The New Formula for Manifesting

Last week I lost a file on my computer and with it went 50,000 words of a new book that I had spent the last four years working on. No backup. Gone.

I’d been talking about this elusive sequel – the third in the trilogy – with my followers and friends for the last few years. It was going to be a definitive guide to visualisation, combined with a compilation of success stories of people living this work, including some of my own personal stories. The book was a continuation of what I had always been focused on teaching – which is to fully live this work and then share how I did it with others.

So back to that book file. Despite a slight surprise (to put it mildly) when I was told the files were unrecoverable – there was also this authentic feeling of happiness and adventure there too. It was the reinvention and relaunch I’ve talked a lot about recently, for real. I was in that energy and this was the letting loose I needed. Almost immediately, I gave thanks.

Now it was way easier for me than most to jump to blessings not only because I’ve been doing this stuff a while, but because five years ago I had got clear guidance not to start this book until I was more fully living the work myself and new information was coming through (so I didn’t end up just rewriting my previous books). The guidance, which came to me in a split-second, was also the same guidance that encouraged me to put everything into Feel Better, No Matter What (to not keep my latest processes back for future books like an agent had suggested). I’d still do one-to-ones and live my work – but I’d be freed up to do other interests, rather than just theorise about personal development.

However, being someone who loves to write combined with an obsession with this subject, I ignored this and went ahead anyway, writing every day. I must have written three 50,000 word books since then, not just this one (and yes, they were wiped too). Intuitively I knew I wasn’t ready to write the sequel but on I went. A publisher showed interest in it and I thought “why not?”

Less is More

Further along the way I got more guidance to just delete the book, but I didn’t dare. For one, by now I was in the negotiation phase with the publisher who was excited about it and secondly, it was all the time I’d spent on it. It’s like all that clutter we hold onto, saving it for a rainy day and then the rainy day happens and we don’t bother with the stuff anyway.

A Definitive Formula

Another thing that made me see the good in what happened, was that the book getting wiped coincided with me feeling complete about a new formula for manifesting I’d been working on since my last book. Luckily, I still had my freehand Nietzsche-like notebooks, which is where I’ve always summarised my best work. It was as if the moment I ‘got it’ and everything came together, scribbled in my notepad in shorthand and symbols looking like I’d just rediscovered the workings of the Tesla coil, the book was wiped – and I feel this was perfect timing to clear the decks for me to put this formula into practice. Like with all my work, I never want to publish anything unless it’s proven.

So this was a really good thing. I’m left with a sense of freedom, a decluttering, untethered from the past and firmly in the Now. I’ve got way more time to practice the formula – and do the other things I’d been guided to do after my last book got published. My work isn’t lost – I am the work – and what I have to say right here and right now is the best material I’ve ever shared. When the time is ready to share it, you’ll be the first to know.

Now I’ve just got to tell the publisher that the book is gone, wish me luck.

Michael James is the author of Feel Better, No Matter What which is published by Watkins Publishing.