Dial up the contrast: mobilising energy to change behaviours for future goal achievement

​Do you fantasise about a brighter future? Revelling in the success of achievement, and enjoying the fruits of a dream lifestyle? 

Well don’t. Because it won’t get you anywhere.  It will remain simply that. A fantasy. Doesn’t this run counter to all that positive thinking, the intonations of the self-help movement that stipulate all your dreams will come true if you spend time thinking, believing it will come to pass?!  

Actually, serious research shows that simply fantasising about this future utopian state has the effect of NOT leading to the realisation of dreams.  You don’t end up doing anything about it. Because you are enjoying the fantasy rather than tackling the reality of your current situation (Kappes and Oettingen, 2011; Oettingen et al., 2009; Oettingen and Schworer, 2013).  Experiments revealed that people were  less likely to achieve goals such as losing weight, improving their academic scores or other domains of visualised success when they fantasised positively about the end rewards.  This is thought to be because the brain does not feel motivated to put the effort into achieving said goals, as if they already have occurred.   

Don’t panic, it’s not all doom and gloom. You can recover the baby before it goes down the sink along with the bathwater. There is a way to realise your dreams, and it does involve fantasising.  But that’s not all.  The strategy of ‘Mental Contrasting’ is what has been shown to be effective in galvanising individuals towards pursuit (and achievement) of goals.  The conceit is straightforward.  By all means think about your future goal, the positives associated with that, but instead of indulging in such thoughts, pull back your attention to focus on the current reality - the elements of your life that do not conform to this rosy picture.  This sets up an opposition, a tension between what you have now that is holding you back, and what you desire in the future as the associated ‘reward’.  In effect you present yourself with the scenario that current reality is an obstacle that needs to be addressed, tackled, surmounted inorder to progress towards the future ‘you’.  This is impetus for progress. 

Most significantly, it has been shown that by seeing the present and future worlds in this contrasting, obstacle strewn way, you energise your system ready to rise to the challenge of moving forward.  This is associated with changes in systolic blood pressure.  By setting challenges which have an end-state goal associated with these, the cardiovascular system responds to supply increasing demand for oxygen and nutrients that are required for the effort involved in rising to the occasion.  This is a mobilisation of reserves that excites the system as a call to action!  The higher the expectations that you can set with respect to the overcoming of present challenges towards achievement of future goals, the more your sympathetic nervous system responds in this way – it thrives on excitement! 

So as a pragmatic approach towards focusing on future goals and activating behaviour change at a neurocognitive and physiological level, take stock of your current predicament, be realistic about the obstacles that surround you (be they circumstantial or pertaining to aspects of your own attitudes and behaviours).  Seek to draw on the negatives as Impetus to mobilise energy to overcome the challenges these represent! 

So, to reiterate, behaviour change and motivated action towards goal achievements can be progressed using visualisation techniques, and drawing on the brain’s capacity for ‘Mind-Wandering’.  But this requires a dose of realism injected into the proceedings.  The future is the yang, the bright and positive, the present is the yin, the dark and negative. The contrast is what gives the capacity to move fom present to future, and with it comes a mechanism for physiological mobilisation of resources to get things going! 

So I ask you again. Do you want to imagine a brighter future, or do you want to change a darker present? Dial up the contrast and see what happens... 
 
References: 

Kappes, H. B., and Oettingen, G.(2011). Positive fantasies aboutidealized futures sap energy.J. Exp.Soc. Psychol. 47, 719–729.  

Oettingen, G., Mayer, D., Sevincer, A.T., Stephens, E. J., Pak, H., andHagenah, M. (2009). Mental con-trasting and goal commitment: themediating role of energization.Pers.Soc. Psychol. Bull. 35, 608–622. 

Oettingen, G.,and Schworer, B (2013). Mind wanring via mental contrasting as a tool for behavior change.  Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 562 ​