Midyear Manifestation Check-In: Part 1
And my "to-feel" list
Monday was the “deadline” I set when I manifested a job back in January:
“Thank you for bringing me a new, challenging, exciting job that pays a salary of $X or more by June 1, 2026, or sooner.”
I thought I’d feel like a big failure all day. I’m still at square one; no closer to having a job now than I was on January 1.
Or am I?
I’ve been through several interview loops and had so many different experiences.
I’ve gotten to the final round—a panel presentation—for a job only loosely related to anything I’ve done before.
I’ve been tossed aside after the recruiter screening for a job that was exactly what I’ve done before.
I’ve felt like an offer was imminent, only to discover the small company’s sole copywriter decided not to leave after all.
I’ve pictured myself doing noble work for a local nonprofit, only to learn they don’t have sufficient funding to hire someone (who, ironically, would’ve helped them secure more funding).
So many could’ves and should’ves and near misses. I know at some point I’ll be able to look back on these dead ends and recognize the path I was meant to travel all along. But right now I’m still in the maze, and all I see are walls.
The nice thing about June 1 was that I took a turn down a new path and it feels promising. I try not to get my hopes up, but all I do is get my hopes up. I’ll keep moving forward with a mix of optimism, blind faith, and self-protective caution. I’ll find my cheese eventually.
It got me wondering: How am I doing with my other manifestations?
Let’s take a look at six of them. (There are six more vulnerable ones I’ll review on Friday for paid subscribers.)
“Thank you for helping me navigate the divorce process with peace, grace, and empathy.”
I can’t give myself 100% on this one—nobody’s perfect, right?—but I’ll go as far as 97%. Even an amicable situation involves tough decisions and stressful conversations. As the process continues to unfold, it’s helpful to refresh myself on this goal and keep peace, grace, and empathy at the forefront of everything I say and do.
“Thank you for helping me be a present mother when I’m with Evie and a loving presence who she can always connect with when I’m not with her.”
Adjusting to 50/50 coparenting has been the most difficult aspect of this year by far, but I’m happy to report we’ve settled into a rhythm and it feels closer to normal than not. I would always, always, always rather be with my daughter 100% of the time, but since I can’t, I do my best to make our time together count for double.
I’m still a 100% dance mom, and we had a great time together at all her competitions, conventions, and recitals. Evie has been into makeup for years and is great at doing her own, but still had me do her stage makeup this season and I couldn’t understand why—until I figured out it was because she enjoyed the process as our special mother/daughter bonding time. 🥰 We’re firmly in the tween years and Evie seems more often inclined to push me away in favor of spending time with her friends, so it’s really special whenever I realize she’s savoring time with me, too.
My January mindset around coparenting focused on everything I would miss in Evie’s life. Now I understand I’m not missing anything if I use our time together—and check-ins via text and FaceTime while we’re apart—to catch up. Even if I don’t get to see and hear everything happen in real time, it’s wonderful when she updates me about her experiences later. Evie gets the chance to tell stories, and I get to learn not only what she’s done, but how she’s processing it and repackaging it for me to hear. She frequently surprises me with the words and turns of phrase she chooses. As a parent, there’s nothing more fascinating and thrilling than witnessing my child’s mind and spirit develop—and it’s happening beautifully without my constant supervision. I’m so proud.
While I would never choose a coparenting role, I’m grateful for the perspective it’s given me about how precious time with my daughter is, and for how much she’s matured as she’s adjusted to our two-household family. And while I always miss Evie, I’ve learned to appreciate my “off” time to reset, recharge, and prepare to be the best mother I can be when she comes back to me.
“Thank you for bringing me the clarity, space, and inspiration to write my truest stories prolifically and without second-guessing myself.”
I’d love to be the type of writer who sits at their laptop with utter confidence and effortlessly bangs out earth-shattering prose. But the more I learn about writers, I don’t believe any of us are really like that.
We all wrestle with the crushing self-doubt of a blank document, the labor of making the perfect word choice, the earned skill of translating exactly what we feel into something other people can feel, too—a bit of biological magic, osmosis via the page. It’s a vital part of the creative process to scrape away your mental muck and reveal the truest thing you can possibly say.
That’s why AI is so damaging to personal writing: It bypasses all the most grueling and necessary parts of the process. It strips away the pain usually required to make something beautiful. How lovely for churning out taglines, subject lines, and CTAs, for scroll-stopping and engaging and converting, but how tragic for digging up and defining the most sacred revelations about your one wild and precious life.
AI is a wonderful tool for many things. I will never use it for my personal writing. Thus, I embrace second-guessing myself—a human emotion required to make human art. Clarity, space, and inspiration are things I continue to seek and earn, not wish to be mystically granted to me.
Writing will never not be painful, but the pain of it all is the point.
“Thank you for bringing me 20 or more paying Substack subscribers who care about and believe in me enough to support my writing financially.”
I shared here how this manifestation paid off immediately: 20 paid subscribers came knocking in just a few hours. Today, that number stands at 10x, which blows my mind.
I was so nervous to introduce paid subscriptions to Rollercoaster Road. After querying literary agents and pitching editors and feeling like no one cared enough to publish my writing, I had low expectations for anyone else to believe it was worth their investment.
But offering paid subscriptions signaled something crucial: I believe my writing has value, and therefore it does. I didn’t need any gatekeeper to validate that. Who knew I could just push the gate open myself? Many of you simply walked through with me once I gave you the chance.
I need to revise and expand this manifestation. I need to put in the work to grow my reach and find new readers. I need to work up the confidence and strategy to do this!
“Thank you for bringing me the inspiration, confidence, and dedication to write one high-quality Substack post every week and publish it every Friday morning.”
It was such an adrenaline rush to have paid subscribers that publishing only once a week felt painfully sluggish. In mid-March, I doubled the frequency to twice a week, committing to publish a free post every Tuesday and a paid post every Friday.
Well, sometimes Tuesday is actually Wednesday (hi, today!), so let’s call it a midweek post now. Friday is still Friday, although sometimes the post goes live in the afternoon or evening instead of first thing in the morning (see: writing will never not be painful).
Inspiration strikes at random times. It’s on me to make space for it to happen earlier and more frequently. When I’m reading thought-provoking books, learning new things from podcasts, watching interesting movies, having deep conversations with friends, meeting new people, and living a real life out in the world—that’s when I get inspired to write. When I’m holed up on LinkedIn sending cover letters out into the void, not so much.
Landing a job is my professional priority right now, but this newsletter is a close second. The things I need to execute it successfully—inspiration, confidence, and dedication—are, once again, sought and earned, not mystically granted by the universe.
So I’m proud that I’ve published twice a week for the past 11 weeks—exceeding this manifestation. It keeps my writing sharp. In an age when we’re all encouraged to prompt an LLM to write for us, it feels more and more important to keep my neurons firing.
I worried no one could keep up with two posts a week (I’m guilty of deleting plenty of unread Substack newsletters from my inbox), but when I put up a poll on Instagram stories, 94% of you still wanted me to publish twice a week. So I will! But please hit that little heart button or leave a comment or something to let me know if you actually read and enjoy something. Otherwise, it feels like sending another cover letter out into the void.
“Thank you for giving me the courage, confidence, and joy to strike up conversations with strangers and bring new interactions and connections into my life.”
This was one of my attitude shifts for 2026, and another thing I need to work on more. I strike up conversations most often on dog walks—it’s easy to make small talk with other owners about our pups—but not so much at the grocery store or while executing other life tasks. I always feel so much happier when I do, though.
This comes back to confidence—a word that popped up again and again in my manifestations. When I feel confident, I don’t worry about what others think of me, so it’s easy to put myself out there and interact without fear of how other people will respond (or not). But my confidence ebbs and flows. I strive to move through the world with bad bitch energy all the time.
My “To-Feel” List
In The Book of Alchemy, Sky Banyes suggests drilling more deeply into your goals, identifying the feelings you actually want to achieve:
“Start by naming your deepest yearnings and aspirations. Then take a moment to reflect on each—to study your own feeling compass, teasing out the nuances of what each contains with more depth and specificity.”
I manifested a well-paying job. But what I actually want is to feel valued and secure—two things I’m lacking in the middle of a divorce.
I manifested all sorts of things around writing this newsletter. But what I actually want is to feel confident and capable.
I manifested paid Substack subscribers. But what I actually want is to feel recognized and validated.
Once I understand these things, it’s easier to see my happiness doesn’t depend on a specific salary or number of subscribers or level of recognition, but on feeling certain things. And how many paths are there to feeling? Infinite.
Perhaps if I shift my focus to pursuing these intangible feelings, the tangible things will also fall into place. It’s an interesting thought I’ll be diving into shortly with my therapist.
I’ll be back on Friday with part two of my midyear manifestation check-in, featuring my bigger, scarier goals around writing a book, earning a coveted byline, dating, and more!
If you enjoy reading Rollercoaster Road, please help it grow by liking, sharing, or leaving a comment. Thanks for joining me on the ride.
No void here - just an eager reader who loves what you write!
I'm definitely going to think about my goals this summer in terms of feelings. What do I want to feel at the end of Summer?