we were able to achieve all of that.

Most recently, uh, over, uh, Thanksgiving break, we went to, um, we headed to London and then to Paris. We actually spent Thanksgiving at Disneyland Paris. Like these things that are just magical in our lives. We work 20 hours, uh, 20 to 30 hours per week so that we can be at my son's games. Um, right now we're putting.

A in addition on our home and all of these things have been possible because I leaned into a very simple formula that just helped me get really clear on what the vision is and make it happen. My dad likes to remind me fairly regularly that when I was about 9 years old, I had told him this quote that I still wholeheartedly believe in.

The quote is, if there's something that you want, it's up to you to make it happen. So that's my challenge to you in 2025 is if there is something that you want, it's time to make it happen. Even if you feel like it is big, even if you feel like it's outlandish, whatever the, if you have any limiting beliefs around making this possible, making your most beautiful life possible work on releasing all of that junk, because Life is short and we get one shot at this and you deserve to live the most beautiful version of your life.

I'm going to give you as many of the tools that I can to help you achieve exactly that. Because based on that list of accomplishments, I've seen firsthand what's truly possible. And there are even bigger goals that I'm sure that will be planted on my heart in the future that I will make more of. A reality, because I know that any desire or any goal that's put on my heart was put there for a reason there is a reason that we get these visions of what we want our life to look like if you, if you're not clear on that, then really put aside some time to get to just dive into what is it, what, like, how do you want your days to look, what are the goals that are on your heart, what are the things that are stealing your joy, And how can we replace that with a more beautiful version?

Okay. So I was going to start with the three beliefs, but I think I'm actually going to reverse the order that I'm doing this. I'll get into the three beliefs that I really had to have along this process in order to make this. My goal is a reality, but first let's get into the formula. So the formula to manifest anything that you want.

And when I say the word manifest, I'm not talking like creative vision board and just let the universe bring it to you. That's not how manifesting actually works. There's a lot more to it. So if you've ever done any of these things where you felt like you were manifesting, maybe you were doing like an annual vision board or you were visualizing or like writing your gratitude list every day.

Those are definitely all tools that will help you get to where you want to go, but that's not the full formula. So I'm going to go over the full formula right now. And I'm going to use. a cookie analogy to just help really paint the picture of how this actually works. Okay. Because it is quite simple when you get into doing the work, it can feel really overwhelming when you're just listening to it.

But when you, when you actually dig in and you get into the work, that's when it can start to feel simple and attainable and easy. Okay. So that's, that gets back to my nine year old quote of like, you got to make it happen. You got to do the work. Okay. But step number one to the formula is to create a really clear vision.

Of what it is that you want. So I mentioned I was going to use a cookie analogy to just really bring this to light in a way that's very very simple. So let's say that our vision is us sitting back eating a giant pile of piping hot chocolate chip cookies. Homemade chocolate chip cookies. We've got our glasses of milk ready and we're just eyes closed dreaming of these delicious cookies.

That's our vision. So right there, we've created a vision, enjoying warm, delicious, gooey chocolate chip cookies. Step number two is to figure out what that requires. Figuring out what that requires takes this big This big, like almost unattainable vision and starts to break it down to just become more achievable.

How will you get there? How, what do you need to achieve in order to get there? And how much will that cost? A lot of times it's really going to be setting a financial goal that is going to help make your vision possible. In next week's episode, I'm going to share. The exact formula that I went through to retire Ben from his engineering job, because what that vision, the vision of us living a life separate from like a nine to five schedule, that more time freedom that I talked about, that was the vision, but the goal that made that vision a reality was an additional 150, 000.

To our annual revenue. So your goal really takes this elusive vision and makes it more black and white. And once it becomes more black and white, that's when you can start to build a plan around how you're going to get there. Because if we had just sat back and said, wouldn't that be so nice? If you didn't have to work your corporate job anymore, if you didn't have to go into the office and work hours from a lot of times, it was like seven 30 in the morning until 10 30 at night.

If he had. town hearings you had to go to for a civil engineering job. Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to do that? If you didn't have to do that, wouldn't it be amazing if we were able to build our schedule and build a business around our own terms and be able to spend more time together? Wouldn't that be beautiful?

This is where, if you're only creating a vision board. This is where the trouble lies is that yes, we can dream up any vision we want. But the way that we make it a reality is by really breaking it down into what is required. To, to hit that vision. So next week's episode is really going to do a deep dive into bringing that vision of retiring Ben from his engineering job to life and how we broke that down from this elusive grand, um, vision into, um, The goal that we set, which was to bring in an additional 150, 000 in revenue in the next 12 months.

So next week's episode, we'll break down all of that and how we set the vision and how we achieved the goal so that you can really see this play out in here, how like this, This massive goals are totally possible with this right formula. Okay. So step two of the formula is to really figure out what that vision requires.

So back to our cookie analogy in order for us to be enjoying these warm, gooey, delicious, sweet, salty chocolate chip cookies, we have to bake a batch of cookies. That's it, right? Like this. This analogy is designed to really show truly how simple it is. Now that we know that in order to reach our vision, we need to make a batch of homemade cookies.

What is, what's the timeframe we want to do that in? All right. We decide we're going to do that in the next hour. We're going to make a batch of cookies. So adding timing to your goal is the next part of the formula, because you could say, yes, I want, I want some cookies. And. You don't ever get there because you don't give yourself a deadline, right?

Like, we could say, it would be really nice if one day Ben left his engineering job, but we never get there because we never make it real with a deadline. So the next part is to set a very specific deadline. So, so with this cookie analogy, we want the cookies tonight. Let's make them in the next hour. Okay, and then you're going to set a really specific goal.

We're going to make one dozen cookies. In the case of freeing Ben from the engineering job, again, I'm going to get into this more detail next week, but I'm just so excited to share this information. We're going to make 150, 000 in 12 months. Next week, I'll dive more into how we came to that number, everything that had to go into it.

Now that we know, we're going to make 150, 000. One batch of one dozen cookies in the next hour, that starts to get so much easier. So we can figure out the steps that we need to break down that goal into smaller pieces. Okay, because that's the next part of the formula. You create your vision, you figure out what that vision requires, You create the time frame that you want that to happen within and then you set a really specific goal that will get you to your vision.

Okay. Once you've done that, then you break your goal down into smaller pieces. How will you step by step achieve that goal? In the case of the cookies, we're going to find a recipe. We're going to, then once we have the recipe, we are going to get all of the ingredients lined out and measured. Uh, and then we're going to preheat the oven.

So these, this is the plan that gets you to that final vision. Breaking down the goal into smaller bite sized, this feels totally attainable pieces. Then it's literally getting to work. It's rolling up your sleeves and diving into the plan and doing the work. So any, anything that you vision, envision for your life is possible, but it does also require work.

It's manifesting is not just coming up with a vision and leaning back and letting the universe bring it to you. It is like co conspiring with the universe to bring your most beautiful vision of your life to reality. So you set the vision. Yes. You align yourself with that vision, but then you also do the work to make it happen in the case with visions like this.

No one is there to hold you accountable. No one is there to do the work for you. You've got to decide. How much you want this and then choose to do the work, choose to show up every day and put in what is required in order to make your vision a reality. Let me switch gears. Now that you have the formula, which is to create a vision to figure out what that vision requires to give yourself a specific time frame until you've set a really specific goal.

And then to break down that goal into smaller bite sized pieces, which becomes your plan. To accomplish the goal, once you have all of that done, that is your formula that will get you to anything that you want. Now there are a couple of beliefs that I had to stand really firm in when I did this for myself, especially when I left my full time corporate job and then again when Ben left his engineering job.

Number one is, I didn't let my journey up to that point stop me. I think so often we can see the work that we've already put in to something, the journey that we've already had on a path towards maybe an older vision, an older goal, and convince ourselves that it would be a waste. To pivot to move into a different direction to realize a different vision before I left my marketing career I had worked so hard at building that career I had a degree in marketing I worked my way through like the grinds of an advertising agency.

I spent long hours working for companies to build their marketing efforts. I worked for this startup where we were working, you know, 10 hour days regularly to build this tech company. And for me to establish myself as an authority and an expert in this industry, I was very well looked upon in my company.

And And it would have been very easy to think that leaving that world was just a pipe dream and to basically quiet my quiet myself and sort of dampen my goals by saying, well, you've already worked so hard at this marketing career. You can't walk away now. You've spent the last, you know, what was it? I don't know, eight years plus college working towards this and you're just going to throw that all away.

And I think that this is like a lot of times we get hung up on things like this. Maybe it's that. Logistically, your health insurance is paid for, or you get four weeks of vacation, paid vacation, things like this, where in the scheme of life, those are very, very small things in the scheme of life. Those eight years that I spent building my career, um, is a very short amount of time.

I've already been doing this photography business for longer than that. And, and I still have a long way to go. So I never let my journey to date, stop me from taking a chance on myself, taking a chance on my dreams and making a big pivot. If you have a big vision on your heart right now, and you also have the voice on, it's like the two sides of the shoulders, the angel and the devil on both sides, right?

On one side, you've got this big, beautiful vision of the devil. What you would love for your life to look like, or what you really dream about, what you wish could be the case, but then on your other shoulder, you have another, like the, your other side, it's like your ego telling you not to head that direction because of whatever reason.

This is your permission to pivot, to take everything that you've learned. I know those eight years, nine years of my marketing career have helped serve me so much in starting my own business. So. Telling like quieting those naysayers, uh, within your own self and knowing that if you are truly aligned with this vision and you really are willing to do the work to go get it.

It's totally possible for you and it doesn't need your journey does not ever need to stay on one path. You're able to pivot and change and build that path to look however you want it to be to look. Okay. So that was really kind of speaking to Now, the second belief I had to have is to not let outside naysayers stop me or let me think that my vision wasn't possible.

A lot of times the people who are closest to you will not support your vision. They will not understand your goals. And that comes from a place of love. And fear, because the last thing that the people around you who love you want to see is for you to fail or for you to have a hard time at anything. So if when you've started your business, or maybe when you've told people about your dreams about your business, you got some backlash, know that it's coming from a place of love.

They can't help themselves because they want you to stay safe. And change is inherently. I'm safe right like there's always uncertainty that happens on the other side of change you can't let me stairs stop you so in my case when I told my parents I got two very different reactions and again. I can look back at them with you know love and see that they had love in their intentions but first my dad basically told me that my four year business degree was a waste.

He said something along the lines of, well, there goes that business degree. And then my mom said, I think this was probably when I left marketing and also when Ben left engineering, well, at least you'll always have that to fall back on, which she didn't realize it at the time she was saying it as a good thing of, you know, your, your past careers or something that are valuable to you.

Right. Like as. Someone who didn't know who never went to college, who didn't have like a higher degree or higher level of education, she's saying that's a good safety net. You guys can always fall back on that. But what that actually is saying to someone with a really big vision and really big goals is I'm imagining your vision failing.

I'm imagining you not hitting your goals. But don't worry, because you've got those careers to fall back on. So if you've got naysayers around you, it has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with your vision or any of the goals that you have in mind. It has to do with them and their love for you.

And then the third belief was I had to believe. That it was possible in every one of those accomplishments of those visions that I shared at the beginning, leaving the corporate jobs, um, like going to spending a month in Hawaii, traveling the globe, uh, building our dream home, all of those things started with a belief that this was possible.

You've got to align. Yourself to know that whatever is on your heart is possible and stick with that. Now, of course, did I wake up like every day saying this is totally going to happen for me? No, there are good days and bad days. But at the core, you know, and you believe that you can achieve anything that you want.

You have the plan in hand on how you're going to achieve this specific vision and you just keep after it. You never quit. You set that timeline. You set those specific goals and you figure out what the fuck it's going to take to make them happen. And that is how you manifest anything that you want, anything.

If you are ready for your best year yet, and you want to get really clear on what your vision is and how to achieve that vision, then I invite you to dream bigger, achieve more, and plan with me with the Refresh and Refine Success Plan. In this success plan, I'm teaching you the exact method that I've gone to hit all of my goals over the last 14 years of running a photography studio.

This includes leaving my corporate job, earning 150, 000 in just 12 months so that I could retire Ben from his civil engineering job, building our dream home, traveling the world with our children, spending a month in Hawaii. Your most biggest, most beautiful version of your life is totally possible, and it just requires the vision and the plan to get there.

Let me help you achieve your most beautiful life. Go to the Ewing's dot com slash success plan right now. You can grab it for the lowest price that it will ever be. It is a complete steal for the transformation that is possible for your life.