How To Determine If You’re a Specific or a Nonspecific Manifester

For a long time, I thought manifestation was bullshit.

It felt like the harder I tried, the less it worked.

Here’s what I was missing: an accurate understanding of how manifestation works for me.

We each have our own unique manifestation style, guided in large part by whether we’re a Specific or Nonspecific Manifester.

I was trying to manifest specific goals. But when I started getting obsessed with Human Design and learned that I’m a Nonspecific Manifester, my creation process began to make more sense.

If manifestation never seems to work for you, this may be why:

You’re a nonspecific manifester in a world built for specific manifesters. 

You thrive on vibes not logic.

You’re meant to zigzag toward joy instead of chaining yourself to your to-do list.

The more you focus on the outcome, the more frustrated you become.

The more you lean into how you want to feel, moment by moment, day by day, the more the universe rearranges reality in your favor.

Most of the manifestation information out there is geared toward specific manifesters. So if it feels like it never works, it’s not your fault. You’re just built differently.

Here’s How to Find out if You’re a specific or Nonspecific Manifester:

According to Human Design, we all have our own unique manifestation style. Knowing if you’re a Specific or a Nonspecific Manifester shows you how to best set goals and use your unique energy in manifestation. Your designation is based on your manifestation arrow, the bottom right arrow on your Human Design chart.

Step 1: Get Your Human Design Chart

You’ll need your exact birth date, time, and place.

You can generate a free chart here.

Step 2: Find the Bottom Right Arrow

Look for the four arrows around your head in the chart. They correspond to different aspects of awareness and manifestation. The bottom right arrow indicates your manifestation style.

Step 3: Check the Direction of the Bottom Right Arrow

If it points left, you’re a Specific Manifester.

Meaning, you manifest best when you’re clear and detailed about what you want. Focusing on details will help you receive and create what you want.

If it points right, you’re a Nonspecific Manifester.

Meaning, you manifest best when you focus on the feeling, essence, or vibe of what you want. Stay open to how it comes - and the universe fills in the details.

an easy way to remember the manifestation types:

Specific manifestation is a golden retriever.

You can train it to obey you. You still want to provide a healthy environment, but in general, the golden retriever will go where you tell it to go. 

Nonspecific manifestation is a slightly feral cat.

If you’ve ever met a cat, you know you can’t force it to do anything. All you can do is provide a safe environment and let the cat go where it wants, when it wants. The more you try to herd the cat, the more frustrated you’ll become. 

Most of the manifestation advice floating around on social media and bookshelves is designed for Specific Manifesters, the people who can slam their wizard staff to the ground and proclaim “I will create $10,000 this week.” And then they do it and get to feel smug. 

But for Nonspecific Manifesters, the more we aim for outcome, the more we cling to the end goal, the more aggressively we fail. As a Nonspecific Manifester, you’re meant to focus on how you want to feel. 

If you’ve ever tried to follow someone else’s plan to get something, and it feels like that never works…you’re probably a Nonspecific Manifester. You’re meant to skip steps. Where a Specific Manifester can follow a designated path from point A to Z, you probably need to zig zag. Veer off course because it feels fun. Go rollerskating instead of sticking to your to-do list for the day, because that’s how you stay in the frequency of the result you’re calling in. 

Specific manifesters get to feel super smug when they set and strategically reach that one million dollar goal. 

Nonspecific manifesters also get to feel smug, but they can’t cling to the end result. They have to bask in the vibes of how they want to feel and trust the universe to rearrange things in their favor, and not get discouraged when it comes in a different way before it shows up in the way they hoped for. 

Nonspecific bonus: roller skating instead of to do lists. Zigzagging toward joy instead of sticking to a plan. 

Love, Amber

P.S. If you want to go even deeper and learn about how you can apply these principles more powerfully in your own life, we talk about Specific and Nonspecific Manifestation in more depth in Magic Money Potion, so if you’re interested in more, join Cash Activator to get access. For more support, come to one of the group coaching sessions and I’d be happy to help you out with applying this in your own life.

How To Operate as a Manifesting Generator

Honestly, I do human design wrong.

One of the main things they tell you when you’re first learning about your design is to avoid all the fiddly bits of your design until after you’ve mastered your strategy and authority. I did not do that. I gave a passing glance to the most important pieces and dove head first into all the fun fiddly bits.

I’ve spent the last few decades alternating between wishing I had popped into this world with an instruction manual and trying to write that manual for myself and getting frustrated because, apparently, I make no sense.

Done right, human design can be a really wonderful instruction manual. Mostly, it’s confirmed what I already knew, while allowing me to sink more deeply into my own quirks. Oh, the life-changing majesty of giving yourself permission to own your quirks. Now I know to take the chair with its back to the wall in a restaurant. I know it’s okay to eat little bits at a time without commiting to full meals if I don’t wanna. I know there’s a reason specific money goals make me want to puke. I know that my head is very prone to absorbing other people’s opinions. (So don’t do that, Amber. You’ve seen the internet and its opinions.)

While I love sinking into the warm proverbial bath of my own weirdness, I’m still a bit lost when it comes to understanding how my intuition works through my body. Streams of information, no problem. Funneling that guidance and information into actual creation that actually goes places has been more of a challenge. Hence, a new devotion to listening to my body and design. Fine, strategy and authority - I’m listening.

Because I’m a manifesting generator, one of this year’s big goals is to become the mistress of my own sacral energy and use it for good (meaning, whatever it wants) and not for evil (as in, what I think I should be doing). Oh, those vile, vile shoulds.

Something I’ve realized now that I’m paying attention (and taking a class on using your sacral energy) (trying to figure it out on my own was going to slowly) is that I shut my sacral energy off when I’m burnt out. Hello, light bulb moment. I shut my little sacral powerhouse down because I don’t want to have to respond to anything else. Your girl is full up. Everything go away. Unfortunately, this does tend to include money, opportunities, friends, and various and sundry fun stuff. Since I spent most of 2021 and 2022 burnt out, I shut out a lot of life. It’s so tempting to jump up and down on my own head about that, but that’s not how we do things any more. Self-flagellation is so 2009.

Now that my energy is back and I understand that I switched off my own power…I can switch it right back on again. So I’m experimenting. I do love a good experiment. (That’s how the money healings came about, after all.) I’m paying attention to when I flick the off switch, and when I let my energy radiate.

Even though I’m pretty well healed from my burn out, if II’m tired or triggered, I’ll zap my sacral energy. Temporarily, but off it goes. And I’m not willing to turn it back on again until I’ve taken care of myself. Napped, eaten, turned off my phone, taken a walk, read a book, whatever I need in that moment. No opportunities allowed, nothing I’m interested in responding to until I feel better. Thank you for that revelation, This Morning.

It’s also a huge relief to realize I don’t have to run around and chase things down. I’m not designed to do that. My personal map is to let all that sacral energy fly and respond to whatever comes to me. Is it a big yes or a hell no?

I’m so, so curious to see what happens in my life now that I’ve switched my power back on.

Throwing a Tantrum as an Adult

As a youngster, I was famous for my tantrums. If life didn’t look the way I thought it should - if my socks were wrinkled, if a brother who wanted to play with my toys suddenly appeared, if I got a guinea pig instead of a dog - I lost my ever-loving mind.

I thought I’d grown out of that, but even as a 46-year-old, if I get triggered hard enough, I am capable of absolutely losing it.

We could chalk this unfortunate tendency up to a few things:

Neurodivergence:

While I haven’t gotten a formal diagnosis, I seem to be one of those people who need a great deal of freedom but also structure, who feel things very deeply without always knowing how to express it, who gets wildly overwhelmed in social situations to the point of fleeing if enough tricky things happen in a loud space.

Interestingly, a lot of tendencies can also be explained by my…

Human design:

Who else out there has an open emotional (solar plexus) center? As someone who has been surrounded by suppressed angry people my whole life, this one is a real treat. Most of my rage has been absorbed from someone else and learning how to not do that - so far, my best plan is literally to flee so I can get as far away from their rage volcano as possible, thereby not feeling it as if it were my rage volcano any more. Fight / flight is a big thing for people with open emotional centers, and I’ve spent my forties reaping the rewards of lifelong adrenal taxation. As with anything named “tax”, it’s not at all fun.

ASTROLOGY:

Apparently, Cancers are in their villain era right now and I. Am. Feeling. That.

All this to say, I have had a couple of emotional meltdowns already this year. I did not have “losing my shit twice in one week” on my 2025 bingo card.

When I’m in a deeply triggered state, there’s not a whole lot I can do except breathe. Square breathing is a lifesaver in those moments: breathe in for 4, hold for 4, breathe out for 4, hold for 4. It helps regulate me somewhat, and is much healthier than breaking things. I will genuinely think that I’m over this kind of reaction, because it won’t happen for months or years, and then hello, my old friend.

So the best thing I can do is 1) give my body what it needs (food, shower, rest, comfort TV), 2) not make any major decisions from this state, 3) work on healing and practicing better coping habits when I feel better.

If you also find yourself in a rage from time to time, I feel you. It’s okay. We aren’t terrible people. This world is just a lot, especially if you have a - shall we say - finely tuned nervous system.

Lots of love,

Amber