Visualize Success If You Want to Fail

By David DiSalvo / Source: Forbes

If you have been paying any attention to the self help industry lo these many years, you know that “positive visualization” is a trademark best practice with few equals.  What could be simpler?  For one to succeed, one must visualize attaining the object of success. Few would quarrel with such perfunctory logic.

But could it be that the self-evidence of positive visualization is little more than a bookstore mirage? Though assumed true, it’s hard to say exactly why the practice works–if it works.

Enter the latest round of research aimed at testing the mettle of self-help platitudes.

Researchers Heather Kappes and Gabriele Oettingen, publishing in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, suggest to us that not only is positive visualization ineffective, it’s counterproductive. A practice proffered to help us succeed may do just the opposite.
   
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