How to Use Manifestation to Achieve Goals Per Lauren Ash

Understanding Manifestation

Manifestation is the belief that focusing your thoughts on your desired outcomes can help make them a reality. Actor and life coach Lauren Ash teaches manifestation strategies to help people achieve their personal and professional goals.

Lauren Ash’s Background

Before becoming a manifestation coach, Lauren Ash was best known for acting roles on popular TV shows like Superstore and Life in Pieces. She became interested in personal development practices like meditation, visualization, and journaling. These tools helped her manifest her acting career, leading her to share what she learned with others.

How to Manifest – Lauren’s Top Tips

Get clear on your desires and believe they can happen
Visualize your desired outcome vividly and feel the emotions
Take aligned actions and watch for synchronicities
Express gratitude regularly to attract more of what you want
Let go and avoid overanalyzing or forcing outcomes

The Role of Mindset

According to Lauren, mindset is crucial for successful manifestation. Limiting beliefs about what you can achieve will hold you back. Having unwavering faith in your abilities to create your vision is key.

Recommended Practices

Some of Lauren’s favorite manifestation methods include:

Journaling to clarify goals and release negativity
Daily visualization sessions to deepen your connection to your desires
Gratitude affirmations and exercises to cultivate abundance
Aligning actions, relationships, and environments with desired outcomes

Bridging the Gap Between Neuroscience and Manifestation

While Lauren Ash often speaks about the spiritual elements of manifestation, there is a profound scientific basis for why these practices yield results, specifically regarding the brain’s Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS acts as a gatekeeper between your sensory organs and your conscious mind, filtering out millions of bits of irrelevant data every second to focus on what you have deemed important. When Lauren emphasizes getting clear on your desires, she is essentially programming your RAS to recognize opportunities that were previously invisible.

For example, if you decide you want to manifest a specific type of creative partnership, your brain begins to flag mentions of that niche in casual conversation, social media, or news articles. This isn’t just magic; it is your neural pathways prioritizing information that aligns with your stated goals. To leverage this, Lauren suggests a practice called “The Daily Scan.” Instead of just visualizing the end goal, spend five minutes each evening scanning your day for “micro-wins” or synchronicities. This reinforces to your brain that the process is working, which in turn lowers the amygdala’s fear response. When the brain is not in a state of high cortisol (stress), it is more capable of creative problem-solving and recognizing the “aligned actions” Lauren advocates for. By understanding that manifestation is a partnership between spiritual intent and biological focus, you can approach your practice with more logical confidence.

The Architecture of Aligned Action: Moving Beyond Passive Dreaming

A common pitfall in manifestation is the “waiting for the lottery” syndrome, where one visualizes but fails to move. Lauren Ash’s philosophy bridges this gap through the concept of Aligned Action. This is not about frantic multitasking or “hustle culture”; it is about taking steps that feel resonant with the version of you who already possesses the goal. To identify what constitutes an aligned action, you must perform an “Energetic Audit” of your current habits. If you are manifesting a high-level leadership role but your daily habits involve procrastination or avoiding difficult conversations, there is a frequency mismatch.

Consider the “Bridge of Incidents”—a series of events that leads to your goal. Often, an aligned action looks like an intuitive nudge to go to a specific coffee shop, email an old contact, or sign up for a class that seems tangentially related to your goal. Lauren suggests that when you feel a sudden spark of excitement about a task, that is your signal to move. Conversely, if you are forcing a move out of desperation or fear of lack, that action is likely misaligned. To practice this, create a “Manifestation To-Do List.” Divide your tasks into two columns: “Logistic Tasks” (the necessary mundane steps) and “Inspired Leads” (the intuitive hunches). By prioritizing the inspired leads, you allow the universe to meet you halfway, often resulting in shortcuts that hard work alone could not achieve.

Navigating the “Void” and Managing Manifestation Detours

One of the most challenging phases Lauren discusses is the “Void”—the period between setting an intention and seeing physical evidence of its arrival. This is where most people give up, interpreting the silence as failure. However, in Lauren’s framework, the Void is a necessary incubation period where your internal identity is catching up to your external desires. During this time, you may experience “contrast,” which are events that seem like the opposite of what you want. For instance, you might manifest a dream job offer only for it to be rescinded at the last minute.

Lauren teaches that contrast is a refinement tool. It asks, “Are you sure this is what you want, or is there something even better?” When a detour occurs, the key is to maintain what Lauren calls “Unwavering Neutrality.” Instead of spiraling into negativity, acknowledge the event as a data point. Use the “Pivot Technique”: when a door closes, immediately ask yourself what that door taught you about your preferences. Did the rescinded job offer show you that you actually want more remote flexibility? If so, update your manifestation journal. Staying in a state of gratitude during the Void is the ultimate test of faith. It signals to the universe that your happiness is not dependent on the external timeline, which paradoxically accelerates the manifestation process.

Environmental Anchoring and the Energetics of Physical Space

Lauren Ash’s journey from Superstore to life coaching highlights the importance of the physical environment as an extension of the mind. Your home and workspace act as “energy containers.” If you are trying to manifest abundance but your desk is cluttered with unpaid bills and broken items, you are sending a mixed signal to your subconscious. Lauren recommends “Environmental Anchoring,” which involves curating your space to reflect the life you are moving toward. This isn’t just about expensive decor; it’s about intentionality.

Start with a “Space Clearing” ritual. Remove items that remind you of past versions of yourself that you have outgrown—old clothes from a job you hated, or gifts from toxic relationships. Once the space is cleared, introduce “Future Anchors.” These are small, physical items that represent your goal. If you are manifesting a book deal, place a blank notebook with your name and a mock title on your shelf. This serves as a constant visual cue for your RAS. Furthermore, consider the sensory experience of your environment. Lauren often uses specific scents or music during her manifestation sessions to create a “Pavlovian Trigger.” By consistently smelling a certain essential oil while visualizing success, you can eventually use that scent to instantly drop your body into a high-vibration state, even when you’re feeling stressed in the outside world.

Somatic Manifestation: Using the Body to Anchor Desired Realities

Manifestation is often treated as a purely mental exercise, but Lauren Ash emphasizes that the body must believe the mind’s vision. This is known as Somatic Manifestation. Our nervous systems are often programmed for survival rather than abundance; if we have spent years in a state of lack, the prospect of sudden success can actually feel threatening to the body, leading to self-sabotage. To counter this, you must “expand your nervous system’s capacity to receive.”

Practically, this involves “Embodied Visualization.” Instead of just seeing a movie of your success in your head, focus on the physical sensations. Where do you feel the excitement in your chest? How does your posture change when you feel powerful? Lauren suggests practicing the “Power Stance” or “Victory Pose” for two minutes every morning while reciting your affirmations. This physical movement shifts your hormonal profile, lowering cortisol and increasing testosterone (the confidence hormone). Additionally, pay attention to your “Body Budget.” If you are physically exhausted and poorly nourished, your energetic frequency will naturally be lower. Manifestation requires vitality. By treating sleep, hydration, and movement as part of your manifestation practice, you ensure that your physical vessel is strong enough to hold the energy of the big goals you are calling in.

Social Frequency and the Impact of Your Inner Circle

Lauren often touches upon the idea that your social circle can either act as a wind in your sails or an anchor on your progress. In manifestation, this is referred to as “Social Frequency.” We are biologically wired to mirror the behaviors and emotional states of those we spend the most time with. If your inner circle is constantly complaining or operating from a place of scarcity, it becomes exponentially harder to maintain the “unwavering faith” Lauren recommends. This doesn’t mean you must cut off all your friends, but it does require a strategic “Social Audit.”

Identify the “Expanders” in your life—people who have already achieved what you want or who are actively working toward their own high-level goals. Their presence serves as living proof to your subconscious that your desires are possible. If you don’t have these people in your immediate life, Lauren suggests “Virtual Expansion.” Consume podcasts, books, and interviews with people like Lauren Ash. This allows you to “borrow” their frequency until you have built up enough of your own. Conversely, be mindful of “Energy Vampires”—those who meet your new ideas with skepticism or “reality checks.” When you are in the early stages of manifesting a big vision, that vision is like a fragile seedling; it needs to be protected. Lauren advises keeping your biggest goals private (the “Silent Seed” method) until they have enough momentum that others’ doubts can no longer shake your foundation.

Scripting Your Future: Advanced Journaling Frameworks

While the existing article mentions journaling, Lauren Ash utilizes specific advanced frameworks that go beyond simple list-making. One of the most potent is “Future-Self Scripting.” This involves writing a journal entry dated six months or a year in the future, written entirely in the present tense. The key to successful scripting is the inclusion of mundane details. Instead of just writing “I am rich,” write about the specific texture of the steering wheel in your new car, the smell of the air in your new office, or the exact words a colleague used to congratulate you.

Another technique is “The Gratitude Bridge.” When you are struggling to feel grateful for something you don’t yet have, find a bridge. Instead of saying “I am grateful for my million dollars” (which your brain might reject as a lie), say “I am grateful for the version of me who is currently learning the skills to manage a million dollars.” This bypasses the brain’s “BS detector” while still moving you toward the desired frequency. Lauren also recommends the “Release and Replace” method during full moons or periods of transition. Divide a page in half; on the left, list every limiting belief or fear that surfaced that week (e.g., “I’m too old to start a new career”). On the right, immediately rewrite it into an empowering truth (“My years of experience are my greatest competitive advantage”). This active rewriting of your narrative is what eventually replaces old neural pathways with the mindset necessary for high-level manifestation.