What if you imagine you already tried and failed....?
If you want to make productive changes to your life — whatever those changes may be — one of the easiest yet most valuable things that you can do is to imagine that you implemented the change(s), a year has passed, and youve failed. What went wrong? What unexpected events arose and swept you off your path? Which parts of your goals may have been just a bit too hopeful to begin with?
This strategy is not pessimism — not exactly, anyway. Whenever I set out to accomplish something outside of my comfort zone, I do my best to approach the challenge with a positive mindset, and, in doing so, cultivate self-belief. After all, self-belief is a very real and scientifically backed performance enhancer. Without it, people are much less likely to take constructive risks and reach their full potential. Progress, and especially breakthrough, requires a good measure of optimism.
Confidence in future success sustains a positive mood that enhances [ones] prospects of prevailing. When action is needed, optimism, even of the mildly delusional variety, may be a good thing. - Daniel Kahneman
But at the same time, the optimism that allows us to climb mountains, start companies, qualify for the Olympics, or even just make simple life changes, like going on a diet or sleeping more, comes with at least one significant blind spot: all the stuff that could go wrong.
Normally, we dont realize these mishaps until they derail our projects. Its not until after the fact that we debrief, in what is commonly called a postmortem, everything that went wrong. But, according to Kahneman, this timing just doesnt make sense.
A premortem, which is beneficial for just about every endeavor, from running a marathon to starting a business, simply asks you to envision that you failed and to ask yourself: What went wrong? Or, in the words of Kahneman, Imagine that you are [X amount of time] into the future. You implemented your plan as it now exists. The outcome was a disaster. Take five to ten minutes to write a brief history of that disaster.
Going through this exercise not only helps to ensure that your optimism is at least somewhat grounded in reality, but it also helps you to uncover potential pitfalls on the path to your goal that might otherwise be overlooked.
Let's discuss!
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@cristiana33 Interesting and thought-provoking post. Maybe I could use this idea of a pre-mortem on writing a book. It is something I have wanted to do / had in the back of my mind for most of my life. The pre-mortem idea also sounds very logical rather than fear-based. The thoughts that stop me now are, "I don't have good ideas. I can't stick to any one thing for very long. I don't have the energy to write often and would never finish." But if I were to visualize myself having already undergone the process of brainstorming and writing, that changes the school of thought. So instead of the above, it could be, "I didn't pick an idea to write about that was resonant with me. I didn't give the book a fair shot or carve out enough time for it. I had down time but I allowed the fear of failure to stop me." It helps me to see what the true pitfalls are so that I can better handle them. So, yes, I like this. :-)
@cristiana33
Wow! This is a very interesting post! If you were to imagine you've already completed the task, then your motivation could be; to complete that task! If you know you've already done it, then there is nothing stopping you!
Thank you for this awesome post!
