Many a self-help book touts the power of positive visualization to help you achieve your goals.  However, recent research shows that a common type of visualization often advocated in these books can actually keep you from achieving your goals.

In one study done at UCLA, one group of students was encouraged to visualize getting a great grade on their upcoming final exam.  Another group was not asked to visualize.  Both groups logged their study hours and exam results.  The group that did positive visualization got the worst grades and studied for fewer hours.

Similar results have been found in many domains including weight loss, finding a romantic partner and quitting smoking.

Why should fantasizing about a great future be such a hindrance?

It may be that when people fantasize about things going perfectly that they are then ill-prepared to deal with setbacks.  And since you’ve actually experienced success in your mind you are less motivated to get success in the real world.

However, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  Haven’t we all heard of athletes that practice visualization and gotten great results?

It turns out that there are at least two types of visualization that helps improve both motivation and performance.

One is called Mental Contrasting which I wrote about in another post.

Another is called process oriented visualization.

In the same study I mentioned above there was a group of students that imagined studying for their upcoming exam.  That group of students spent the most hours studying, had the least pre-exam anxiety and got the highest grades.

So if you want to achieve your goals, don’t visualize success.  Instead, visualize yourself taking the actions that will produce success.  You’ll be much more likely to put in the hours it takes to reach your goal.

In fact, that’s what great athletes do.  They don’t visualize the celebration at the end of the game.  They visualize the process of shooting in basketball, the process of hitting the ball in baseball or the process of catching the ball in football.  Visualizing how to properly do these specific skills is what helps boost their performance.

What do you think of this research? Will you start visualizing the actions needed to achieve your goals like many great athletes do?  Please leave a comment below.

Reference:
Lien B. Pham, Shelley E. Taylor (1999) From Thought to Action: Effects of Process-Versus Outcome-Based Mental Simulations on Performance


    13 replies to "A Common Self-Help Technique That’s Proven To Cause Failure And What To Do Instead"

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    • Peter Knight

      Great post. I think visualizing is more than meets the eye (sorry for the pun), and that study shows it.

      In some fire fighter training, they spend a lot of timing mentally rehearsing their mistakes in order to correct them. This is incredibly important because making mistakes in the field can cost lives – you need to know exactly what NOT to do.This would also seem a bit counter intuitive according to some self help philosophies.

      I think for skill/performance based outcomes, visualizing the motions involved in reaching the goal is very effective (like visualizing a perfect free throw form in basketball). I think many athletes also have visualized winning celebrations many times but I don’t think its something useful to practice every day for a set amount of time. Athletes have the benefit of getting accurate feedback about their continual performance, which helps with course correcting. Most students don’t study in a way where they have continual feedback about their mastery of the subject and without that , just doing visualization isn’t going to help.

      An outcome based visualizing can work quite well for getting into action in certain circumstances. If you have a messy desk that you want tidy, spend a minute picturing it it complete clean and cleared. That can actually increase motivation to get tidying for some people.

      In a previous post you mentioned the positive effects of looking at a photo of a loved one, I think that ‘vision boards’ or mental visualisations of the things we want in our lives can have a similar effect. There are a lot of outcomes in life we would like to experience, but we don’t know exactly how to get there from a to z. Getting a good grade is straightforward in the sense that – for lack of a better word – the ego knows what actions might be involved. You can follow a curriculum for that.

      For other goals, we have no way of knowing what the steps are. If we knew what they are, we’d probably already have it. I think that’s why visualizing the desired outcome experience is effective because instead of employing a limited faculty to work out the how-to, you can rely on other mechanisms, one of which being our subconscious. Conversely, if we use our limited faculties, there may be un-supportive behaviours and beliefs in place stopping you from reaching a goal. That is when, imprinting the mind with a multi sensory visualization may send the message through on a deeper level. That’s why I think there are so many stories of people who did some kind of visualization, forgot about it, then revisited what they imagined after they actually achieved what they wanted to achieve, finding that it was exactly how they described it.

      At the end of the day, I think forward progress is much to do with the quality of feedback we have on where we are and where we are going. For an athlete the feedback is almost instantaneous in a lot of ways. For a student learning a course, we find giving ourself tests along the way to the final exam improves our performance. For manifesting a reality that seems like a stretch right now, like owning a palace at the beach, just relying on visualizing is not enough. You need to have the right quality of feedback that tells your brain if it is employing the right behaviours and thoughts that will support getting to the destination. Case in point, many people would love a million dollar a year income, but spend most of their days practising thoughts and behaviours that aren’t supportive of that and repeating them over and over. It isn’t because visualization worsens performance, it’s because the person is not acting on quality feedback to make the necessary course corrections.They think that by doing the visualization, they don’t need to pay attention or act on current feedback.

      Even in the most new agey of books, some of the better ones will emphasize that emotions are a measure of feedback and to use that as part of a course correcting system toward achieving whatever experience we desire. Not reading quality feedback, or ignoring it I think is the main ingredient to a lack of results (good and bad) and it also ill prepares us for the inevitable stumbling blocks along the way.

      Was there a control group of students that did neither of visualization techniques? I wonder what would happen if they had the same students go through another curriculum and splitting the groups. I wonder if the students that visualized their outcomes instead of picturing learning, would perform better, worse or equal, the second time around.

      • Rodney Daut

        Peter,

        I must say that’s the longest comment I’ve received so far. I can see that you definitely believe in the power of outcome visualization.

        The research does clearly show with many studies that people that do outcome visualizations work less hard and are more likely to give up than those that don’t do any visualiztion at all. And people who do process oriented visualization experience an increase in motivation and performance and work harder and longer. Those are the fact.

        When people say they are motivated after doing an outcome visualization what they mean is different than what a psychologist means by motivated. In psychology a motivated individual takes action. And you can measure their motivation as compared to another person doing the same task by how long they persist on that task, how many hours the spend etc.

        Many peole feel better after doing an outcome visualization. But that feeling should not be confused with “motivation” as I’m defining it.

        However, there is a way to modify outcome visualizations to actually increase motivation and persistence. It’s called Mental Contrasting and I spoke about it in a post on how to overcome procrastination.

        Here’s a link to that post:
        https://www.selfinfluence.net/an-easy-way-to-overcome-procrastination/

        • Peter Knight

          Good distinctions Rodney and yes, sorry for the length! I think this is a thought provoking topic. Would be good to get a complete picture on the research of visualization. I wish I still had free access to psych journals, although there’s plenty to be found online.

          Mental contrasting is a very effective technique. I like it.

          I do think outcome visualization is powerful when applied in the right contexts and manner. I think that is where education comes in.

          • Rodney Daut

            Peter,

            I think outcome visualization can definitely help but just not alone. In Mental Contrasting it’s coupled with thoughts of obstacles. In Solution Focused therapy (an evidence-based approach to therapy) it’s followed up by small action steps. A Solution Focused therapist might ask “And what would others say you are doing that produced those results?” So I agree that outcome visualization can be useful as long as something else is added to it so that’s been shown to help people take action.

    • M. Daut

      Hi Rod,

      I agree with you! Great post! I usually visualizing myself achieving whatever it is that I want, but only after I have carefully visualized the path I am going to take to get there…..along with alternative plans b, c, d, and sometimes e! Keep up the good work!

      • Rodney Daut

        Thanks Marlene.

        That’s an interesting idea: to think of multiple paths to achieving your goal instead of just one path as most people do.

        It’s certainly worked for you since you’ve achieved some challenging goals like getting your PhD before you were thirty.

        Rodney

        (To anyone else reading this Marlene is my little sister).

    • Ma-Luschka Colindres

      Hi Rodney,

      I really liked this post and the replies. Since my daily routine for the last 10 years involved teaching adolescents, goals, objectives, success were areas that I had to regularly motivate my students about. In the beginning of the year I would have them write down there short term goals, long term goals, desired grade and actual gpa. Within 2 week I could easily identify the students that dream about getting good grades compared to those who dreamed about the hard work to get good grades. After some subject tests I would have the students share with others their study techniques and the time they spend studying. I have found that the students capable of telling me how they were going to get their desired grades always scored higher than those who just said they wanted good grades.
      I encouraged Marlene’s method also which is my motto, paths A through Z must be always ready because you don’t know when you have to shift gears.

      • Rodney Daut

        Ma-Luschka,

        Thanks for reading and commenting. I love that you shared your experience guiding adolescents. It sounds like you are able to see what separates the successful students from the rest of the pack. The question is how do we get those who only dream about success to start visualizing the hard work required?

        Do you have any answers?

        Rodney

        • Ma-Luschka Colindres

          Usually, I asked them to stop looking at others and to do an honest self evaluation. Sometimes I even have them draw a map with different routes and checkpoints allowing them to reach their personal goals. The key thing is to really know what the desired goal is not just hot air to please everyone. Temporary failures need to be analyzed in order not to repeat the same mistakes and to move forward on a different route with the same goal but it really needs to come from the heart.

    • Nate

      Interesting post.

      The outcome and the process are both important. It’s more important to spend the majority of your time and focus on the process, but one should never lose “sight” of the goal.

      The goal should be directing the process.
      BUT,
      The process affects the realization of the goal.

      • Rodney Daut

        Nate,

        Thanks for your comment.

        Yes the process is more important than the outcome. But also visualizing the outcome on a regular basis can reduce your motivation. So if you are going to practice visualization regularly, visualize the actions needed to achieve your goal.

        Rodney

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