The Devil In The Details
How The Little Things You Ignore Crush Your Major Manifestation Goals
(Listen to the audio essay on Youtube)
It’s good to have big dreams. Nobody ever wins big unless they learn to think big first. And luckily, if you’ve taken even a fleeting interest in manifestation, chances are high that you have some major goals you’d like to achieve.
That’s great.
Your big dreams will be your salvation in the long run, so you should hold tight to them. But it’s also worth acknowledging that the big picture is a mirage — you can look at it, but you can’t touch it. Anytime you get close, you’ll be forced to face the fact that any major goal is just a series of minor goals stacked one on top of the other.
And, if you end up with tunnel vision regarding whatever big thing you want to manifest, you run the risk of losing so many mini-battles that it becomes impossible to win the war, even if you always rise to the occasion in key moments.
Imagine you have a big job interview coming up, and an evil genie has made it his mission to ruin your chances of being hired. He decides he can do this in one of two ways:
He can barge in mid-interview, flip the interviewer’s desk over, and chase you out of the office screaming.
While you’re not paying attention, he can move your mug of coffee two inches closer to the edge of the table so that you “accidentally” spill it all over yourself five minutes before you’re set to leave your house.
At first glance, option one probably seems way worse. It’s a more extreme and more embarrassing way to sabotage the interview, and it’s more likely to guarantee you won’t get hired.
But, upon further inspection, I actually think it’s the case that option two is far more insidious. Allow me to explain:
Anytime you face a major catastrophe or failure, even though your situation might suck, you have the luxury of knowing where you stand and being able to plan for the future. When you’re lying in the dirt covered in bruises, it’s obvious that you’ve fallen off the horse. So, while you may be in pain, you can at least begin working up the energy to get back on the horse. You can begin planning your comeback, so to speak.
But when little things go awry, it is very difficult to energize yourself enough to overcome further adversity. It’s the difference between losing the championship game by 50 points and losing it by one point because you weren’t paying attention to the scoreboard and assumed you were winning. The first scenario sucks, but you can bounce back from it. The second scenario is totally demoralizing and deflating.
This happens all the time when people have ambitions of manifesting big goals. They’re usually spurred on by some major loss or embarrassment in the past, and they commit themselves to overcoming defeat next time around. They get all energized, they do their SATS, they prepare for moments when their faith might be tested, and they remain vigilant whenever negative thoughts arise relating to their goals.
And then, despite all this, they find themselves unable to manifest what they want successfully.
You have to remember that losses accrue whether you keep track of them or not. You can make the most spectacular full-court buzzer-beater at the end of every quarter, but if you fail to put the ball in the basket every other possession of the game, those last-second shots aren’t worth anything. You still lose despite your isolated instances of heroism.
Thus, it is with manifestation. I can keep a level head every time my SP doesn’t acknowledge me or I get hit with an unexpected bill despite my dreams of financial abundance, but if I lose every other battle I face throughout the day, I still lose the war.
Which brings us right back to our job interview and the evil Genie trying to sabotage it. Spilling a mug of coffee on yourself has nothing to do with how you perform in your interview, but it doesn’t have to. If that minor hiccup makes me feel rushed and anxious, and I carry that anxiety into the interview, and the anxiety makes me perform poorly, then I still don’t get the job. It’s irrelevant whether the inciting incident was “related” to my ultimate goal or not.
And, worst of all, spilling my coffee is such a small thing that I might not even realize it’s what cost me my desired job. At least if the Genie sabotages me directly, I can place the blame on him. But if I just perform slightly poorly because I’m anxious and scatterbrained, there’s no obvious place to point the finger. I’m going to end up blaming myself and not even remembering that the coffee set off a long chain of events.
So, with all this in mind, what’s the practical advice?
Focus less of your energy on your major obstacles and more of it on the little “meaningless” battles you face every day. There are (by definition) way more small battles you’ll face than there are big ones — so if you can win all of those, you’ll set a strong precedent of success regardless of how you perform in “major” moments.
Stop letting small things ruin your day. Stop letting life’s little hiccups demoralize you. Again, it doesn’t matter whether you think an event relates to your major manifestation goals or not — if some event makes you feel bad, then it is altering the state in which you abide. We cannot allow that to happen over and over again.
The Devil doesn’t have to drop an atom bomb on your house to make it unlivable. All he has to do is put a hairline crack in one of your pipes and wait for water damage to wreck things over time. And that’s what he’s going to do — he’s not going to shove you off your path; he’s going to nudge you so gently that when you trip and fall, you think it’s all your fault that you failed.
So be on the lookout for little moments that make you lose your faith. If you can deal with those, then the big picture will take care of itself.
As always, good luck.