The visualisation that helps and the visualisation that holds you back

Many popular books promise that if you picture what you want clearly enough, it will come. Scientific research gives a more interesting answer: visualisation works, but only one particular kind. Another kind, the most pleasant one, can hold us back.

Mental practice: training in the mind

Psychologists use the term mental practice for rehearsing a task in imagination, without physical movement: the pianist running through the notes in their head, the athlete picturing a shot step by step, the speaker "hearing" their speech before giving it.

In 1994, James Driskell and colleagues combined the results of dozens of experiments. Their conclusion: mental practice improves performance measurably, less than real practice but more than no practice. The effect was stronger for tasks involving thinking and sequencing steps, and it faded over time if not repeated. A replication of this analysis using studies from 1995 to 2018 (Toth and colleagues, 2020) again found a positive effect, small but consistent.

So imagining how you will do something is a genuine form of practice.

The victory fantasy: when the dream takes the energy

The psychologist Gabriele Oettingen has spent years studying a different kind of imagining: daydreaming about the perfect outcome. Students vividly picturing a top grade, people picturing the new job or their ideal weight.

In a series of experiments (Kappes & Oettingen, 2011), participants encouraged to fantasise positively about an idealised future showed less energy, including in physiological measures such as blood pressure, than those who imagined something else. In one study, people who fantasised about a perfect week reported a week later that they had achieved less. A likely explanation: the mind enjoys a little of the victory right away and no longer mobilises for it.

A beautiful dream calms you. But to act, the mind also needs to see the obstacle.

The WOOP method

From these findings Oettingen built a short exercise she calls mental contrasting, known by the acronym WOOP. It takes five minutes:

1. Wish: Choose a wish you can reach in the coming weeks. Write it in a few words.
2. Outcome: Picture the best outcome. How will you feel? Let yourself enjoy it for a minute.
3. Obstacle: Now ask: what is the main obstacle inside me that stops me? A habit, a fear, an excuse. Picture it clearly.
4. Plan: Write one sentence: "If [the obstacle] happens, then I will [the action]."

The fourth step draws on another robust finding in psychology, "if–then" plans, which we cover in the Practice field.

How to use visualisation

• Picture the process, not only the end: the place, the time, the steps, how your body feels.
• Include the likely difficulties and how you will get past them.
• Keep it short and repeated: a few minutes, a few times a week, closer to the moment of action.
• Do not let it replace action. Mental practice adds to real practice; it does not take its place.

Visualisation has no power over the outside world. But it can prepare the mind for what needs to be done, and in the end that is a great deal.