manifestation journal prompts
Posted on by Margaretha Montagu

Manifestation Journal Prompts

Having experimented with the Law of Attraction and having been thoroughly disillusioned more than a decade ago, I have had little time for the idea ever since.

Recently, a friend mentioned Human Design, and knowing nothing about it, I decided to look it up. According to this classification, I am a Reflector, not a Manifestor, which made me smile, and take the classification a bit more seriously, than I otherwise would have, as a scientist, because its effectiveness has not been confirmed by peer-reviewed research.

Ten years ago, I started a gratitude journal, and over the years, I became convinced of its powerful stress-reducing properties. Looking back, I realised that I also used it to set short, medium and long-term goals, and I wondered if that might have functioned as a manifestation activity. Could manifestation, in its simplest form, be nothing more than the brain’s Reticular Activation System (RAS) at work?

The RAS takes the information that we are constantly bombarded by from external sources, filters out the unnecessary and unimportant, and organises what is left into meaningful patterns. For example, saying an affirmation like “I am blessed” to yourself will trigger the Reticular Activating System, prompting it to notice any external validation for this affirmation.

In a similar way, keeping a manifestation journal can trigger the RAS to notice opportunities that will enable you to realise your dreams. Writing down your dreams helps clarify your intentions and focus your energy on working towards what you truly want. It allows you to track your progress over time, noting the steps you’ve taken and the milestones you’ve reached, which reinforces your commitment and motivation. Documenting your successes, no matter how small, also provides positive reinforcement.

I now more purposefully add my goals to my gratitude journal, to benefit from the support of my RAS.

How Not To Do It: Manifesting Madelaines

Beatrice’s journal smelled like burnt butter and broken dreams.

She cracked it open at 6:47 AM—the universe’s most auspicious time for manifestation, according to @SpiritualBaker333—and pressed her gel pen to the page with the fervor of a woman who’d watched one too many YouTube videos about the law of attraction.

I am a vessel for the perfect madeleine, she wrote in her best cursive. The scalloped edges call to me. The golden dome rises in my mind’s eye like a buttery sunset. I can already taste the delicate crumb, feel it dissolve on my tongue like edible nostalgia.

The pen’s ink bled slightly into the paper, creating a small blue halo around “nostalgia.” A sign from the universe? Beatrice chose to believe so.

Day three of manifestation journaling, and her kitchen counter looked like a crime scene. Flour dusted every surface in ghostly fingerprints. Egg yolks congealed in a measuring cup she’d forgotten about. The silicone madeleine pan—$47.99 on Amazon, worth every penny she’d convinced herself—sat in the sink, crusted with the remains of batch number eleven.

Eleven.

She’d been journaling for three weeks.

“The secret,” she’d told her storytelling circle last Tuesday, waving a lavender latte for emphasis, “is to write as if it’s already happened. Past tense. The universe doesn’t understand future tense.”

Marcus had raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t the universe understand French pastry?”

Everyone had laughed. Beatrice had not.

Because this wasn’t just about pastry. This was about Proust. About involuntary memory. About creating something so transcendent that one bite could collapse time itself, could transport you to your grandmother’s kitchen or your first love’s apartment or some feeling you didn’t even know you’d lost.

Today I baked the perfect madeleine, she wrote on day nineteen. The kitchen smelled like browned butter and honey, like centuries of French grandmothers approving in chorus. When I lifted one from the pan, it released with a whisper, its belly golden as August light streaming through lace curtains.

She closed the journal. Picked up her whisk.

The batter looked promising—silky, the colour of pale morning sun. She’d brown-buttered. She’d rested. She’d chilled the pan. She’d even played Debussy while mixing because somewhere she’d read that sound vibrations affected molecular structure.

Twenty-three minutes later, she was staring at what could only be described as madeleine-shaped croutons. The edges had curled like arthritic fingers. The famous dome? Concave. When she bit into one, it crumbled into sawdust that sucked every molecule of moisture from her mouth.

She spat it into the sink and screamed into a dish towel.

Why isn’t this working?

The journal lay open on the counter, her elaborate cursive mocking her with its confidence. I am a vessel for the perfect madeleine.

“You’re a vessel for delusion,” she muttered, grabbing the pen.

Day 23: The madeleines taste like failure mixed with false hope and a $47.99 silicone pan that I’m starting to suspect is cursed.

She paused. Sniffed. Underneath the burnt-butter-disappointment smell, something else: the faint chemical tang of the pen, the vanilla extract she’d spilled on her wrist, the yeasty sourdough starter gurgling in the corner that she’d been successfully feeding for two years without journaling about it once.

At the storytelling circle that Thursday, she brought the journal.

“I’ve been manifestation journaling,” she announced, holding it up like evidence. “For the perfect madeleine. It’s not working.”

“Have you tried actually practising?” Marcus asked, too innocently.

The room went quiet.

Beatrice looked down at her journal, at weeks of elaborate prose about golden domes and transcendent crumbs and sensory time travel. At precisely zero notes about oven temperature or baking times or the actual chemistry of what makes a madeleine rise.

“I think,” she said slowly, “I’ve been writing fiction.”

The circle erupted in laughter—warm, knowing, not unkind.

“Welcome to storytelling,” Marcus grinned. “Now come over Sunday. My grandmother’s recipe. No manifestation required. Just butter, eggs, and showing up to learn.”

Beatrice closed her journal.

Sometimes the best stories are the ones where you stop writing and start living.

The journaling prompts below can significantly increase the effectiveness of your manifestation journal by triggering your RAS:

  • What is my ultimate goal and why is it important to me?
  • What steps can I take this week to move closer to my goal?
  • How will achieving my goal positively impact my life and the lives of others?
  • What resources and support do I need to manifest my goal, and how can I access them?
  • Who are the people that inspire me and how can I learn from their journeys?
  • How can I celebrate my progress, no matter how small, on the path to my goal?
  • What does my ideal day look like in vivid detail?
  • How will achieving my current goal change my life for the better?
  • What qualities do I most admire in others and wish to cultivate in myself?
  • What/who am I most grateful for in my life right now?
  • How do I envision my life five years from now?
  • What obstacles do I currently face, and how can I overcome them?
  • What positive affirmations can I use to empower my daily intentions?
  • What acts of kindness can I perform to improve my and others’ well-being?
  • What are my core values, and how do they guide my life’s choices?
  • If fear was not a factor, what would I pursue immediately?
  • What habits can I develop to bring me closer to my dreams?
  • In what ways can I positively impact my community?
  • What does success truly mean to me?
  • What are the most significant lessons I’ve learned this year?
  • How can I make my daily routine more aligned with my goals?
  • What limiting beliefs do I need to let go of to move forward?
  • How can I turn a recent challenge into an opportunity for growth?

5 FAQs About the Reticular Activating System

1. What exactly is the Reticular Activating System (RAS)?

The Reticular Activating System is a network of neurons located in the brainstem that acts as your brain’s gatekeeper and attention filter. Think of it as a neurological bouncer that decides which information gets VIP access to your conscious awareness and which gets left outside in the cold. This pencil-sized bundle of nerve cells processes millions of bits of sensory data every second—sights, sounds, smells, touches—and filters out about 99% of it so you’re not overwhelmed. Without your RAS, you’d be paralysed by the sheer volume of information bombarding your senses at every moment.

2. How does the RAS decide what’s important enough to notice?

Your RAS operates on a priority system based on three main criteria: survival relevance, emotional significance, and what you’ve repeatedly told it matters. Sudden loud noises always get through (survival). Your name spoken across a crowded room cuts through the chatter (personal relevance). And here’s where it gets interesting—whatever you focus on consistently, your RAS begins to recognise as important. This is why when you’re thinking about buying a red car, you suddenly see red cars everywhere. They were always there; your RAS just wasn’t letting them through until you signalled they mattered. It’s essentially programmable through attention and repetition.

3. Can I actually train or reprogram my RAS?

Yes, though “train” is more accurate than “reprogram.” Your RAS responds to consistent patterns of attention, emotion, and repetition. When you set clear intentions, visualise goals, or repeatedly expose yourself to certain information, you’re essentially teaching your RAS what to prioritise. This is the neurological basis behind practices like vision boards, affirmations, and goal-setting. However—and this is crucial—your RAS can’t distinguish between positive and negative focus. If you constantly worry about failure, your RAS will helpfully point out every possible failure scenario. The key is deliberate, consistent focus on what you want to notice, coupled with genuine emotional engagement with those goals.

4. What’s the connection between the RAS and sleep/wakefulness?

The RAS is literally your brain’s on/off switch for consciousness. It controls your sleep-wake cycle by regulating arousal and alertness levels throughout the day. When your RAS activity increases, you become more alert and wakeful; when it decreases, you drift toward sleep. This is why damage to the RAS can result in coma—the brain loses its ability to maintain wakefulness. The RAS also explains why certain sounds can wake you (a baby crying, your alarm) while others don’t (steady traffic noise). Even during sleep, your RAS continues monitoring for important stimuli, maintaining just enough vigilance to rouse you when necessary while filtering out irrelevant information that would otherwise fragment your rest.

5. Is the RAS the scientific explanation for manifestation and the law of attraction?

Partially, but it’s important to separate neuroscience from magical thinking. The RAS does explain why focusing on goals makes you more likely to notice opportunities related to those goals—it’s not that the universe is conspiring to help you, but that your brain is now alerting you to relevant information that was always present. This is a real, measurable phenomenon called selective attention. However, the RAS doesn’t make things materialise out of thin air or bend reality to your will. It simply makes you more aware and responsive to existing opportunities. The practical takeaway: set clear goals, focus on them regularly, and your RAS will help you spot the resources, people, and chances that can move you toward them. But you still have to take action—the RAS opens your eyes, but you have to walk through the door.

“I am an experienced medical doctor – MBChB, MRCGP, NLP master pract cert, Transformational Life Coach (dip.) Life Story Coach (cert.) Stress Counselling (cert.) Med Hypnotherapy (dip.) and EAGALA (cert.) I may have an impressive number of letters after my name, and more than three decades of professional experience, but what qualifies me to excel at what I do is my intuitive understanding of my clients’ difficulties and my extensive personal experience of managing major life changes using strategies I developed over many years.” Dr M Montagu

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