Does Manifesting Work? What Science Says (and What Actually Helps)

Several years before I wrote my book, I watched the documentary The Secret, and it marked the beginning of my spiritual journey. Its message stayed with me: what you radiate, you attract. By the time I was writing, my computer screensaver showed two hands touching, one from heaven and one from earth, and the planner I picked up several times a day said “Believe in miracles”. I am a spiritual person. I am also an economist who spent years writing a doctorate on happiness, and that part of me always wants to know what the evidence says.

I also wrote about the film Bruce Almighty, in which Bruce, playing God, simply answers yes to every prayer, until he sees the mess: every team wants to win, and they can't all win. In my book Courage on the Journey of Happiness, manifesting belongs to the challenge on spiritual practice and raising your vibration. Here I look at it with both hats on: the seeker's and the scientist's.

What is manifesting?

Manifesting is the practice of using visualisation, affirmations and focused intention to bring something you want into your life. In 2024 Cambridge Dictionary chose “manifest” as its word of the year, after it was looked up almost 130,000 times¹. Behind it usually stands the law of attraction, the belief that like attracts like, so positive thoughts draw positive experiences towards you.

Why do so many people believe in manifesting?

Because it offers hope and the feeling that our life is in our hands. And it carries real wisdom: decide what you want, keep it in mind, notice what is good. Many women I meet have lived by other people's wishes for years, so naming their own is already brave. But belief becomes a burden when you notice yourself doing a few of these:

• you feel afraid of your own sad or worried thoughts, as if they could ruin your future
• you wait for a sign instead of taking the next step
• you take financial risks because “the universe will provide”
• you put off practical help, medical, financial or legal, hoping positive thinking will be enough
• you blame yourself, or others, when life brings loss or hardship

Wish with your whole heart, then hold it lightly

In my book I wrote that not every wish will come true, only those that are for our own good, and that our deepest wishes often lead somewhere other than we planned, because we can't see the whole picture. I also wrote that every desire creates a new one, so a mind always reaching for the next thing spins in circles. For me, this is the heart of it. Want something with your whole heart, work for it, and then let go of controlling exactly how and when it arrives.

This does not mean that we should not have plans, or goals, or desires; it means we should not be attached to them, dependent on them.

In the book, raising your vibration means practices such as meditation, visualisation and gratitude. The ones that leave you calmer and clearer are worth keeping. The question is what you expect them to do.

What happiness research says about manifesting

As an economist who has spent many years studying happiness, I'll start with the honest part: there is no scientific evidence that thoughts by themselves attract events, money or people. What researchers can study is what believing in it, and practising it, does to us. Lucas Dixon, Matthew Hornsey and Nicole Hartley measured belief in manifesting in three studies with more than 1,000 people². Over a third endorsed it. Believers saw themselves as more successful and had higher hopes, but were also more drawn to risky investments, more likely to have experienced bankruptcy and more likely to expect unlikely success quickly.

Psychologist Gabriele Oettingen has spent decades studying how we dream about the future. In her studies, graduates looking for a job, students with a crush and students facing an exam described how they imagined things turning out³. Those who expected success, judging it likely, put in more effort and did better. Those with the most positive fantasies showed the opposite pattern. Later experiments found that positive fantasies leave people with less energy to pursue what they want⁴.

How you visualise matters too. Lien Pham and Shelley Taylor asked first-year students, for five to seven days before a midterm exam, to imagine either the good grade they wanted or the process of getting there⁵. Picturing the process helped them study more and get better grades, through better planning and less anxiety. And affirmations? In experiments by Joanne Wood, Elaine Perunovic and John Lee, people with low self-esteem who repeated “I'm a lovable person” felt worse, while those with high self-esteem felt only a little better⁶.

What actually helps: goals, obstacles and if-then plans

The useful core of manifesting, knowing what you want and keeping it in sight, is well studied. Edwin Locke and Gary Latham summarised 35 years of research: specific, challenging goals consistently led to higher performance than being urged to “do your best”, and goals worked better with feedback on progress⁷.

Oettingen's research also offers a better way to dream. In mental contrasting, you imagine the best outcome of your wish and then the obstacle inside you that stands in the way. Combined with Peter Gollwitzer's if-then plans, it is taught as a free four-step tool called WOOP: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan. A meta-analysis of 21 studies with almost 16,000 people found a small-to-medium effect on reaching goals, and the authors note that the true effect may be smaller⁸. If-then plans alone showed a medium-to-large effect across 94 studies⁹.

Gratitude, which runs through my whole book, has support too, if more modest than social media suggests. When Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough asked people to list what they were grateful for, they reported higher well-being on several, though not all, measures, most clearly a better mood¹⁰.

How to manifest something: seven steps that actually help

If you love the ritual of manifesting, you don't have to give it up. Keep what lifts you, and add what research says moves you.

1. Choose one wish that is truly yours. Not what your family, your colleagues or social media want for you. Write it down as specifically as you can: not “more abundance”, but what abundance would look like on an ordinary Tuesday.
2. Picture the outcome, then the obstacle. Enjoy the image of your wish for a minute. Then ask honestly: what inside me is most likely to stop me? A fear, a habit, a belief about myself?
3. Make an if-then plan. “If I open my laptop and want to check messages, then I will first write one paragraph of my proposal.” Write it where you will see it.
4. Visualise the path, not only the prize. Imagine when and where you will take the next step, and the moment you want to give up.
5. Keep your wish in sight. A screensaver, a line in your planner, a note on the fridge. Reminders don't attract things; they keep your attention where you chose.
6. Choose affirmations you can believe. If “I am rich” makes something in you protest, try “I am learning to make brave decisions about money”. A sentence you can believe is kinder than one you have to fight.
7. End the day with gratitude, then let go. A tool from my seminars: imagine that everything you forgot to be thankful for today would be taken away. Write down three things, and let your wish rest.

Is the law of attraction real?

As a scientist, I have to say it plainly: there is no evidence that our thoughts send out a signal that draws matching events towards us. A rule that explains every outcome after the fact, success as good vibrations and failure as doubt, can't be tested at all. What research shows is quieter and more useful: what we expect shapes how hard we try and how we plan.

As a spiritual person, I know that faith isn't something a study can give or take away. In my book I wrote about signs and synchronicities that guided me, and I respect every woman whose faith works the same way. But never use the law of attraction as a scorecard. If something painful happens to you, it is not proof that you thought the wrong thoughts. And if worry about your “negative” thoughts starts to feel like anxiety, talk it through with a qualified professional.

Manifesting at its best is a way of taking your own wishes seriously, something many women stopped doing years ago, somewhere between work, family and everyone else's expectations. In my programme Permission for Life we do this slowly and together: what you really want, what stands in the way inside you, and the small steps that turn a wish into a life that is yours.