The 7 Steps to Manifesting
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- —
Roxie Nafousi's seven-step formula reframes manifestation as a self-development practice rather than a ritual, built on the premise that you manifest what you subconsciously believe you're worthy of receiving. The sequence starts with getting brutally honest about what you want (requiring vulnerability and courage), then clears the fear and doubt that block you, then demands real-world action aligned with your future self. The middle steps handle the friction of real life — obstacles reframed as tests of self-worth, and the discipline of gratitude while still wanting more. The final steps convert envy into inspiration and ask you to surrender control of the route while trusting the destination. Nafousi describes it as a way of living rather than something you do nightly, and insists there is no substitute for hard work.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Be clear in your vision
Decide where you want to be six months, one year, or five years from now, and get specific. Nafousi says this step requires two things: vulnerability (being honest about your deepest desires) and courage (saying them out loud, or writing them down). Support it with visualization meditations and a vision board.
Pro tip Vision boards should be bullet-pointed and specific, not pretty magazine cut-outs. Write the future date at the top, split your life into categories, and specify details: which publisher, whose podcast, what salary, what job title, what office culture.
Watch out Most people make mood boards, not vision boards. If there are no specifics on it, it isn't a vision board.
- 2
Remove fear and doubt
Fear and doubt are the culmination of insecurities, low self-worth, and limiting beliefs, and they are so powerful they stop you even imagining what you want. This is the healing-journey step: therapy, counselling, journaling, changing your self-talk, affirmations, meditation, and cultivating self-love.
Pro tip Use the prompt: 'If fear and doubt weren't standing in your way, what would you really want?' It bypasses the block long enough to see the real goal.
- 3
Align your behaviour
Take action. Step outside your comfort zone, take risks, and do the things you already know you need to do but avoid out of fear. Nafousi frames it as acting as your future self would: define your higher, most empowered self, ask what that person would decide and do, then do it.
Pro tip Nafousi's twist on the old phrase is 'fake it till you become it' — behave as the person you're becoming until you are them.
Watch out There's no substitute for hard work. You can't think your way to success.
- 4
Overcome tests from the universe
Obstacles on the route to a goal function as tests of how worthy you actually believe you are. The dating example: a great first date followed by a four-day silence and a 'hey what's up' text is a test — do you keep spending energy there, or close the door and create space for the right thing? Beyond not settling, this is about how you metabolise rejection and setbacks.
Pro tip Ask of every obstacle: what can I learn from this, what meaning can I take from it, how can I persist through it?
Watch out The failure mode is reading the obstacle as confirmation — 'I knew it wouldn't happen for me' — and giving up.
- 5
Embrace gratitude without caveats
Nafousi calls this the manifesting sweet spot: knowing what you want while being entirely grateful for everything you already have. It moves you out of desperate, low-vibration energy into an abundant mindset, and it lets you enjoy the journey rather than only the destination.
Pro tip Nafousi cites Dr Joe Dispenza's experiment where participants practised gratitude three times a day for four days and their immune systems strengthened.
- 6
Turn envy into inspiration
Envy comes from a scarcity mindset — you having something means less for me. Inspiration is its antithesis, coming from abundance: you have it, therefore I can have it too. The work is first noticing envy when it arises, then transforming it, and going further by actively celebrating other people's success.
Pro tip Other people's success is evidence of what's possible for you. Treat it as data, not threat.
- 7
Trust in the universe
Surrender to the journey. Look for synchronicities and coincidences as signals that something is listening, and trust that if you do the other six steps, what you want will arrive — without needing to control every step of the route.
Pro tip Nafousi's own 'secret ingredient': anything she wants, she is able to let go of. She never obsesses over wanting something.
Watch out Desperation blocks outcomes. Keeping the vision board in front of you and obsessing over it creates jarring energy.
In the wild
At the start of 2022 Nafousi's book Manifest hadn't come out and nobody had read it, so there was no evidence it would do well. She still wrote big, specific bullet points on her vision board: the Jay Shetty podcast, Sunday Times bestseller, an American publishing deal, American morning TV, multiple languages, and being stocked in airports. Every single one happened. She's clear it wasn't pure magic — Jay Shetty saw the book she'd published, and she also reached out to him directly to say she wanted to be on his podcast. The board set the direction; aligned behaviour did the work.
→ Every item on the 2022 vision board materialised within the year.
In May 2018, aged 27 and a decade into addiction, Nafousi hit a low point and a friend told her to listen to a podcast on manifesting. The idea that self-worth determines your outcomes clicked: she realised she'd been manifesting in the wrong direction. She started with affirmation playlists — listening while falling asleep and on waking, when the brain is most susceptible — then immersed herself in self-help broadly, and eventually formulated the seven steps from what she'd absorbed. Two weeks later a man messaged her on a dating app; a year to the day, their son was born.
→ A decade of addiction gave way to a career as an author and speaker, and a family.
Common mistakes
Treating manifesting as a nightly ritual
Nafousi's most common inbox message is 'I've been doing it every night and nothing's happening' — and her response is 'doing what?' Manifesting isn't a ritual you perform, it's a way of living the seven steps. Believing a vision board or a visualization meditation alone will attract things is the single biggest misconception.
Obsessing over the goal
Keeping the vision board in front of you and fixating creates what Nafousi calls a desperate, low-vibe energy that blocks the outcome. She points out everyone can recall being so desperate for something that it didn't come. Openness, surrender and trust are what let it in.
Setting goals you only think you should want
If a goal isn't authentically aligned with your values, your subconscious doesn't filter for those opportunities and you conclude 'it isn't working'. Interrogate it: when did I first want this, was I influenced by someone else, will this bring me validation and status or actual fulfilment?
From the transcript
“you manifest what you subconsciously believe you're worthy of receiving”
“there's no substitute to hard work you can't think your way to success this is about absolutely taking action doing the work that's required”
“know what you want then let it go and that's the kind of like sweet spot and the magic”
From the episode
Why Manifestation Isn’t Just A Trend: How To Manifest - Roxie Nafousi
Roxie Nafousi