The Magic of Believing—Why Manifestation Works for Some but Not Others

These days, everyone’s obsessed with manifestation. It’s all over social media—vision boards, affirmations, scripting, the idea that if you just believe hard enough, what you want will appear.

And to an extent, that’s true. When we’re aligned, when we genuinely believe we’re worthy, things seem to flow. But what about when it doesn’t work? When we visualise, affirm, and manifest—only to be met with silence?

That’s the part no one talks about.

I first picked up The Magic of Believing because of its bold, minimalist cover—one of many mid-century books promising the secret to success through thought alone. Titles like Think and Grow Rich and The Power of Positive Thinking dominated the shelves, pushing the idea that belief alone could shape reality.

I was captivated. I tested it—not just on myself, but on those around me. I believed I could shift my own life through mindset alone. And at first, it worked. Then, I went further—I believed I could change other people. I was convinced that if I held the vision strongly enough, if I believed in them more than they believed in themselves, they would shift too.

But no matter how much I visualised for them, some people didn’t change. No matter how much I willed certain things into existence, they wouldn’t move. And I started to wonder: Why does belief work like magic for some things but feel impossible for others?

The answer, I discovered, lies beneath the surface. As Lacy Phillips from To Be Magnetic teaches, “Your subconscious self-worth dictates what you manifest.” If deep down, we don’t believe we’re worthy of something, we’ll unconsciously block it—no matter how many affirmations we repeat.

This is why manifestation feels easy for some and impossible for others. If our subconscious is still carrying limiting beliefs—unworthiness, past failures, childhood conditioning—then belief alone won’t override them. The subconscious always wins.

That realization changed everything. It’s why I do what I do today—helping people release the emotional build-up that keeps them stuck. When we clear these subconscious blocks, belief stops feeling forced. It becomes natural. That’s when manifestation actually works—not because we’re “thinking positively” but because, at a deep level, we actually believe we deserve it.

Looking back, it’s wild to think that a book—picked up for its design—would lead me here. But life has a way of placing the right things in front of us when we’re ready to notice.