The Strategy That Changed Everything
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
By Stephanie Shanks
I’ve always believed in the power of mindset and manifestation. Affirmations, visioning, energetics — that’s my language. And for years, one of my biggest desires was to move to California. Santa Barbara, specifically. In my mind, that was where my next-level self lived — the version of me who was successful in her photography business, established in her brand, and deeply rooted in her voice and purpose.
So I spent years holding that vision. Years of imagining what life there would look like. That vision got me through some hard times, but lately, it has been causing a lot of suffering. Years telling myself: “When I live in California, then everything will align.” It kept me questioning my worth and my manifesting skills because it hadn’t happened yet. I felt like maybe I wasn’t good enough, brave enough, smart enough. The dream stopped feeling exciting and started feeling heavy. I didn’t realize it at first, but I was living in a constant state of waiting. Waiting to arrive. Waiting to become. Waiting to feel successful. Waiting to feel like I belonged in my own life.
I was placing my happiness and success in a location — instead of in myself. And, by telling the universe that my success lived somewhere else, I was unintentionally telling it: “Not yet. Not now.”
And that’s exactly what I kept experiencing —a life that always felt like it was almost happening. So I changed my ask. I shifted the energy. Instead of seeing my dream life in Santa Barbara, I began seeing my dream life right here. In Wisconsin (in the cold). In the life I am already living. I got deeply, overwhelmingly grateful for what I already have — my friends, my clients, my hikes, my work, my relationships, my home, my voice.
I didn’t abandon the dream — I just stopped worshipping the distance between where I am and where I thought I needed to be. I let myself feel safe here. I let myself breathe here, in this moment. I realized I didn’t need to wait any longer. It is o.k to experience it right now. And the moment I felt that safety in my body — not just in my mind — everything clicked. I literally felt it click. A surge of energy ran through my body, almost like it had been waiting for that moment to be let in.
In the five days since that shift, I booked one of my highest photography packages with a dream client who is fully aligned with my creative style, secured a women’s retreat project for February where I’ll be creating transformative portrait experiences (the exact kind of work that lights me up), a few smaller but beneficial jobs, and I even had a local gym reach out to sponsor my podcast without me having to pitch. But more than the external wins, the greatest shift is internal — I feel different.
There is a peace in my body I haven’t known in years. A sense of rootedness. A feeling of being held. The biggest manifestation secret I’ve learned is this: Your desires don’t wait for you to move. They wait for you to feel safe enough to receive them. To welcome them here and now. I realized that I am deserving of good things to happen, and I am taking 100% ownership of making it happen. It was never about California. It was about who I believed I could be.
I don’t need to be anywhere else to be successful. I don’t have to wait for my life to begin. I can have it here. I can have it now. ‘So Be It, So It Is,’ And once that clicked, the universe responded immediately. Not because I worked harder. Not because I hustled. Not because I convinced anyone. But because I finally stopped running from my own life. I let myself arrive.
Connect With Stephanie
@unwrittenwithsteph
@stephshanksphotography
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