Jim Carrey wrote himself a $10 million check before he could cash it

Manifesting a raise or promotion in 2026?

You’re not the only one. There are over 9 million posts on TikTok championing the use of manifestation and visualization techniques to achieve your goals. And experts say it may actually help — but not because it’s magic.

Take for example the famous story of A-List actor and comedian Jim Carrey. In the early 1990’s he wrote himself a check that he couldn’t afford to cash yet.

“I made a check to myself for $10 million for acting services rendered, paid to the order of Jim Carrey, post-dated Thanksgiving 1995, [and] stuck it in my wallet,” Carrey said while appearing on The Graham Norton show in 2015.

“And six months before that due date came due, I was making $10 million for a movie.”

Carrey shared on the Oprah Show in 1997 that he was paid $10 million for his role in “Dumb and Dumber.” But his visualization practices began before he wrote himself the aspirational check.

“I used to go up to Mulholland Drive every night, sit on the side of the road, look out at the lights and go, ‘I’m a popular actor. Every director wants to work with me,'” Carrey said during an interview with Barbara Walters in 1995.

“It was a way of dealing with being completely out of work. I would stay up there until I actually believed that I had all these things.”

While some may find manifestation to be woo-woo, psychotherapist Chamin Ajjan says it can actually lead to results. Manifestation is a “deliberate process that involves aligning your values, intentions, and actions to move toward the life you want,” she wrote in an article for CNBC Make It earlier this month.

The neuroscience behind why manifestation can be effective stems from a rewiring of the brain that can occur when you engage in it. It can make your brain “primed to subconsciously seek out something you want or the steps you need to take to reach a certain goal,” neuroscientist Dr. James R. Doty told SELF Magazine last year.