How students can manifest academic success in 2026

Looking back at 2025, one way to tell whether you made real progress or just felt productive is to see what actually changed in your academic record and daily routines. 

Maybe you told yourself this would be the semester you stayed on top of classes or collected all HDs. You might have set intentions and saved motivation posts. Yet, months later, some of those goals may still exist only in notes apps or unfinished to-do lists. 

A research on Future thought and behaviour change (2012) highlighted that manifestation can feel productive because it creates clarity and confidence at the start. Visualizing success, after all, is much easier than building habits in the middle of a stressful semester. But as deadlines accumulate and motivation fades, belief alone is rarely strong enough to carry students through. 

As Lunar New Year 2026 approaches, if you look back on your 2025 vision board and notice it remains largely unchanged, it's not because "the universe didn't respond." More likely, it’s because those goals were never translated into concrete plans, clear pathways, or measurable actions.  

As an upper-class student who has tried manifesting through multiple academic cycles of setting goals, struggling, and trying again, I have learned that it’s important to understand how manifesting works and how to utilise it effectively to achieve academic success in the year ahead.

The word manifest jumped from being mainly used among GenZ to being on social media captions, study vlogs, or end-of-year reflections. 

Chosen as Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2024, manifest(ing) is the practice of clearly imagining a desired outcome and believing it is possible.

Among students, it shows up as semester vision boards or affirmations before exams. Manifestation offers a mental anchor when the academic path ahead seems daunting or unclear. 

Yet this is where misconceptions begin to take root: 

Myth 1: Manifestation works like magic 

Many of us often look for signs, hoping for a breakthrough. Such a tendency to treat manifestation as an independent belief from practical planning and discipline can easily make beliefs remain in abstract hopes. Manifestation isn't about waiting for the "right time", it happens when you pair those positive intentions with concrete actions. 

Myth 2: If it didn't work, I haven’t manifested enough 

While manifestation can boost confidence, it may also blur the line between empowered optimism and unrealistic risk-taking. When your goals fall apart under the pressure of deadlines, it rarely means you didn’t believe hard enough. More often, it points to practical challenges such as ineffective study methods, lack of support systems, or unrealistic expectations. 

Wondering how much you truly believe in your manifestation?  

Try an empirically tested scale from the research to see:

(This external resource is not affiliated with RMIT. Please use your discretion to proceed.)

If manifesting academic success is going to work, it needs to move beyond intention and into action. Here are three steps to help students turn belief into progress without relying solely on motivation. 

Step 1: Define success in concrete terms 

Instead of manifesting vague outcomes like “doing well” or “getting better grades,” define what success looks like this year. Is it attending every tutorial? Submitting assignments earlier? Improving performance in a specific subject? Clear definitions prevent disappointment and give students something real to work toward. 

Step 2: Write it down where you can see easily 

Write your goal down in your planner or on a vision board and put it somewhere near your study area. Make it bright and bold! You want to see it every day, so you are reminded of what you are working towards.  

Step 3: Build routines that work when motivation drops 

Create simple study routines you can stick to even on low-energy days. Block out regular study times in your planner, set reminders for key tasks, and break assignments into small, manageable steps. When motivation fades during deadline weeks, these routines keep you moving forward without relying on “universe signals” alone. 

Overall, manifesting academic success is not about predicting outcomes. It is about staying engaged in the process. When belief is supported by structure, reflection, and consistent effort, students are far more likely to see real progress by the end of the year. 

Story: Tram Hoang, a Professional Communication student at RMIT Vietnam. This article does not reflect the views of RMIT Vietnam.

References: 

Cambridge Dictionary (2024) Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2024. Cambridge Dictionary. 

Oettingen, G. (2012). Future thought and behaviour change. European Review of Social Psychology, 23(1), 1–63. 

Travers, M. (2025, December 20) Manifestation Scale. Therapytips.org. 

Travers, M. (2025, November 7) ‘A Psychologist Explains The Dark Side Of ‘Manifestation’’. Forbes. 

Sullivan, AL. [@annalauraart] (November, 2023) moving along with the flow of things. [Photograph]. Instagram.