Towards the end of 2022, Samantha Palazzolo, 18, came across an interesting TikTok video. In it, influencer Laura Galebe swears that her secret to success is as simple as assuming that everything will work out for her, a philosophy she calls the “happy girl syndrome.”
Skeptical but curious, Palazzolo, an advertising student at the University of Illinois, decided to see if Galebe’s philosophy would work for her. And so she told herself every morning that she would have a happy day.
One particularly vexing issue Palazzolo was dealing with was who would get which bedroom in the new apartment she and her friends were renting. She and a roommate were desperate to get the bottom bedroom, so they started telling themselves it would all work out in their favor.
Lo and behold, it worked.
“It was life-changing,” Palazzolo told The Post. “A few days later, our roommate came to us and [said] ‘I want the upper bedroom, you can have the lower one yourself.'”
Forget “The Secret” or vision-boarding. Gen Zers have staked out their own uniquely named movement on manifesting their dreams, believing that if they simply assume they’ll land a great job or an amazing apartment, they will. Galebe’s original post about lucky girl syndrome — in which she intones “I always expect great things to happen to me, and they do” — has been viewed 2.7 million times, while #LuckyGirlSyndrome has 61.9 million views on TikTok.
Lucky Girl Syndrome had not yet been created by Galebe at the beginning of 2022, when Kirshten Garcia (24) decided to have a “lucky” year and be invited to New York Fashion Week. But Garcia believes the method worked for her. Inspired by videos of different girls on social media, she started using mantras like “everything always works out for me” on a daily basis.
“I always want to affirm every day, ‘I’m so happy to be going to New York Fashion Week this year and I’m so happy designers are reaching out to me,'” the Orlando nursing student and fashion influencer. he told The Post.
Sure enough, designers invited her to fashion week, and Garcia’s “luck” continued when she landed in New York last fall.
“I attended the designer show as a general admission with no seating and just stood in the way back waiting for the show to start. But then an employee came to me personally and offered me a front row seat just because she liked my outfit,” she recalled. “Good things always happen.”
But not everyone in the New Age space subscribes to Gen Z’s version of positive thinking.
Lucy Baker, a 46-year-old UK-based life coach, warned that when manifestation doesn’t work, it can be a huge problem for those who have come to believe that happy thoughts are all you need.
“[It] it creates disappointment for some, while others lose confidence entirely,” she told The Post. “I use positivity techniques with my clients – but believing that you are the happiest person on planet earth and happier than any other living being can be dangerous.”