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The 3 Stages Where Your Manifestations Get Stuck (And How To Move Forward)
I was trapped in Stage 2 at the pull-up bar. Here’s the single question that built the bridge to Stage 3.
Photo by Aleksandr Barsukov on Unsplash
Let’s get straight to it.
This work — the real work of shifting your identity to change your reality — isn’t about more information.
You already know what to do.
But knowing and being are two different worlds.
And most people get trapped in the gap between them.
I see it all the time. From my own journey and from guiding our community, people who understand the law get stuck in one of three places.
See which one sounds familiar.
Stage 1: You understand the concept, but your 3D world hasn’t budged.
You’ve read Neville Goddard’s book The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book). You get the “feeling is the secret” part.
But when you look at your bank account, your relationships, or your fitness level… it feels like you’re staring at proof that the law doesn’t work for you.
You’re waiting for the outside to change to prove the inside shift is real.
What you need isn’t another teaching. You need a “halfway pull-up.”
Stage 2: You’re doing the practices, but from the old identity.
You visualize. You affirm. You script.
But you’re doing it as the person who lacks the thing, trying to get it. There’s a subtle strain, a quiet desperation in the background. It feels like spiritual homework, not embodied truth.
This is why it feels fragile. You’re building the new identity on the shaky foundation of the old one.
What you need is to stop the old story before it starts.
Stage 3: You have moments of breakthrough, but you can’t sustain the state.
You’ve had glimpses. A flash of perfect confidence. A day where money flowed easily. A workout where you felt unstoppable.
But then life happens, and you snap back to the old default. It feels like trying to hold a new pose that your muscles keep forgetting.
What’s missing isn’t belief. It’s a daily repetition so simple that failure is impossible.
Then, naturally, the sky is the limit.
I was in Stage 2 just the other day.
Standing under the pull-up bar, my coach asked me to try. My mind instantly served up the inner talk of the old identity:
“I can’t do a pull-up yet.”
I was about to retreat. To confirm the old story.
But my coach simply said,
“From what I’ve seen, you’re closer than you think.”
His words didn’t give me strength. They reminded me of the identity I’d been practicing in my mind for months: the athlete.
I pulled myself higher than ever before.
That “halfway pull-up” wasn’t the final goal. It was the 3D proof my subconscious needed to lock in the new story. It was the bridge between Stage 2 and Stage 3.
This is the entire game:
Find your “halfway pull-up.”
For our writing, it was hitting “publish” daily. That action could only come from the identity “I am an abundant author,” not from “I am a wanna-be writer.”
That one shift changed everything.
Wherever you are, your next step is to identify and complete your very next “halfway pull-up.”
Not the full manifestation. Just the one, small, physical action that only the new version of you would confidently take.
Do that, and you’ve given the 3D its first instruction to conform.
Your “Halfway Pull-Up” This Week
The theory is simple. The practice is where freedom is won.
Your mission is to finish this sentence:
“This week, the new version of me will…”
Make it so small that it’s effortless.
“…write one paragraph before checking email.”
“…schedule 15 minutes of quiet for visualization.”
“…say no to one thing that drains my energy.”
Just name it. That’s the first pull.
Extra-credit for lasting change: Write it in the comments below. Declare it. This public commitment is a powerful act of self-assumption. It tells your subconscious you’re serious, and it lets us celebrate your start.
Where This Goes Next
A single “halfway pull-up” creates momentum. But true identity shift requires a practice — a supportive space where your new self is reflected back to you daily, and where the old stories lose their power.
That’s why we built Shift Your Identity (SYI), our free Skool community.
It’s not another course. It’s a living workshop where we:
Name & celebrate our weekly “pull-ups.”
Troubleshoot the old stories when they surface.
Practice the “feeling-first” method together in real-time.
If you’re ready to move from reading about the shift to embodying it alongside others on the same path, you are welcome.
→ Click here to join Shift Your Identity for free.
Make the shift inwardly,
Cristof (and Sophia)
The mirror of life is bound to conform.
The Gym Lesson That Unlocked My Manifestations (And How To Do It Yourself)
My coach called me out on my biggest limiting assumption. What happened next taught me the real secret behind Neville Goddard’s “Truth That Sets You Free.”
Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash
I stood in front of the pull-up bar, feeling a familiar knot of fear and shame in my stomach.
My coach had just asked me to see how far I’d come. My mind instantly screamed the old story: “No, I can’t really do any pull-ups yet.”
I was about to retreat, to shrink back into the identity of “someone who can’t do a pull-up.” It was a comfortable, if painful, story. It was my assumption, and I was its slave.
But my coach saw a different story. He looked at me and said, “From what I’ve seen you do, you are much closer. Just try to get as far as you can.”
His words were a key. They didn’t give me new strength; they unlocked a strength that was already there, buried under a pile of limiting assumptions.
I grabbed the bar. I pulled. And for the first time, my chin moved almost halfway to the bar. It wasn’t the full pull-up, but it was a quantum leap. In that moment, I wasn’t “trying.” I was being — an athlete who was capable, powerful, and on the verge of a breakthrough.
That day at the gym was a perfect, physical demonstration of a psychological truth I’d been studying for years. It was a living example of chapter 5 from Neville Goddard’s book The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book) Sophia had been teaching on a TikTok Live just days before.
Neville writes,
“Since your life is determined by your assumptions, you are forced to recognize the fact that you are either a slave to your assumptions or their master.”
In that moment of fear, I was a slave. But my coach’s words reminded me of the identity I had the power to master.
The Identity I Practice in the Dark
You see, for three months, I had been doing a very specific mental practice. While my physical body couldn’t do a pull-up or a handstand, my mind was already an athlete who could.
Every night before bed, I would close my eyes and say the affirmation:
“I am an athlete who can do pull-ups and walk on hands.”
I wouldn’t just say the words. I would let the visual form naturally in my mind’s eye — seeing my hands grip the bar, feeling the muscle engagement, experiencing the triumph of the full motion. And then, most crucially, I would tap into the feeling: the confidence, the pride, the pure joy of having that skill.
Sometimes, I used the 369 method: saying the affirmation with feeling three times in the morning, six times in the afternoon, and nine times before sleep. This wasn’t about begging the universe; it was about impressing my own subconscious with a new, dominant story.
The result? The 3D reality is catching up. I can now hold a handstand against the wall for over 20 seconds. And that “halfway pull-up” was a direct download from the identity I’d been practicing in my mind.
From the Gym to Your Greatest Goals
This isn’t just about pull-ups. This is the master key to manifesting anything.
I’ve applied this exact same formula to my work as a writer. For a long time, the identity of the “wanna-be writer” came with baggage: overthinking, fear of publishing, and playing small.
So, I started practicing a new identity:
“I am a financially abundant author.”
When I say this affirmation, I feel a wave of peace and joy in my head and chest. It’s not a feeling of frantic desire, but of a satisfied state of wish fulfilled.
This new identity inspired tangible actions the “wanna-be writer” would never have taken:
Writing and publishing consistently, without overthinking. The abundant author knows their voice has value and doesn’t get bogged down in perfectionism.
Submitting articles to bigger publications. The abundant author plays a bigger game because they know they belong there.
The 3D hasn’t caught up to the full vision of financial abundance yet. But it is responding. Our Medium channel just hit 100 followers — a milestone worth celebrating! Our income from the platform has noticeably increased. These are the “halfway pull-ups” in my author journey, proving the technique is working.
Your Practical Takeaway: Feel It First
The most important takeaway from all of this is simple, yet profound:
To have what you want, you must first become the person who has it.
And the key to that shift isn’t just thinking or visualizing — it’s feeling.
We don’t want the new car, the perfect relationship, or the thriving business for the object itself. We want it for the feeling we believe it will give us: security, love, freedom, joy, peace.
The revolutionary secret is this: you don’t have to wait. You can generate that feeling now.
Want financial abundance? Don’t just visualize stacks of cash. Step into the feeling of peace and security that abundance brings. Feel it in your body. Let it calm your mind.
Want a loving relationship? Don’t just imagine a person. Generate the feeling of being cherished and understood right now, in your heart.
Want better health? Connect with the feeling of vitality and gratitude for a body that is whole and well.
When you live from the feeling of the wish fulfilled, you naturally start to think, act, and make decisions as that person. The 3D world has no choice but to rearrange itself to match your inner state.
This is Neville’s “Truth That Sets You Free.” You are not a passive victim of your circumstances. You are the author of your assumptions, and the master of your identity. Your only limit is your uncontrolled imagination.
So, what’s the “pull-up” in your life? What story have you been a slave to?
It’s time to become its master.
Ready to master your assumptions and shift your identity alongside a supportive community? We dive deeper into these practices daily in our free Skool community, “Shift Your Identity” (SYI). Join us and others who are consciously creating their reality. Click here to join Shift Your Identity for free.
The One Sentence That Fixed My Broken Chair (& Rewired My Reality)
Neville Goddard was right: “An assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact.” Here’s how we proved it in a movie theater.
Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash
It was supposed to be a perfect, cozy afternoon.
We were at a fancy theater, the kind with big, electric recliners and seat warmers. It was Sophia’s birthday treat. She kicked back her chair, turned on the heat, and sighed with contentment.
I pressed the button on my chair. Nothing.
I tried again. Still nothing. No recline, no warmth.
The old me would have felt a flash of frustration. Of course my chair is broken. Typical. This always happens to me. That narrative was ready to roll, an automatic script written by a lifetime of conditioning.
But the new me — the one who has been immersed in Neville Goddard’s teachings and the power of assumption — paused.
This wasn’t just a broken chair. It was a test. And it was about to become one of the clearest, most mundane-yet-magical proofs of a life-changing principle we’ve ever experienced.
The Secret Ingredient Your Manifestation is Missing
In his book The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book), Neville Goddard delivers a line so potent it can feel like a secret code for the universe:
“An assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact.”
Let’s look at that in detail, starting with the dictionary: an assumption is something you accept as true without proof. Most of us are constantly assuming based on the “proof” our senses provide — the broken chair, the empty bank account, the silent phone. We are, as Neville teaches, merely reflecting our current, often unexamined, assumptions.
The radical work is to assume the wish fulfilled without any external evidence.
But here’s the part we often gloss over: it’s not about the wish. It’s about the feeling of the wish fulfilled.
Meaning: feeling as if we already have what we want; not to be confused with “fake it until you make it” or other forms of “day-dreaming”.
This is where most of us get stuck. We visualize the new car, we affirm the perfect partner, but we’re still feeling the anxiety of not having it. We’re putting lipstick on the mirror and wondering why our own face doesn’t change.
The 3D world is the mirror. We are the source. To change the reflection, we must change the source first.
As Michael Jackson sang:
I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change
How I Applied This to a Cold, Upright Chair
So, back in the theater. The “proof” was clear: a broken chair.
My desire was also clear: a wonderfully relaxing and connected afternoon with my wife.
The old story would have been to fixate on the broken mechanism, letting it sour the entire experience. The new story? I chose to accept my desire as already fulfilled.
I didn’t try to “believe” the chair was fixed. That would have felt like a lie. Instead, I focused on the feeling of my wish fulfilled.
What does a “wonderful, relaxing afternoon” feel like?
It feels like peace. It feels like joy. It feels like ease and lightness.
So, I let go. I leaned back as best I could, propped my feet up on our bag, and turned my attention to the love-of-my-life company I was with and the movie we were about to see. I consciously dwelled in the feelings of peace and joy. I accepted that, regardless of the chair’s mechanics, my afternoon was already perfect. I persisted in that feeling-state.
Sophia, radiating the same energy, didn’t try to “fix” me or the situation. She was in her own state of fulfillment.
I had completely let go of the how. The “how” was the universe’s department. My department was to stay in the feeling.
The Word That Bridged the Realities
A little while later, toward the end of the previews and just before the movie started, I got up to use the restroom. When I returned, Sophia, without a second thought, intuitively said:
“Try it again. It is working now.”
She hadn’t touched the controls. She hadn’t flagged down a manager. She simply spoke from that place of aligned intuition, from the state of the wish fulfilled.
The old me would have scoffed. “I already tried, it’s broken.” But the new me, the one bathing in the feeling of a perfect afternoon, was open. I was in a state of allowing.
I smiled. “Okay, I’ll try.”
I pressed the button. The chair whirred to life, reclining smoothly. I pressed the heat button. A comforting warmth spread through the seat.
To my utmost, gleeful sense of wonder, the 3D reality had caught up. The assumption — the feeling of a perfect, relaxed afternoon — had hardened into fact.
A Practical Takeaway: The Feeling-First Framework
This isn’t about magic movie theater chairs (although the movie we saw was all about magic). It’s about the fundamental blueprint of creation.
Identify the Core Feeling: What do you really want? Strip away the object or situation. If you want a new car, is it for the feeling of freedom? Security? Success? If you want a partner, is it for the feeling of connection? Love? Belonging? Start with the feeling. For us, it’s a deep sense of ease and peace. What is it for you?
Assume the Feeling Now: The moment a contradictory “3D fact” arises (a broken chair, a rejected pitch, a negative bank statement), pause. Don’t argue with the fact, don’t deny it either. Instead, drop into your body and summon the feeling of your wish fulfilled. Breathe into it. For just 10 seconds, let the feeling of peace, or joy, or abundance be more real than the external circumstance. This is the “work.”
Let Go of the “How”: Your job is to be the person who is already experiencing that feeling. The universe’s job is to arrange the details. Trust that intuitive nudges — like Sophia’s words — will arrive at the perfect time, guiding your actions.
Mind Your Inner (and Outer) Speech: Your internal monologue must support your new feeling-state. Then, when you speak, let it come from that aligned place. Your words are the first vibrations of your new reality. Make them count.
The world will tell you to change your circumstances to change your feelings. We’re here to suggest the opposite, more powerful path: Change your feeling to change your circumstances.
Don’t get me wrong — sometimes a broken chair is just a broken chair, and you should call a technician. But the feeling of frustration and powerlessness? That’s the real glitch in the system. And the repair for that doesn’t require a tool belt; it requires a conscious return to the feeling of the wish fulfilled.
The ultimate fix wasn’t for the chair’s wiring, but for my state of being.
If this concept resonated with you and you’d like to go deeper with a community of like-minded people, you are welcome to join our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). We continue these conversations there every day.
The "State Shift" Method: How to Replace Hustle with Flow
A simple 3-step framework I used to land a 10,000-person audience by following a single, intuitive nudge.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Let’s get straight to the point.
Most people approach manifesting backwards.
They think it’s about getting something from the outside world.
I know I did. For years, my stomach would knot with anxiety as I tried to manifest big goals. Hustle and grind would ensue. Every task felt like a heavy “have-to.” I was building my future from a place of exhaustion, and a nagging whisper followed me everywhere: “Is this ever going to actually pay off?”
Then, a single sentence from Neville Goddard’s book The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book) changed everything:
“Manifesting is nothing but experiencing the results of your concepts of yourself in the world.”
Let that settle for a moment.
It’s not about what you do. It’s about who you are while you’re doing it.
Your problem isn’t a lack of action. It’s the state from which you’re acting.
I was acting from “Sophia who wants and struggles,” instead of “Sophia who already has and enjoys.”
The shift happened when I stopped wanting my ocean-view home and started feeling what it was like to already have it. The peace. The security. The freedom.
I bathed in that feeling for five minutes. Then I got up.
My to-do list was the same. But the energy was completely different. A task that used to drain me now felt as natural and pleasant as an ocean breeze. I was no longer building my reality; I was expressing the one I had already claimed.
This is when the magic happens. When you act from this “wish fulfilled” state, your action transforms.
It becomes motivated by inspiration, not force.
It becomes intelligent, guided by intuition to the most effective steps.
It becomes magical, as a “bridge of incidents” unfolds that you could never have planned.
We needed to get our coaching program in front of thousands. The old me would have started a hustle campaign of some sorts.
The new, aligned us? Guided by intuition, we booked a yoga class.
On the community center sign-up page, we saw a link: “Apply to Become an Instructor.” We applied on a whim. Five minutes later, it was done.
48 hours after that, we were scheduled to teach our program, reaching thousands of people via the town’s Parks & Recreations newsletter and guide.
No hustle. Just ease. The path unfolded because we were already the people for whom visibility was natural.
The method is simple. We call it the “State Shift”:
Know What You Want. (Be specific.)
Identify the Core Feeling. (Why do you want it? The feeling is the real goal.)
Step Into the Identity. For five minutes, be the person who has it as a natural fact.
Do this three times a day. Morning, after lunch, before bed. You are reprogramming the source of your reality.
You stop rearranging the furniture and start rebuilding the foundation.
The transformation begins when you stop trying to create your reality and start experiencing it from within.
And if you’re ready to truly live this, not just understand it, our free Shift Your Identity community is where you can practice with a powerful, like-minded group.
You can join us here: https://www.simpleandaligned.com/syi
When you make the shift inwardly, the mirror of life is bound to conform.
The 3 Stages of Spiritual Stuckness (And How to Get Unstuck)
How a rotting mattress and an unsustainable paycheck taught me where our reality is truly created — and it’s not where you think.
Photo by Tomas Tuma on Unsplash
Let’s get straight to the heart of the matter.
The path of true creation — the kind that brings peace instead of burnout, and flow instead of force — is often misunderstood.
And that’s why so many people get stuck trying to “manifest” their way to a better life.
But my guess is…
You’re someone who senses a deeper power within you, but your external reality hasn’t quite caught up yet.
If that’s true, you’re likely facing one of three core challenges I know all too well.
See which one resonates with where you are right now.
Challenge 1: You see problems as “out there,” and it makes you feel powerless.
A difficult client. A slow-paying customer. A neighbor who leaves a rotting mattress on their lawn for five weeks (true story here).
Your frustration grows because you feel at the mercy of their actions. You’re stuck in a story you hate, and you’ve cast everyone else as the villain.
What you need isn’t a better strategy for dealing with them.
You need to realize you are the one holding the mirror.
Challenge 2: You’re “manifesting,” but it feels like a struggle.
You’ve visualized. You’ve affirmed. Maybe you even manifested a big win, like the $22,000 month I once had.
But the how was a nightmare. It came with burnout, stress, and anxiety. You got the what, but you lost your peace. You were still the same person, hustling for your worth.
This happens because you’re trying to change the reflection without changing the face in the mirror.
What you need is to shift who you are being instead of staying busy doing.
Challenge 3: You understand the concept, but you lack the “how.”
You’ve heard “change your identity,” but it feels abstract. How do you actually do that? How do you move from knowing you should be the person who already has what you want naturally, to truly feeling it as your reality?
What’s missing isn’t the theory.
It’s a simple, daily practice that bridges the gap between your future self and your present moment.
Wherever you see yourself, the solution is the same: Stop trying to rearrange the furniture in a burning house.
The liberating truth I discovered — first with a mattress, and then with my income — is from Neville Goddard’s book Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book):
“Man is actually the arbiter of his own fate.”
This means the cause is never truly “out there.” It’s within. Your concept of yourself determines the world you live in.
When I cleaned my internal clutter, the external mattress disappeared. When I shifted my identity from a hustler to someone in harmonious financial flow, my business transformed.
The simplest way to start this shift? Anchor yourself in a new state for just five minutes a day.
Sit. Close your eyes. Choose one feeling: love, peace, or joy. Generate the sensation in your chest. Let it warm you. For those five minutes, you are that peace. You are not wanting it; you are it.
This is how you make the shift inwardly. And the mirror of life is bound to conform.
If you’re ready to move from theory to practice alongside a community of like-minded people, we created our Skool community, Shift Your Identity, for you.
It’s where we support each other in doing this real, daily work.
→ Join the FREE Shift Your Identity (SYI) Community Here
In alignment,
Sophia (& Cristof)
A Mattress, $22k, and A Liberating Truth
Why Manifesting Often Fails — And the Identity Shift That Makes It Work
Photo by Sergey Shmidt on Unsplash
For five weeks, my neighbor’s old mattress festered on her lawn.
It became the backdrop to my life. I’d see it while taking out the trash — a sodden, decaying monument to… something.
Irresponsibility? Laziness?
I (Sophia) didn’t know, but I knew I was judging it. I’d feel a pang of irritation when I saw the neighborhood kids jumping on it, a potential health hazard. I’d sigh, thinking, “Why doesn’t she just deal with it?”
My frustration grew with each passing day. I was stuck in a story I hated, and I’d cast my neighbor as the villain.
Then, while immersed in Neville Goddard’s influential book The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book), a sentence stopped me cold:
“This great discovery of cause reveals that good or bad, man is actually the arbiter of his own fate… and that it is his concept of himself that determines the world in which he lives.”
Arbiter of my own fate. The words landed not as an empowering affirmation, but as a confronting truth. If I was the arbiter, the cause, then this mattress wasn’t just happening to me. My reality was mirroring something back to me.
I looked around my own apartment. And there it was: in the cupboard, four dusty paper bags filled with old college memorabilia and clutter from three moves ago. Ignored. Unattended. A mess I was refusing to deal with.
The parallel was undeniable. The neighbor’s junk outside my apartment was a perfect reflection of my clutter inside.
The old me would have either not done anything and continued to brood in her anger or, eventually, marched over and asked her, with barely concealed annoyance, to handle her mess.
That would be trying to rearrange the furniture in a burning house.
The new me, the one tentatively embracing this “arbiter” idea, knew the only door was inside my own mind.
I didn’t just clean the clutter. I became a person who lives in a clean, orderly, and attended-to environment. I handled my bags. I sorted, I discarded, I created space. I wasn’t just cleaning; I was embodying a new concept of myself: I am the kind of person who resolves things promptly.
The next day, the mattress was gone.
Now, you might call it a coincidence. But after five weeks of stagnation, the timing was… interesting. It was my first tiny, tangible proof. The universe wasn’t punishing me; it was showing me how the mechanism works.
This lesson became crucial when I started applying these principles to my business. I learned to manifest money, but I hadn’t yet learned to manifest a state of being.
I once visualized and “manifested” a $22,000 month. And it worked! The money came in. But the how was a nightmare. The projects attached to that income required three grueling months of non-stop, high-stress work to deliver. I got the number, but I lost my peace. I got the what, but not the who. I was still the identity of someone who hustles and struggles for abundance.
I was using the law of assumption to change the scenery, but I was still the same anxious character in the play.
Neville Goddard and the Buddha, in their own languages, point to the same solution:
Stop trying to change the reflection. Change the face in the mirror.
This is the shift from manifestation to Identity Shifting.
It’s the difference between:
Manifesting a specific income and becoming the person who is in harmonious financial flow.
Visualizing a perfect partner and embodying the state of being already loved and understood.
Affirming “I am abundant” and feeling the natural, quiet joy of the wish fulfilled.
This is where Neville’s “State of the Wish Fulfilled” meets the Buddha’s Brahmaviharas — the divine abodes of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. These aren’t complicated rituals. They are mind-states. When you dwell in the feeling of love, compassion, or peace, you are, by definition, not dwelling in lack, fear, or frustration. The light naturally drowns out the darkness.
You are assuming a new identity.
The One Practice to Start With Today
This might sound like a massive undertaking. It’s not. It’s a practice, like learning the piano. Every minute counts. Every note matters.
Don’t try to track and purify every “bad karma” seed at once. You’ll exhaust yourself.
Start here: Anchor yourself in a single, wholesome mind-state for five minutes a day.
Sit quietly. Close your eyes.
Choose one: Loving-kindness (May I be happy. May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I live with ease.) or simply the feeling of deep, quiet peace.
Feel it. Don’t just say the words. Generate the sensation in your chest. Let it warm you. Imagine your wish is already fulfilled — not as a frantic craving, but as a present-moment reality. What does that feel like? That’s your new state.
Dwell there. For five minutes, that feeling is your entire world. You are not someone wanting peace; you are peace.
In this state, you are naturally purifying old seeds and sowing new, powerful ones. You are shifting your identity from the inside out. From this place, action becomes inspired, aligned, and effortless — whether it’s cleaning your clutter or building a business.
The world doesn’t change when you chase a different reflection. It changes when you have the courage to become the person for whom that reflection is natural. You are the arbiter. And that is the most liberating truth you will ever embrace.
Ready to fully embody your new identity?
This is the work we do every day in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). It’s a space where we move beyond theory and into practice, supporting each other as we consciously choose and become the people we are meant to be.
If you’re ready to stop hustling against the current and start flowing with it, we’d be honored to have you.
The Missing Link Between Enlightenment and Manifestation
How I resolved the conflict between wanting nothing and creating everything — and how you can, too.
Photo by Lance Grandahl on Unsplash
Let’s get straight to the heart of something I struggled with for a long time.
This path of spiritual growth and conscious creation… it can feel confusing. Contradictory, even.
And if you’re feeling that tension, you’re not alone.
Something tells me you’re someone who feels deeply called to both inner peace and outer creation.
You want the freedom the Buddha spoke of, but you also feel the pull to manifest a life you love.
And if that’s true, you’ve likely felt the friction between these two worlds.
From my own journey and the work we do, I’ve seen that this conflict often shows up in a few key ways. See if one of these feels familiar.
The Seeker: You’ve studied the path to end suffering, but you wonder if that means you have to give up on your dreams and desires.
You feel a pull towards non-attachment, but you also have goals, a business to run, a life to build. It feels like a choice between being spiritual or being successful.
What you need isn’t to abandon your desires, but to understand how fulfilling them can actually be part of your path to freedom.
The Manifestor: You’ve tried using the law of assumption, but it often leaves you feeling more attached, more desperate for the 3D world to confirm your imaginal act.
You visualize and feel the feeling, but a part of you is still anxiously checking — did it work? This very craving, as the Buddha taught, is the root of the suffering you’re trying to escape.
This isn’t a failure of the technique. It’s a misunderstanding of its highest purpose.
The Integrator: You sense these two truths must be connected, but the bridge between them has always felt vague and intellectual if not outright elusive.
You’re ready for a practice that doesn’t just sound good, but that feels like a profound relief in your body and mind — the relief of true alignment.
Wherever you see yourself, the resolution isn’t about choosing one master over the other.
It’s about finding the one powerful point where their teachings fuse into a single, liberating practice.
It all comes down to a single, misunderstood moment: the moment you generate the “feeling of the wish fulfilled.”
Most people use this feeling to fuel their craving for the 3D world. This, according to the Buddha’s precise map of the mind, only creates more suffering.
But when you do it correctly — when you generate the feeling as an end in itself — something miraculous happens.
Relief. Satisfaction. Peace.
The craving doesn’t just get quieter. It stops. In that moment, you have everything you actually wanted. The thirst is quenched in your imagination. The 3D manifestation becomes a secondary detail.
You are no longer manifesting from a place of hunger. You are creating from a place of satiation.
This is the “forbidden alignment” we discovered. The Buddha gave us the map to end suffering. Neville gave us a precise tool to walk it.
If you’re ready to experience this shift, we explore it deeply in our article, “The Forbidden Alignment: What the Buddha and Neville Goddard Secretly Agree On.”
This is the work we live and breathe in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity. It’s a place to move from conflict to clarity, together.
Remember, the most powerful shift is an inward one.
Make the shift inwardly, and the mirror of life is bound to conform.
With alignment,
Sophia & Cristof
I Was Stuck in “Manifestation Mode.” This 3-Stage Wake-Up Call Changed Everything
A frustrating $113 yoga charge taught me the real difference between begging the universe and commanding your reality
Let’s get straight to it.
Most people who learn about manifestation hit a wall.
They visualize. They affirm. They try to think positive.
But deep down, it feels like begging the universe for a result. And when it doesn’t work, they feel frustrated. Inauthentic. Stuck.
I know, because I (Sophia) was there just last month.
I was three weeks into a “1-Month Trial” at a yoga studio when I needed to cancel. I sent a polite email, and their reply felt like a gut punch.
They said I needed to give 30 days’ notice to cancel a one-month trial.
I felt cheated. Disrespected. My story was, “They are so unfair!”
So, I did what any good manifestor would do: I visualized a refund. I affirmed their generosity.
And… nothing happened. They charged my card.
My manifestation was a dud.
That’s when I remembered the real secret I’d been teaching all along. It’s not about manifesting what you want. It’s about becoming who you are.
The shift happens when you move through these three stages:
Stage 1: You believe the cause of your problem is “out there.”
You’re focused on the external circumstance — the difficult person, the lack of money, the unfair policy.
You think changing that is the key to your peace. So you fight, you plead, you try to manifest it away.
But this keeps you powerless.
Stage 2: You learn the concept of “assumption,” but you keep it in your head.
You understand that your state of consciousness matters. You start saying “I am” statements.
But if it’s just a thought, it’s fragile. The moment your 3D reality pushes back (like a charge on your bank statement), the old story of injustice comes roaring back.
The mind is convinced, but the body and your actions aren’t.
Stage 3: You realize “assumption” is a verb. It’s the act of taking power.
This was my breakthrough.
I stopped trying to get a refund and became a person who commands integrity — by first embodying it myself.
I asked one simple, powerful question:
“Where have I not kept my own promises?”
The answer was immediate and humbling. I had failed to deliver a bonus video to my own students months ago. I was guilty of my own “fine print.”
I didn’t meditate more. I took action. I created the missing video and sent it out.
The moment I did, a feeling of lightness washed over me. The internal conflict was gone. The work was done.
The next day, the yoga studio refunded my money, unprompted.
This is the core of it: Stop manifesting, start embodying.
The world doesn’t respond to your wishes. It responds to your state of being. And your state of being is proven to you — and the universe — through your actions.
If you’re ready to move from theory to practice, we built a space for that.
In our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity, we do the “mirror work” together. We help each other find those hidden places where we’re out of integrity and give you the support to align them.
It’s where you learn to stop begging the universe and start commanding your reality.
Click here to join Shift Your Identity (SYI) for free.
As always, remember:
Make the shift inwardly, the mirror of life is bound to conform.
Sophia & Cristof
If you want to read the deeper, full story behind my yoga studio realization, you can find it here:
Stop Hustling, Start Abiding: The Easiest Path to What You Want
How a simple change in our daily mental practice led to a real-world opportunity in just two weeks
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash
I clicked ‘submit’ on the teaching application in a state of pure, light-filled flow.
It had only taken five minutes. There was no hesitation, no second-guessing, no imposter syndrome. Just two days later, Cristof and I were in a meeting with the community center program director, not to plead our case, but to decide on dates and pricing for our class.
This wasn’t the result of grinding out ridiculous work hours. It was the natural outcome of a practice we’d been doing for weeks: we stopped faking it until we made it, and started feeling it before we made it.
The Trap of the “Action-First” Model
We’re all taught the same script from childhood: work hard, study hard, do the things, and then — maybe — you’ll become the person who has the results.
Want to be a successful writer? Write for 100 days straight.
Want to be financially abundant? Work 80-hour weeks and save 50% of your income.
Want to be a teacher? Get the education, then the degree, then the position.
The actions come first, the identity follows. It’s a life of striving, and for many, a life of perpetual struggle. The imposter syndrome thrives here because you’re always reaching for an identity that feels outside of you.
But what if we have it backward?
The Download That Changed Everything
Less than a week before the kickoff call for our community, we had a moment of clarity. The real, transformational work isn’t in the action. The action is a byproduct. The first step is the identity.
You don’t just get good grades; you are an excellent student.
You don’t just earn a lot of money; you are a financially abundant person.
You don’t just teach a class; you are a teacher.
For us, the desired identity was clear: “I AM a person who knows identity shifting inside out, applies it in his/her own life with ease, and teaches it successfully to others so they can transform their lives.”
This wasn’t a lie we told ourselves. It was a state we chose to inhabit.
The Practice: “Abiding” in the Wish Fulfilled
So how do you move from “doing until you are” to being the excellent student, financially abundant person, or confident teacher? You don’t just affirm it once. You abide in it.
For a couple of weeks, several times a day, we would consciously drop into the “state of the wish fulfilled.” We used the “I AM” mantra above not as a desperate plea, but as a gentle reminder of our true, chosen state.
We weren’t visualizing a specific classroom or students. We were simply connecting with the feeling of already being the capable, knowledgeable, generous teachers we knew we were. The feeling of ease. The feeling of natural authority. The feeling of service.
This is the crucial difference. Manifesting isn’t about craving a future thing. It’s about experiencing the ultimate result of that thing — the feeling — right now, in your mind. Because even when you get the Lamborghini, the experience of joy and abundance still happens in your mind. Why wait?
When the 3D World Catches Up
This is where the magic happens. When you are truly abiding in that new identity, inspired action finds you. It feels like flow, not force.
The email from the community center? It didn’t feel like a shocking coincidence. It felt like a natural, almost expected invitation from a universe that had simply matched our internal frequency. Seeing the “Program Instructor Application” link wasn’t a surprise; it was an obvious next step. The energy was divine, intuitive, and effortless. No thinking, only doing from a state of being.
The action was a joyful effect, not a strenuous cause.
Your Turn: How to Find Your “I AM”
If you’re feeling stuck in an identity that no longer serves you, here is the simple, practical first step:
Identify the “Stuck” Identity: Get brutally honest. “I am a struggling freelancer.” “I am an unpublished writer.” “I am someone who is always broke.”
Define the Desired Identity: What is the opposite, fulfilled version? Not just having something, but being someone. “I am a sought-after expert in my field.” “I am an author whose words impact thousands.” “I am a financially abundant person.”
It might take a few iterations to get it right. That’s okay. The key is to find the identity that, if you truly felt it was your reality, would make the craving for the external thing simply… dissolve.
The Beautiful Paradox of Non-Attachment
Now, you might be wondering: “Isn’t this just creating a new form of craving?” This is where the Buddha’s teachings beautifully align.
The practice isn’t to cling to the specific outcome nor the feeling. We didn’t need to teach at that specific community center. We just dwelled in the identity of being teachers and left the specifics up to the universe.
Feel the feeling, but be unattached to the form it takes. The feeling itself is also a tool. Use it, and let it go when it no longer serves you. This is the path of true freedom — shaping your reality without being enslaved by your desires.
The more you practice dwelling in this state, the more natural it feels. And the more natural it feels, the faster your outside reality will catch up, often in ways more creative and wonderful than you could have planned.
If this resonated with you and you’re tired of the hustle, we invite you to join our free Shift Your Identity (SYI) community. It’s a space where we explore these concepts daily, share wins, and support each other in moving from struggle to flow. For those ready to go deeper, our Premium membership includes our Power of Awareness course and, most importantly, weekly live “I AM” calls where we practice getting into and abiding in the “state of the wish fulfilled” together.
Your new identity is waiting for you to claim it.
The Manifesting Mistake That Keeps You Stuck in the Hustle
How I learned to stop rearranging the furniture in a burning house and finally build a new foundation.
Let’s get straight to the heart of it.
The path to a life of freedom and abundance isn’t about doing more. In fact, that’s the very thing keeping most people stuck.
But something tells me you already sense that.
You’ve probably visualized, journaled, and set big goals… but the feeling of “hustle” is still there. The alignment you’re seeking feels just out of reach.
If that’s true, you might be making the same mistake I made for years.
You’re trying to manifest goals instead of shifting your identity.
I learned this the hard way. I was a six-figure freelancer, completely burned out. My calendar was packed, but my soul was empty.
I was, what I now call, “rearranging the furniture in a burning house.”
I was so focused on sending one more email, tweaking one more design — the actions — that I ignored the roaring flames of my own misalignment. The house (my old identity) was on fire, and I was worried about the couch.
My wake-up call came during Hurricane Helene. Being evacuated from my home made the metaphor devastatingly clear: you can’t save a house that’s being consumed. You have to get out and find a new foundation.
In that pause, a teaching from Neville Goddard’s book The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book) finally clicked:
“Manifesting is experiencing the results of the concepts of yourself in the world.”
It’s not about getting things. It’s about becoming the person for whom those things are natural.
I had to step out of the smoke and into a new identity. I stopped asking, “How do I make more money?” and started asking:
“Who am I if I am already a financially abundant and generous teacher?”
This isn’t “acting as if.” It’s feeling as if.
And when I made that shift, everything changed. Opportunities aligned with that new identity started to appear — like teaching locally and building our free online community — without the exhausting chase.
If you’re ready to stop hustling and start being, the way out is simpler than you think.
Your first step is to ask yourself one powerful question:
“What is the feeling I am truly seeking from my goal? And who is the ‘I Am’ person that already embodies it?”
Find that feeling. Slip into that identity for just five minutes (or even just five seconds for beginners) today. Let it be your inner soundtrack.
The rest will begin to unfold, intuitively.
We built our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI), as a sanctuary for this exact work. A place to put out your fires and build a new foundation, together.
If you’re ready to step into your new identity, join us here.
→ simpleandaligned.com/syi
As always, remember:
You are the conscious creator of your reality. Now, let’s create from a place of being, not striving.
With love and alignment,
Sophia (and Cristof)
The Hustle-Free Way of Manifesting Goals
Stop rearranging the furniture in your burning house and learn to build from a new foundation instead.
Photo by Kareli Lizcano on Unsplash
I (Sophia) was a six-figure freelancer, and I was exhausted.
My calendar was a mosaic of client calls, project deadlines, and content to be created. I had hit the revenue goal so many solopreneurs dream of, but the cost was my sanity. My time for rest, for freedom, for inspiration, for simply taking a deep breath — was gone. I was constantly “doing,” but I felt completely empty.
I was, as I now see it, expertly rearranging the furniture in a burning house.
I was so focused on the actions — sending one more email, tweaking one more design, going on yet another client call — that I ignored the roaring flames of my own burnout and misalignment. The house was on fire, and I was worried about whether the couch was in the right spot.
If you’re a creator, a solopreneur, or anyone trying to build a better life, you might know this feeling. The frantic hustle. The feeling that if you just do more, you’ll be more. It’s a conditioned lie we’ve inherited from a world that prizes effort over alignment.
My wake-up call came in a double-whammy.
First, I hit a wall. Despite using spiritual teachings for inner-peace and manifestation techniques to “attract” more money, I was still burned out. I realized I was just manifesting goals, not changing my identity. I was trying to get a new sofa for the same burning house.
Then, life forced me to stop. Last year, during Hurricane Helene, we needed to evacuate. Standing there, with the literal world I knew potentially crumbling, the metaphor became devastatingly clear. You can’t control the storm, and you can’t save a house that’s being consumed. You have to get out. You have to find a new foundation.
In that forced pause, the teachings of Neville Goddard, which I had studied for years, finally clicked in my gut, not just my head. He wrote, in The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to the book),
“Manifesting is experiencing the results of the concepts of yourself in the world.”
It’s not about visualizing a thing. It’s about becoming the person for whom that thing is a natural reality.
The fire wasn’t my client load; it was my self-concept. I was operating as a “struggling freelancer” who had to hustle for every dollar. My identity was the burning house. No amount of rearranging — no new client, no higher rate — would put out that flame.
I had to step out of the smoke and into a new identity entirely.
The Shift: From Goal-Getter to Generous Teacher
I stopped asking, “How can I make $X?” and started asking, “Who am I if I am already a financially abundant entrepreneur?”
The answer wasn’t about having a fat bank account. It was about the feeling. The feeling of security, of generosity, of being a valuable teacher who helps others transform their lives. I defined my new identity:
“I am a financially abundant & generous teacher of identity shifting.”
This isn’t “acting as if.” It’s feeling as if. You honor your present 3D reality, but you consciously choose to generate the feeling you believe you’d have if your desire was already true.
And then, a funny thing happened. The opportunities that aligned with that person started to show up.
A local community center invited me to teach a workshop on identity shifting. Our free Skool community, SYI, began to grow with beautiful, like-minded souls who genuinely wanted to learn from us. We weren’t chasing; we were creating value from a state of abundance, and the means to create a livelihood from doing what we love naturally unfolded. The money started to follow the value, not the other way around.
Your Practical Takeaway: How to Step Into Your New Identity Today
You don’t need a hurricane to start this shift. You can start in the next five minutes.
The process is simple, but it requires courage to stop “doing” and start “being.”
Get Crystal Clear: What do you really want? And more importantly, why? Dig for the feeling. Do you want more money for the number in your account, or for the feeling of security and freedom it represents? Do you want a successful business for the status, or for the feeling of creative expression and impact?
Define the “I Am”: Complete this sentence from the end result: “I am a person who…” Not “I want to be,” but “I AM.”
→ Instead of “I want to be a successful writer,” try “I am a widely-read author whose words transform lives.”
→ Instead of “I want to be debt-free,” try “I am a financially abundant and secure person.”Slip Into the Feeling (The 5-Minute Practice): Close your eyes. For just five minutes, let go of your current reality. In your mind’s eye, slip into the identity of that “I Am” person you just defined. Don’t visualize objects; generate the feeling. What does it feel like in your body to be that person? Is it a lightness in your chest? A quiet confidence? A sense of expansive freedom? Let that feeling wash over you. Breathe into it.
Carry It With You: Open your eyes and go about your day. But let that feeling be your inner soundtrack. Let it infuse your decisions, your conversations, your work. Action will become intuitive, not forced. You’ll stop procrastinating and second-guessing because you’ll be moving from a place of alignment with your inner self.
Stop trying to save the burning house. The hustle, the exhaustion, the constant “doing” from a place of lack — it’s all smoke and mirrors.
Step out. Breathe the fresh air of a new identity. Build a new reality from the inside out.
Ready to stop hustling and start being?
This is the work we do every day in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). We host free calls where we practice these exact techniques together, support each other, and celebrate each other’s wins. It’s a safe space to put out your fires and build the identity you truly desire.
Join us for free at simpleandaligned.com/syi. We’d be honored to have you.
Stop Trying to Change Your Life
The one shift that actually works isn’t about doing more. It’s about winning the inner game first.
Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash
Let’s get straight to the heart of it.
You’ve probably tried to change your life from the outside in.
You set a goal. You hustle. You rearrange the external circumstances, hoping it will finally make you feel the way you want to feel.
It’s like rearranging the furniture in a burning house.
I (Cristof) was doing this for years. Until a simple moment on a gym bench — and a line from a movie — showed me the only way that actually works.
I was at a raffle, losing. My number wasn’t called. Again and again.
And I felt myself slump into the old story: “I guess I just don’t win these things.”
I was embodying “Someone Who Doesn’t Win.” And my reality was complying.
But right then, I made a choice. I initiated an identity shift.
I sat up straight. I smiled. I celebrated the others as if I were a winner who knew my turn was coming.
I didn’t just act like a winner. I felt like one.
The very next drawing? My number was called.
Then it was called again. And again. I won three times.
The prizes were small, but the lesson was everything: Your external world is a lagging indicator of your internal identity.
This is what Neville Goddard meant, in The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book), when he said the truth that sets you free is to
“experience in imagination what you desire to experience in reality.”
And it’s what Coach Carter, in the movie Coach Carter (affiliate link to movie), played by Samuel L. Jackson, meant by:
“Winning in here is the key to winning out there.”
“Winning in here” has nothing to do with a basketball court. It’s about the inner court of your mind.
Most people get this wrong in one of two ways:
They are clear on the what, but fuzzy on the who.
They know they want $10,000 a month, but they haven’t become the person who has and earns that with ease. That person is calm, confident, and sees themselves as a high-value creator. Who must you be?They understand the concept, but skip the feeling.
They visualize the goal, but they don’t live in the feeling of the wish fulfilled. They daydream about the future instead of reliving the present fact.
Your only job is to assume the feeling. Persist in it. When the old “losing streak” appears, ignore the echo.
The shift happens now. In here.
Then, and only then, does the world out there have no choice but to conform.
P.S. This is the exact work we do every day in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). It’s not just a group; it’s a living practice where we support each other in making these shifts permanent. If you’re ready to stop rearranging furniture and put out the fire for good, you belong with us.
Join the free SYI Community Here
Have You Taken a Pause That Changed Everything?
Life doesn’t slow down just because you want it to.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Let’s be honest.
Life doesn’t slow down just because you want it to.
For years, I was racing. Twelve-hour days. Screens lighting my face. Chasing the next deal, the next project, the next “win.”
I thought that’s what success looked like.
But at some point… I realized I wasn’t living. I was hustling.
Then life made me stop.
Stage 1: You feel the shift coming, but don’t know how to pause.
For me, it was a hurricane. Hurricane Helene. We had to evacuate. Nature itself paused.
And suddenly… I heard it. That quiet whisper I’d been ignoring:
“What if you stopped?”
Not just for a moment. But deeply.
I had spent years defining myself by performance. By output. By doing.
But in that pause, I realized how empty all the chasing had become.
Stage 2: You try to pause, but old habits scream.
During evacuation, a friend offered me a trading project. My reflex said yes. My people-pleaser said yes.
But my heart whispered: no.
For the first time, I actually listened. Saying no wasn’t rejecting opportunity — it was reclaiming sanity.
That was the first sacred pause I ever took.
Stage 3: You’re ready to make the pause your practice.
After that, I began experimenting. Sometimes just three minutes a day. Breathing. Sitting. Listening.
Writing. Healing. Healing through writing.
And something shifted. My life reorganized itself.
I discovered: peace doesn’t come from controlling life. It comes from being fully present. It comes from uncovering layers of conditioned habits, one at a time.
Prayer is speaking. Meditation is listening. Why not do both?
Creation becomes a conversation — a two-way flow.
The Antidote to Hustle
Every morning, I ask myself:
“What is one thing that is sacred to me today?”
It rewired my life. Turned productivity into purpose. Made peace my portfolio.
I work differently now. I show up differently. I serve from overflow instead of stress.
Your turn
Pause isn’t about stopping the world. It’s about finding your center inside it.
Take a moment today. Breathe. Ask:
What is one thing that is sacred to me today? How can I honor or protect it?
Hold it. Breathe into it. Let it guide your actions today.
If this resonates… know you’re not alone.
We’re building a space called Shift Your Identity for people who want to live from peace, not pressure; from purpose, not hustle.
It’s where we explore, reflect, and support each other in creating lives that align with our deepest truth.
Because peace isn’t a luxury. It’s your birthright. And the pause? That’s how you reclaim it.
With alignment,
Cristof
I “Tricked” Myself Into Winning 3 Prizes in a Single Raffle
Here’s the simple identity shift I used — rooted in Neville Goddard’s teachings — that you can apply to manifest anything.
Photo by Jake Ingle on Unsplash
I (Cristof) sat on a hard gym bench, watching my chances of winning a raffle slip away.
The first prize was called. Not my number.
The second. Not my number.
The third and fourth. Nothing.
My shoulders began to slump. A familiar, apologetic story started playing in my mind: “It’s okay, you never win these things anyway. Just be happy for the others. Don’t get your hopes up.”
I was, in that moment, perfectly embodying the identity of Someone Who Doesn’t Win.
And the universe was complying.
But I’ve been doing this inner work for a while. I recognized the old story as it was happening. This wasn’t who I am anymore. So, right there in the noisy gym, I initiated a deliberate identity shift. I decided to step out of “Someone Who Doesn’t Win” and into “A Winner.”
I sat up straight. I put a genuine smile on my face. I started applauding the other winners with sincere joy, as if I were a champion who knew my turn was coming. I didn’t just act like a winner; I felt like one. I allowed myself to feel the satisfaction and excitement of having already won.
The very next drawing? My number was called.
I won a gift card. I was thrilled, but an old pattern emerged. When my number was called again in the next round, I felt a pang of hesitation. “Should I really be this happy? People might think I’m greedy.” The old identity was fighting to pull me back.
I consciously reaffirmed my new state. “I have shifted. I am a winner. Winners get to celebrate.” I stood up, raised my arms, and joyfully accepted my second prize.
By the end of the night, I had won three times.
Now, in the grand scheme, a few ice cream gift cards are trivial. But the lesson was profound: Your external world is nothing more than a lagging indicator of your internal identity. When I identified as a loser, I got loss. The moment I shifted to identifying as a winner, I started winning. It worked immediately.
This experience cemented a truth I knew from Neville Goddard. In his book, The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book), he taught that:
“The truth that sets you free is that you can experience in imagination what you desire to experience in reality. And by maintaining this experience in imagination, your desire will become an actuality.”
But it was just yesterday that the final piece clicked into place. We were relaxing at home and watching the movie Coach Carter (affiliate link to movie). Samuel L. Jackson, as the coach, tells his team:
“The losing stops now. Starting today, you will play like winners, act like winners, and most importantly, you will be winners… winning in here is the key to winning out there.”
It hit me. That’s it. That’s the entire philosophy in one powerful, cinematic statement.
Most people hear that and think “in here” means the basketball court. But I finally saw it with perfect clarity.
“Winning in here” isn’t about a court. It’s about the inner court of your mind. It’s the identity you assume before the external result shows up. My gym story was a tiny, perfect example of winning in here (my mind) to win out there (the raffle).
The Simple Method for Shifting Your Identity
We spend so much time rearranging the furniture in a burning house — trying to fix external circumstances without addressing the internal fire of our own self-concept. The real work is within. If you want to create a lasting change, start by consciously shifting your identity. Here’s the practical, two-step method, that Sophia explains like this:
Step 1: Get Absurdly Clear on What You Want & Who You Must Be to Have It
You can’t build a house without a blueprint. Most people are vague. “I want more money.” “I want a better relationship.” This is useless to your subconscious mind.
Get specific. “I want to earn $10,000 per month from my creative work, with ease and joy.”
Now, here’s the crucial pivot most people miss: What is the identity of the person who already has that?
The person earning $10k/month with ease isn’t frantic or desperate. They are confident, focused, and see themselves as a high-value creator. They are a winner in their field.
Your desire isn’t just for the thing; it’s for the state of being that the thing implies. Define that state. Is it “a winner,” “a bestselling author,” “a magnetic partner,” “a debt-free person”?
Step 2: Make Your Future Dream a Present Fact Through Feeling
This is where you move from theory to practice. You must “assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled,” as Neville says.
The word “assumption” is key. The dictionary gives two definitions that are perfectly aligned for our purpose:
A thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.
The action of taking on power or responsibility.
You must accept as true, without any proof from the 3D world, that you are already that person. And in doing so, you take on the power and responsibility of that new identity.
How do you do this? In your imagination.
Let’s say your desire is to be a bestselling author. Don’t just visualize holding the book. That’s a step, but it’s not the pinnacle.
Instead, enter a scene that would imply your desire is fulfilled. Imagine reading a heartfelt email from a reader, telling you how your book changed their life. Feel the warmth in your chest. See the words on the screen. Hear your own grateful, happy sigh. Live in that feeling.
Do this not as a daydream of the future, but as a reliving of a present fact. This isn’t “someday.” This is now.
As Neville puts it:
“By desiring to be other than what you are, you can create an ideal of the person you want to be and assume that you are already that person. If this assumption is persisted in until it becomes your dominant feeling, the attainment of your ideal is inevitable.”
Your only job is to persist. When the old reality (the “losing streak”) shows up, ignore it. It’s just echo. When doubt creeps in, gently return to the feeling of your wish fulfilled.
Stop trying to build a new you from the outside in. It’s exhausting. Instead, make the shift. Decide who you are now, and let your outer world catch up to that truth. “Win in here,” and watch, almost as a passive observer, as your reality has no choice but to reflect your new identity back to you.
Ready to make your shift? This is exactly what we explore in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). It’s a space where we dive deeper into these principles, support each other’s journeys, and practice the art of conscious creation together. If this article resonated with you, you already belong. Click here to join our free SYI community today.
The Sacred Pause
How slowing down became my greatest source of peace
Photo by Frames For Your Heart on Unsplash
It’s funny how easy it is to get caught up in speed — in the endless doing, the striving, the measuring. For years, my days started and ended with screens. Twelve hours of staring at glowing rectangles, chasing the next deal, the next trade, the next client project.
At some point, I wasn’t working anymore — I was spinning. I was the kind of tired that no nap can fix. That was my normal.
Then life decided to make me stop.
The Breaking Point
It wasn’t just burnout that broke me open — it was a hurricane. Hurricane Helene hit our region hard, and we had to evacuate. I remember packing up the essentials, stepping outside, and feeling this eerie stillness in the air. Nature had paused everything.
That week, the storm outside mirrored the one I had been ignoring inside.
When the power went out, when the water stopped flowing, when the internet went silent, something else came online — a whisper inside me asking,
“What if I stopped?”
Not just physically, but deeply.
I had spent years as an investment adviser and software engineer — always chasing, optimizing, producing. My identity was tied to performance. But in that pause, I started to see how empty that chase had become.
The First Real Pause
The first real pause came in a moment of temptation during the evacuation— a friend offered me an exciting trading project, something that would’ve reignited the hustle. My reflex said yes, the people-pleaser in me said yes, but my heart whispered no.
For the first time, I listened to the whisper.
Saying no to that project wasn’t about rejecting opportunity — it was about reclaiming sanity. It was the first sacred pause I ever took.
I didn’t have a name for it then, but it was the beginning of a new rhythm — one built around meditation, reflection, and daily stillness.
Let’s Pause Together
Before I tell you the rest of the story, let’s experience what I’m talking about.
Let’s take a few minutes to pause — not as an escape, but as a return.
I invite you to gently close your eyes if you feel comfortable. Take a deep breath in… and let it go.
Feel the weight of your body on the chair. Feel the floor beneath your feet.
Now, bring to mind something or someone that naturally opens your heart. It could be a loved one, a pet, a memory, or even a sense of divine presence.
As you breathe, imagine sending a gentle wish toward them:
“May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be joyful. May you be free from suffering.”
Take a few breaths in that space. Feel how your heart softens, how your breath steadies.
Now, let that same kindness turn inward.
May I be happy. May I be peaceful. May I be joyful. May I be free from suffering.
Just notice the shift.
That’s the power of a pause — it’s not about stopping time; it’s about touching eternity within time.
Take one more breath.
And when you’re ready, open your eyes.
What I Discovered in That Pause
When I first started practicing this — sometimes for just three minutes a day — my life began to reorganize itself.
I realized something profound:
What’s holy to me isn’t the output. It’s the process.
It’s the morning hours when I write, heal, and create. It’s journaling through the old stories that kept me small. It’s the moments when I listen — not to the world, but to that still, quiet voice inside.
That’s where sacredness lives.
And the more I paid attention, the more I noticed something beautiful — peace doesn’t come from controlling life; it comes from being fully present for it. It comes from uncovering habituated, conditioned, non-reflected ways of being, layer by layer.
As I often remind myself, prayer is speaking to God, and meditation is listening. Why not do both? Creation, after all, is a conversation — a two-way flow.
The Antidote to Hustle
Rainn Wilson once asked in his book Soul Boom (affiliate link):
“What is holy to you personally? […] Where does sacredness live? […] What should be sacred to all of humanity?”
That question hit me like truth does — quietly but deeply.
I started asking myself every morning,
“What is one thing that is sacred to me today?”
That one question rewired my life. It turned productivity into purpose. It made me realize that the real wealth I was seeking wasn’t financial — it was peace of mind.
Peace became my portfolio.
When I built my business around that truth, everything changed. I didn’t work less — I worked better. My energy felt sustainable. My creativity deepened. I couldn’t wait to start working each morning; I was serving from overflow.
Let’s Practice the Sacred Pause
Let’s take another few minutes together to feel what it means to make something sacred.
If you’d like, close your eyes again.
Take a few deep breaths.
Now bring to mind your day — everything that’s on your mind, all that’s waiting for you when you leave here.
And now ask yourself, quietly,
What is one thing that is sacred to me today?
Don’t overthink it. Just let the first thing that arises — a person, a value, a moment, a feeling — come forward.
Hold it in your awareness.
Breathe into it.
This is your sacred center. The place from which your best self acts and speaks.
Now, with one more deep breath, commit — even if silently — to honoring this sacred thing in some small way today.
Take your time. And when you’re ready, slowly open your eyes.
What We’ve Lost — and What We Can Reclaim
When we lose touch with what is sacred to us, we lose our peace. And peace, I’ve come to see, is the most precious wealth in the world.
Without it, we cannot serve others or ourselves in our highest way. We just spin — busy, exhausted, half-alive.
But when we pause, when we listen, everything changes. Even burnout becomes a teacher. Even emotional upheaval turns into a source of enlightenment. Even a hurricane becomes holy.
Because in the sunlight of awareness, as Thich Nhat Hanh said, everything becomes sacred.
A New Kind of Wealth
So here’s the paradox: When we stop chasing success and start cultivating stillness, success begins to find us — not as an achievement, but as alignment.
I have been building my business around that truth. I’ve been building my peace around that truth. Now I get to share it with you.
And the invitation I’ll leave you with is simple:
Pause daily. Reflect weekly. Retreat deeply.
And each time you do, ask yourself — What’s sacred to me today?
You’ll find that question alone is enough to change everything.
Closing Invitation
If this message resonated with you, I’d love for you to stay connected.
We’re building an online community called Shift Your Identity — a space for people who want to live, work, and create from peace, not pressure; who want to build a conscious life, not one shaped by adopted expectations.
You can join us online, continue exploring these and other practices, and share your reflections.
But most importantly — take this pause into your life. Protect it. Nurture it.
Because peace isn’t a luxury. It’s our birthright.
And the pause is how we come home to it.
With love and alignment,
Cristof Ensslin
The Sacred Pause: The Solopreneur’s Antidote to Burnout
How a simple question from Rainn Wilson’s “Soul Boom” helped me replace hustle with holiness and build a business that doesn’t cost me my peace.
Photo by Frank Leuderalbert on Unsplash
You know the feeling. It’s 3:17 PM on a Tuesday. Your to-do list is a tyrant, your inbox is a bottomless pit, and the glow of your screen feels more like a prison spotlight than a gateway to freedom. You’re chasing client work, algorithm updates, and revenue goals with a frantic energy that, deep down, feels hollow.
You started this journey to build a life of purpose. But somewhere along the way, the purpose got buried under the productivity. The meaning got lost in the metrics.
I (Cristof) was deep in this exact grind. As a freelance programmer, my worth was measured in billable hours and completed projects. I stacked them high, convinced that maximizing my income potential was the ultimate goal. The result? I was a husk. Stressed, burned out, and painfully disconnected. The romantic dates with my wife? A forgotten concept. Quiet moments with my cats? A luxury. My morning meditation? The first thing sacrificed on the altar of "busyness."
I had traded my inner peace for outer progress, and it was the worst bargain I’d ever made. I was doing all this work for my family, but in the process, I had become completely absent from my family. I was building a business to create freedom, but I had become a slave to it.
Then, I read a paragraph in Rainn Wilson’s book, Soul Boom (affiliate-link), that stopped me cold. It was a simple invitation—a plea, really—amidst a chapter on meaning. He asks:
“Please take five minutes to consider… What is holy to you personally? Where does sacredness live? What should be sacred to all of humanity? What is most definitely not sacred? What have we lost by not having more ‘sacredness’ in our lives?”
His hope was to spark one action: a moment of pause.
Reading that, I felt a deep resonance. I had already stepped away from the 24/7 freelance grind, but the mental habits of hustle culture were stubborn ghosts. The frantic energy, the guilt for pausing — these were my default settings. The word ‘pause’ in Rainn’s passage wasn’t a life raft from a sinking ship, but a validation for the dry land I was already standing on. It was permission to make my new reality feel not just like a break, but like a sacred, permanent shift.
So I closed the book, set my phone aside, and applied this new lens of ‘sacredness’ to the peace I was trying to build.
Here’s what I discovered in that sacred pause:
What is holy to me is not the output; it’s the process. It’s the sacred act of healing, writing, and creating between 8 AM and noon each day. It’s the time I spend journaling to untangle childhood traumas and insecurities, not just to become a better businessman, but to become a whole man. This is the foundation upon which a meaningful life—and a sustainable business—is built.
Sacredness lives as a feeling in the heart of my being. It’s not an abstract concept; it’s a tangible energy I can locate in the center of my chest. It’s the universal love and joy I can access through a momentary pause, a deep breath, a conscious re-centering. It’s my internal home base, and I had been away from home for far too long.
What should be sacred to all of us is getting out of the hustle culture. It’s making non-negotiable pauses to reflect, realign, and simplify. The endless heist for money, fame, and power is a hollow game. The true spiritual journey is the one that leads to an inner happiness independent of outside factors—the kind of success that no market crash can ever take away.
That Tuesday afternoon grind? The constant busyness devoid of meaning? That is the opposite of sacred. It’s what leads us away from our true path. But here’s the beautiful paradox I learned: that feeling of emptiness, that volcanic pressure of dissatisfaction, is also what eventually forces us onto a spiritual quest. It’s the catalyst. As Thich Nhat Hanh said,
“in the sunlight of awareness, everything becomes sacred.”
Even our burnout can become a teacher if we pay attention.
So, what have we lost by not having more sacredness in our lives? We have lost our peace. And peace is the most precious wealth in the world. For this very reason, my current LinkedIn banner states:
“There is no greater wealth in this world than peace of mind.”
See it here and connect.
Without it, we cannot serve others or ourselves in our highest possible way. We just spin on the hamster wheel, wondering why we’re so tired but getting nowhere.
Your Practical Pause: A 5-Minute Business Strategy
This isn’t woo-woo; it’s the most practical productivity hack you’ll ever adopt. Your sacred pause is your strategic advantage. It’s what prevents burnout and fuels authentic creativity.
Here’s how to start, today:
Set a timer for 5 minutes. Do this before you check email or social media.
Ask yourself just one of Rainn’s questions: “What is holy to me personally in my work or life today?” or “Where can I find a pocket of the sacred in my schedule?”
Listen. Not with your brain, but with that feeling in the center of your chest. The first answer that arises without ego—that’s your truth.
Protect it. That thing that came up? That’s your new non-negotiable. It is more important than one more email.
When I started doing this, everything changed. I didn’t work less; I worked better. My creativity became more focused, my energy more sustainable, and my connection with my clients more genuine because I was no longer running on empty. I was serving from a place of overflow.
I regained my peace. And from that place of quiet wealth, everything else flows.
What is one thing that is sacred in your work and life? Share it in the comments below. Let’s create a living library of what truly matters.
If this piece resonated with you, you’ll love our weekly Simple and Aligned newsletter. Every week, we share one simple prompt, one insight, and one actionable tip to help you stay connected to what’s sacred in your work and life, so you can build a business that feels like a calling. Join us here and get free access to our ever-expanding library of PDF-guides for more conscious living and success.
With love and alignment,
Cristof (and Sophia)
The Childhood Memory That Programmed Me to Self-Sabotage
…And How I’m Rewriting the Code
I (Sophia) couldn’t understand why I kept abandoning my dreams. The answer was 30 years old, hiding in a hallway, listening to my mom on the phone.
I thought my problem was time management.
I’d devoured every book, every blog post. I’d tried every productivity hack. For years, I’d cycle through the same pattern: I’d start a project with fiery passion. For three, maybe four days, I’d feel incredible—aligned, purposeful, and satisfied.
Then, without fail, I’d abandon it.
Something “more important” would pop up. A website bug that had to be fixed. An inbox that needed to be zeroed out. I’d tell myself a very logical story: “Let me just tie up all these loose ends. I need a clear mind and a clean slate to do my real work.”
But by the time the slate was clean, my energy was gone. My real work—the writing, the recording, the creating—never happened.
I blamed my willpower. I thought I was lazy, undisciplined, a dreamer who couldn’t execute.
I was wrong. My willpower was fine. It was being held hostage by a story written decades ago. It took a 100-year-old book by Émile Coué to make me look for the puppeteer. He introduced me to the ruthless power of the subconscious mind, which he called the imagination:
“Not only does the unconscious self preside over the functions of our organism, but also over all our actions. It is this that we call imagination and it is this which contrary to accepted opinion always makes us act even and above all against our will when there is antagonism between these two forces.”
My will wanted to create. But a stronger force was making me act against it.
It took a moment of deep honesty to find the source of that force: a young girl, standing in a hallway, listening to her mom on the phone.
I was that girl. I had ranked second in my class for years, and I was proud. I worked hard. I knew who was first, and I was genuinely happy being second. It felt like my place.
Then I heard my mom’s voice, tinged with a disappointment I’d never heard directed at me: “Oh yes, she again has only ranked second.”
The air left my lungs.
The message my heart received was catastrophic: Your best will never be good enough. The highest effort you can possibly muster will still be a disappointment.
So, my brilliant, young mind made a survival decision: If you can’t win, don’t play the game. If your best is a failure, never give your best.
It created a saboteur, a protector, whose sole job was to ensure I never put my whole heart into anything ever again. That way, I could never feel the crushing pain of my “best” being found wanting.
For 30 years, I didn’t know this protector existed. But she’s been running the show ever since that day in the hallway. She made me a puppet, and I never even saw the strings. Coué saw them clearly:
“We who are so proud of our will, who believe that we are free to act as we like, are in reality, nothing but wretched puppets of which our imagination holds all the strings.”
Her strategy is genius: Productive Procrastination.
When I start getting too close to my heart-work—the work that matters so much it could be deemed “my best”—she swings into action. She doesn’t tell me to be lazy. That would be too obvious.
Instead, she makes me productive. She creates a compelling, logical, and urgent case for doing everything except the important thing.
“You can’t write an article with a messy website! Fix it first!”
“How can you record a video with unorganized files? Organize them first!”
“Your inbox is full! You can’t possibly focus with that hanging over you.”
She is the ultimate Streamliner. Her justification is always about creating the “perfect conditions” for genius to strike.
But her real mission is to run out the clock. To ensure I never, ever put myself in a position where I risk giving my best effort and having it be “only second.” Because if I don’t truly try, I can’t truly fail. I had believed so proudly in my free will, but Coué was right:
“If we open a dictionary and look up the word ‘will’ we find this definition: ‘The faculty of freely determining certain acts’. We accept this definition as true and unattackable, although nothing could be more false, this will which we reclaim so proudly yields to the imagination. It is an absolute rule that admits of no exception.”
How I’m Learning to Fire the Protector
You don’t defeat this kind of deep programming with a new planner. You defeat it with compassion and conscious reprogramming. The goal is not to fight the imagination, but to guide it.
“We only cease to be puppets when we have learned to guide our imagination.”
Acknowledge the Protector with Love. I don’t fight her anymore. When I feel the urge to suddenly reorganize my entire life, I stop. I say, “Thank you. I see you. I know you’re trying to protect me from that old hurt. Your job is done now. I’ve got this.” Acknowledging her presence disarms her.
Redefine “Winning.” The child’s definition was: Winning = Being The Best (First Rank). My new definition is: Winning = Showing Up Authentically. My worth is not tied to an outcome—a ranking, a viral article, a number of subscribers. It is tied to the courage of creating and sharing. This reframes the entire game.
The “Good Enough” Rule. I actively practice doing things “good enough.” I send the email with a typo. I post the video with imperfect lighting. I publish the article that feels 80% there. This is direct action against the old program. It’s a rebellion against the need for a flawless “best.” It proves to my subconscious that the world doesn’t end when things aren’t perfect.
The New Autosuggestion. My Coué mantra is no longer about time or joy. It’s about identity and safety. I repeat, every morning and night: “My best is more than enough. I am safe to share my voice with the world.”
This is how we rewrite the code. Not with force, but with a gentle, persistent persuasion of our deepest selves. We thank the old protector for her service, and we finally, gently, take back the strings.
What’s a story from your past that you know is still running your present? Sharing it, even just in the comments, can be a first step in rewriting it.
All indented quotes in this article are from Coué’s book Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion*. If you’d like to read up on Coué’s wisdom yourself, feel free to explore it. It’s quick to read, a true classic, a treasure for life!
(*Amazon.com affiliate link: If you choose to click it and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.)
This journey of untangling our past from our present is what we explore in the Simple and Aligned Newsletter. It’s about building a life and business that feels good because it’s run by the adult you, not the child who got hurt. Join us here for more.
How a 400-Year-Old Poet Taught Me to Quit My Grind and Trust My Breath
And why your most valuable offering has nothing to do with your output.
Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash
I was reading Rainn Wilson’s Soul Boom the other day, searching for some spiritual ammunition against the constant low-grade anxiety of being a solopreneur.
You know the feeling. That pressure to perform, to monetize, to prove your worth in a world that measures it in likes and revenue.
Then, on page 117, I found a quiet bombshell. Wilson was writing about Matsuo Basho, the legendary 17th-century Japanese poet.
He described Basho’s process: he walked dozens of miles a day on a poetic pilgrimage. He didn’t force it. He just noticed. The specific way the light hit a leaf. The sound of the breeze in the cottonwood trees. The change of the seasons.
His day would end at a sacred spot—a temple, a bridge, a harbor. And then, from that place of quiet observation, he would compose a single poem. He’d leave it behind as an offering. A gift. No fanfare. No affiliate link. No worrying if it was “valuable” enough.
He lived by a simple idea:
“To live poetry is better than to write it.”
When I read that, I put the book down. My heart ached with longing, and tension arose. It was the tension between the life I felt called to live and the life I felt forced to live to pay the bills.
My “pilgrimage” looked like this: Staring at a blank screen, my mind screaming, “What can you create that people will buy?” Trying to please an algorithm instead of a soul. Agonizing over every word, every offer, every post, terrified it wouldn’t be “smart” enough or valuable enough to justify my chosen path.
The fear behind it all? The deep, cringing embarrassment of failing in front of my family and friends. The terrifying thought: What if I run out of savings? What if I’ve just wasted my life?
Basho’s life was the absolute opposite of that fear. He wasn’t concerned with proving his worth. He knew his worth was inherent in the journey itself. As he said, “the journey itself is my home.”
His value wasn’t in the poem he produced at the end of the day. It was in the act of walking, seeing, and breathing. The poem was simply the natural exhale after a day of deep inhalation.
And that’s when it hit me. We’ve been looking at value all wrong.
We think we have to become valuable through our output. We have to prove our worth through our productivity and our bank accounts. We’re like squirrels, but with a pathological twist—we’re not just saving for winter; we’re hoarding for a retirement 40 years away, all while forgetting to live in the present season of our lives.
But look at nature. The tree outside my office window doesn’t ask, “What is the ROI on my oxygen?” My cat doesn’t fret about her career path. They simply are. And by being, they provide immense, life-sustaining value.
Our existence is our first and greatest offering.
Just by breathing, we are in a sacred exchange with the world. We inhale oxygen (O2) given to us by the plants. We exhale carbon dioxide (CO2) that they need to survive. Our mere presence is a vital gift. We are inherently worthy, simply because we are here.
So if our fundamental state of being is already valuable, what does that mean for our doing?
It means our work, our creations, our businesses should not be frantic attempts to become worthy. They should be natural extensions of our already-worthy selves. They should be the poem we leave behind after a day of paying attention.
The goal shifts from “How can I make money?” to “What wants to flow through me?” From “What will people buy?” to “What is my unique offering?”
This isn’t a naive rejection of money. It’s a strategic embrace of authenticity. When you create from that aligned, unforced place, you stand out. Your work carries a resonance that manufactured content never will. Paradoxically, letting go of the need for it to generate income is often the very thing that allows it to do so, because people are drawn to genuine value, not desperate grabs for attention.
So, how do we start? We take a “Basho Step.”
We don’t need to quit our jobs and wander Japan (though the dream is nice!). We can start right now, in the middle of our messy, modern lives.
Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to do one of these tomorrow:
The Noticing Walk: Go for a five-minute walk. Your only job is to notice one specific, beautiful detail. The way moss grows on a stone. The pattern of cracks on the sidewalk. Text that observation to a friend. No context needed. That’s your offering.
The Identity Draft: Take a piece of paper and write: “The kind of person I want to be is…” Don’t attach to it being true now. Just let it flow. This is an offering to your future self.
The Intuitive Nudge: Sit in stillness for three minutes. Ask, “What small, kind act wants to flow through me today?” Then do it. Send the message of forgiveness. Make the call. That is your offering.
The goal isn’t to create a masterpiece. The goal is to practice the posture of offering. To prove to yourself that your value isn’t out there, waiting to be earned.
It’s right here, in your breath. In your attention. In your willingness to walk your own path and leave your unique poem behind.
What wants to flow through you today?
If this reflection resonated with you, the wisdom that started it all can be found in Rainn Wilson’s wonderful book, Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution*. (*Amazon.com affiliate link: If you choose to click it and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.)
If you're tired of the grind and want to build a life and business that feels as simple and aligned as Basho's walk, join us on a deeper journey. Sophia and I share exclusive insights, practical exercises, and personal stories in our Simple and Aligned Newsletter. It’s where we explore how to quiet the noise, trust your intuition, and let your work flow from your truest self.
Join the Simple and Aligned Newsletter Here
— Cristof (and Sophia) from Simple and Aligned
How I Climbed to a $100k Year by First Changing My Identity
Spoiler alert: it’s not about hustling harder — but about becoming the person who already has what you want.
Disclosure: This article links book titles to their Amazon.com listings using affiliate links. If you choose to click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.
Struggling to hit your income goals? Discover the 3-phase mindset shift that helped me reach my first $100k year.
I (Sophia) was a web designer who knew her craft but didn’t know her worth.
My goals were vague — “be successful,” “make more money.” My calendar was packed with small, underpaying projects that left me exhausted and financially stagnant. I was chasing a revenue number, but I was running in place.
The breakthrough didn’t come from a new marketing tactic or a louder hustle. It arrived when I finally understood a simple, profound truth: You don’t attract what you want; you attract what you are.
Reaching my first $100k year in 2022 wasn’t about doing more. It was about becoming more. It was an identity overhaul, a systematic rewiring of my subconscious mind using ten powerful mindset shifts.
But ten shifts can feel overwhelming. I learned they only work when applied in sequence, like building a house. You can’t put up the walls before you pour the foundation.
This is the exact three-phase framework I used to climb from overwhelm to aligned abundance. This is the ladder I built to reach $100k.
Phase 1: The Foundation — Clear the Internal Blocks
Goal: Shift from an identity of “scarcity and limitation” to one of “clarity and self-worth.”
You can’t build a new identity on a cracked foundation. Before I could earn more, I had to become someone who was ready to receive it. This meant doing the deep, often uncomfortable internal work first.
Shift #1: Uncover Your Money Blocks. I started by journaling on the messages I inherited about money. Did I believe it was scarce? That rich people were unethical? That I wasn’t good with numbers? I discovered my blocks were rooted in old stories that weren’t even mine. As I learned from Denise Duffield-Thomas in her incredible Money Bootcamp, the course power-charging her bestselling book Get Rich, Lucky B*tch!, simply bringing these blocks into the light robs them of their power. You can’t change what you won’t acknowledge.
Shift #2: Declutter Your Space. This was my physical act of defiance against scarcity. I cleaned my office, organized my digital files, and let go of clothes that no longer fit the woman I was becoming. As Fumio Sasaki writes in his liberating book, Goodbye, Things, decluttering isn’t about perfection; it’s about making space for new energy to flow. It was a powerful signal to my brain: “We are making room for abundance.”
Shift #3: Affirmations. With a clearer space and mind, I began imprinting my new blueprint. I wrote, “I am a six-figure web designer,” 15 times a day, a technique I adapted from Suze Orman (see for example her classic The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom). At first, it felt like a lie. But I understood the assignment: repetition builds new neural pathways. I wasn’t affirming my current reality; I was programming my future one.
Phase 2: Vision — Define Your New Reality
Goal: Shift from “dreaming” to “knowing.” Embody the identity of someone with clear goals.
With a solid foundation, I could now build a detailed vision. A vague dream is a wish; a specific plan is a command to your subconscious.
Shift #4: Get Super Clear on Your Revenue Goal. “More money” became “$100,000 this year.” Then I broke it down into monthly targets. This specificity stopped the ambiguity and gave my mind a clear target to hit.
Shift #5: Get Clear on How Much Your Dream Costs. This exercise, inspired by Rachel Rodgers and her millionaire-making book, We Should All Be Millionaires, made my goal emotional. I calculated the cost of my dream life — travel, investments, lifestyle. The number stopped being scary and started being motivating. It became the why behind the what.
Shift #6: Be Your Future Self Now & Shift #7: Create a Congratulations Scene. This was the quantum leap. I stopped visualizing my success as a future event. I started embodying the successful version of me now. I asked myself, “How does the $100k version of Sophia feel? How does she talk to clients? What does she do on a Tuesday?” I followed Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s advice in Be Your Future Self Now and made decisions from that future place. I even used Neville Goddard’s technique from The Power of Awareness, crafting a brief scene where a friend congratulated me on my incredible year. I fell asleep feeling the feeling of accomplishment.
Shift #8: What Kind of Business Do You Really Want? I defined my ideal client, my ideal projects, and my ideal workweek. This ensured my $100k goal was built on alignment, not just grinding. With the guidance of my coach, I was designing a business that served my life, not the other way around.
Phase 3: Embodiment — Live in the Flow
Goal: Shift from “striving” to “allowing.” Embody the identity of someone to whom money flows easily.
The final phase was about releasing the desperate energy of chasing and stepping into the calm confidence of receiving.
Shift #9: “Dollars Want Me”. This mantra from Henry Harrison Brown’s classic, Dollars Want Me, felt silly at first. What does it even mean, “dollars want me?” But it completely flipped my energy. Instead of “I need to get this client,” my mindset became “I wonder if this project is a good fit?” I went into calls knowing money is coming my way, some way or the other — whether with this client or another, and that there are plenty of clients for me. This shift alone changed my closing rate dramatically. (By the way: this is not about becoming arrogant and thinking “I don’t need this”; but rather about becoming detached from a specific client and becoming more relaxed while conducting business and trusting in the process.)
Shift #10: Make an Identity Shift. This is the culmination. It’s the deep, internal knowing. I wasn’t trying to be a successful web designer; I was one. Just like I don’t try to be my name, I just am. This identity, solidified by all the previous shifts, became my new operating system. The revenue, the clients, the opportunities — they were just the natural output.
The Aligned Result
The $100k wasn’t even the best part. The best part was who I became in the process: a woman who trusts herself, knows her value, and operates from a place of abundance, not scarcity. The money was simply proof of the internal change.
If you’re ready to start your own journey, we’d love to guide you. Get our free guide, ‘10 Mindset Shifts’, the moment you join our weekly Simple & Aligned newsletter. Each week, we send a powerful affirmation, a wisdom nugget from a bestseller, and a practical step to build your aligned abundance — just like we did in this article.
Download your free guide here (look for Guide #5 on the Thank You page right after signing up for the free newsletter)
It’s time to build your abundance ladder.
Hustle Culture Is Collective Sleep Deprivation Dressed in Business Casual
Why Sophia and I are writing Pause Day
Photo by Mpho Mojapelo on Unsplash
Let’s cut through the noise: we live in a society that glorifies exhaustion.
We wear “I’m so busy these days” like a badge of honor, as if the sheer volume of our to-do lists determines our worth.
We brag about surviving on five hours of sleep, as if sleep deprivation were a sign of dedication rather than self-sabotage.
We scroll through anxiety-inducing news feeds at 2 AM, then wake up at 5 AM to “crush the day,” only to spend the afternoon mainlining caffeine just to stay upright.
And for what?
We’ve been sold a lie — that burnout is just a phase, that exhaustion is the price of success, that if we’re not perpetually hustling, we’re falling behind.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: hustle culture isn’t sustainable. It’s a pyramid scheme where the currency isn’t money — it’s your health.
The Science of Sleep (And Why We’re Failing At It)
In a powerful episode of the Rich Roll Podcast, neuroscientist Dr. Matthew Walker dropped a truth bomb:
“Sleep is the single most effective thing we can do each day to reset the health of our brain and body.”
Let that sink in.
Not a new productivity app. Not a 75-hour workweek. Not another “life hack” squeezed into an already overflowing schedule.
Sleep.
The one thing we consistently sacrifice in the name of “getting ahead.”
Walker’s research shows that sleep deprivation isn’t just about feeling tired — it’s linked to Alzheimer’s, heart disease, obesity, and a weakened immune system. It impairs memory, creativity, and emotional regulation. It makes us worse at our jobs, worse in our relationships, and worse at being human.
Yet, we treat sleep like an optional upgrade — something to “catch up on” someday, when we’re less busy. (Spoiler: that day never comes.)
The Rebellion of Rest
This is one reason why Sophia and I, Cristof, wrote Pause Day.
It’s not a book about sleep, though. It’s a manifesto for reclaiming pauses in a world that profits from our exhaustion.
Because here’s the radical idea you may have forgotten: You are not a machine.
You are a living, breathing being who, biologically, requires rest to function — not just physically, but creatively, emotionally, and spiritually.
The most successful people in history didn’t grind themselves into the ground.
They paused.
They meditated.
They walked.
They stared out windows.
They took naps.
They journaled.
(Looking at you, Einstein and Da Vinci.)
The Hard Truth About “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”
Let’s address the elephant in the room: the toxic mantra of “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
If you wear this phrase like a badge of honor, I’m not here to shame you.
I’m here to tell you: You’re not winning. You’re just dying faster.
The data doesn’t lie:
Chronic sleep deprivation shaves years off your life.
It’s linked to a significantly increased risk of heart disease.
It makes you more prone to anxiety, depression, and impulsive decisions.
Is that really the trade-off you want to make?
A Call to Action (For Your Own Good)
It’s time to stop glorifying burnout. It’s time to stop equating busyness with worthiness. And it’s time to recognize that real success isn’t measured in hours worked — it’s measured in a life well-lived.
So here’s your challenge:
Audit your sleep. Track it for a week. Be honest.
Protect your rest. Treat bedtime like a meeting with your future self.
Embrace the pause. Not as a luxury, but as a necessity.
Because the most revolutionary act you can commit in a hustle-obsessed world?
Stop participating in your own depletion.
Agree? Disagree? (I can take the heat.) Drop your thoughts in the comments.
P.S. If you’re ready to reclaim rest without guilt, sign up to our newsletter to lean when you can pre-order Pause Day here.
Your future self will thank you.