Stop Visualizing Success If You Want To Succeed: inside the new science of motivation.

Pure positive thinking sounds harmless, but what if it’s the reason you keep failing on the goals you care about most?

I’m Angela Shurina, and I’m unpacking a counterintuitive finding from motivation research: when we only fantasize about future success, our bodies can relax as if the win already happened, which makes needed effort less likely.

We dig into Gabrielle Oettingen’s work on the science of motivation and the practical technique called mental contrasting. You’ll learn how to visualize a goal in a way that actually increases follow-through. This approach applies to weight loss, fitness, career growth, exams, interviews, personal finance, and any long-term goal that demands consistency.

I also share stories that make the point real, from learning rollerblading through repeated falls to the “cost of getting lean” and the trade-offs behind visible abs. The big takeaway is simple: match the price with the prize, so setbacks stop feeling like surprises and start feeling like part of the plan.

If this helps, subscribe, share it with one person who feels stuck, and leave a rating or review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And The Core Promise

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shurina. I'm your host, I'm your partner in personal and collective transformation, your executive master health, sleep, stress management, and high performance coach 360, and just someone who is obsessed with human potential and this idea that there is a superhero inside each of us. And we can learn and apply and use different strategies, tactics, and tools to help that superhero to come out more often. So we could live the most extraordinary lives and create the most positive impact in the world we are capable of. Today, guys, we are talking about rethinking positive thinking inside the new science of motivation. That is the name of the book by Gabrielle Ottingen. She is Norwegian, so her name might be pronounced slightly different, but if you look up Rethinking Positive Thinking book, you will find it on Google, on Amazon, or in your favorite search engine. So by the end of this podcast, you're gonna learn how to visualize, uh think about your long-term goals so that you are more likely to put in the work that is necessary to achieve them. There is a the right way to think about your uh objectives and your goals and your aspirations, and there is a wrong way to do so, which affects how your body is ready to take necessary action. Believe it or not, but the way you think about your goals changes how ready you are, how energized, how motivated you are to take the hard action that is needed to achieve that goal. And what Gabrielle Ortingen and her work were with other colleagues, what they discovered is well, before we jump into what they discovered again by the end of this podcast, guys, you're gonna learn a technique how to change your visualization, your thinking practices if you want to achieve more of your goals, especially the goals that require consistent investment of your work, of your effort. And that's the only thing you will get. But that is, I would say, after you know, yesterday or on our last podcast, we talked about how we need to celebrate the right behaviors at the right time to build up the consistency of action towards our goals, without which our goals won't happen. And today you're gonna learn the second essential science-backed pieces, which is non-negotiable, as long as you have human brain, that is gonna work for you. Today, you're gonna learn this piece that will help you to make that strategy of building consistency even stronger. So

Why Pure Positive Thinking Fails

SPEAKER_00 3:26

stay tuned, and this episode is gonna be short, but can be very impactful in your life if you take the time to implement it. So, I want to share it on our last podcast about how I used to struggle with a lot of my goals, my long-term aspirations, um, you know, just like all of the other people, just like you perhaps in um some areas of your life, I would set a goal, I would get some ambitious goal I'm super excited about. And then I hoped that my discipline and motivation and willpower will just carry me through. If I just think about that goal, making it happen, you know, positive thinking, the secret kind of uh thinking. Like if I just visualize, if I just feel all these positive emotions and positive feelings that's gonna that I'm gonna feel when I achieve that goal, if I just do that, I will raise my motivation levels, my willpower and discipline will be stronger, my focus gonna be stronger, and then I'm gonna take more action and ultimately I'm gonna achieve my goals. And it stole me for like a decade. So I couldn't achieve a lot of my long-term goals, my motivation, my discipline, my willpower would uh yo-yo up and down, up and down, and my taking action will do the same. And so I would kind of like on be on this I don't know, hamster will just repeating the same thing over and over and over again, and not really moving the needle a lot for it. That was until I started to learn more about how motivation, how visualization actually works, until I started using what worked in coaching while going through certifications uh in different coaching modalities. And these days, quite recently, actually, like all these books, the book that I'm talking about uh today, it came out like a decade ago, still quite a long time, 2015. But most of really good practices that are written in books by scientists, they don't actually pick up until much later. So that is the principle that is along those lines. You know, the book wasn't a super huge hit or some bestseller, but it was a really good research.

The Research On Goal Fantasies

SPEAKER_00 5:45

So, what Gabrielle Otingen and her colleagues discovered is that when we think about our long-term goals, about our aspirations, and we fantasize in a positive way about achieving those goals, feeling like we already, you know, have it. What they found is our blood pressure, which is an systolic blood pressure, which is an indication of how ready we are to take action, how energized we are to pursue it, to take on the challenge. Our systolic blood pressure would go down, which indicated we kind of like relax, and then you know, well, I already achieved that. Like your brain kind of comes down with your body, and you're less likely to take action the more positive you are about achieving your goal. Right? So they found out that people who positively fantasize about their goals and do that and only that, are much less likely, like a lot less likely to do the design the needed work to actually achieve that goal, that usually requires overcoming a lot of challenges and putting in the hard work, putting in the effort. So, what they learned instead, and that was applicable in the domains of health, fitness, weight loss, personal finance, working on career advancement, getting ready for exams. It is applicable to every single goal you might have. So, what they learned is people who achieved the most results and and and then at the same time were able to effectively quit on the goals that they were not ready to pay for, so to speak, with their effort and their consistent action, they were much more likely to quit those goals early and do something else instead of you know getting frustrated in the sloop of like I want it, but I'm not ready to do it, and that is why I keep wanting it, and but not able to achieve it. So they so people who do this other type of visualization that you're just about to learn and discover, people who did that, they would quit their wrong goals and stick with the right goals to their successful to getting successfully to those goals. So

Mental Contrasting As A Tool

SPEAKER_00 8:13

the visualization that they tested is called mental contrasting. And what it is in a nutshell, they ask people to yes, think about the goal that they want, think about why they want it, like what's gonna change in their life, like why it's important for them to achieve that goal. And then they would ask them to think about all the obstacles, all the obstacles, guys, that's gonna come in the way of them achieving goal and start thinking and planning for overcoming those obstacles and those challenges on the way towards that goal that they believed they could achieve. And so people who did that, that visualization of the obstacle and working on those obstacles and challenges, two things would happen. Number one, people who thought it through and thought that, well, maybe I don't want it that much, and I don't want to overcome all these challenges and obstacles, they would quit the goal and do something else, which also is beneficial. They stopped wasting their mental energy and time. And people who decided to stick with it, despite all of the challenges that they thought of, they would achieve their weight loss goal, their prep for exam goals, their preparation for interview and advancing their career, like their mini stories and many goals. People who would fantasize about that, then think about the challenges and all the obstacles that's gonna come into their way. And they would decide to stick with that goal still and plan for the obstacles. Those people achieved goals with a much higher degree of success, like a lot, a lot higher. I I don't even remember, I think it was maybe like 80-90 percent. They had different ways of measuring success on those short and long-term goals, but that was across the board with all of the goals true for all of the people. So, what it teaches you is that the visualization of you achieving your goal, of you having your goal without thinking about all the obstacles, all the challenges, and all the ways you will need to work on that goal and overcome those obstacles, just visual visualizing positively achieving of your goals just doesn't work. You then are mentally and emotionally not ready to deal with all the stuff that is needed to deal with in order to achieve that goal. And let's be honest here for a moment. If great goals and results were easy, like you'd already have them, and everyone else around would have them as well. If, for example, getting six-pack apps or million-dollar year revenue for your business, or having the relationship of your life that just sparkles with joy and fulfillment. If all of those things were easy, everyone would already have it. We are quite smart people. So if something is not in everyone's possession, and it's probably because there is quite a bit of challenge to get there. And so the first thing we all need to do as adults is start thinking about what I talked about in my talk, how to turn your dreams into real life accomplishments. We need to match the price with the prize and realize that great accomplishments come with great challenges. And if you're not ready to go through those challenges, the best strategy is to quit that goal and go do something else that you are prepared to pay for with your effort, with your energy, with your time, attention, and everything else in your life. There is nothing, there is never something for nothing in this life. So the higher the goal, the higher the price, let's say you want to become an Olympic champion, the higher the price that you will have to pay in different sacrifices and trade-offs in your life. And the faster you'll think through those sacrifices and your effort and your trade-offs, the again more efficient or the better your decision is gonna be about should I quit or should I grit, right? Should I persevere? But yeah, so Gabrielle Ortingen, your book, Rethinking Positive Thinking inside the new science of motivation. What they found in practice and in a lot of good quality research is that you are a lot more likely to achieve your hard goals if you don't just think about achieving that goal, but you also do think about all the obstacles and challenges in your way and how you're gonna overcome that. And the reason

Rollerblading And Building Abs

SPEAKER_00 13:22

why it works so well, guys, yesterday there was a really like quick episode in my life. I went rollerblading and uh there was a couple, and they sort of complimented me on how good, how natural I was on those rollerblades. And the man in the couple uh said, Well, you know, I tried it once and it didn't work. I felt like an idiot uh idiot, I couldn't stand even, and yeah, I just felt not good. It's not my thing. And to which I told him, Yes, when I tried it one time, first time, I also felt very awkward. I spent most of the time falling, and I was a far cry from anything natural. Like I look like a I don't know, cow on ice. But then I did it for another couple of months, and guess what? I got a lot, a lot better. And the main thing, the lesson of the story is the main thing that very often stops us from getting what we want is this non-readiness for or with going through challenges, non-readiness towards overcoming obstacles and challenges and being awkward and falling and not feeling good. That non-readiness of our mindset, non-preparedness, and that's by the way, confirmed by research and studies, that what is very often the main obstacle towards us being able to push through, being able to put in the work, being able to put in the effort, the time, the energy, etc., into the effort into the work that is needed to achieve our objective, especially when we talk about any objective that is longer than a few hours a day or a week. Right.

The Real Cost Of Big Goals

SPEAKER_00 15:17

So, what I want you to take away from this podcast episode, guys, that when you set your goals that you want to achieve with my clients, um another example that I want to give to you here. With my clients, when we set their goals, let's say they're working on their six-pack apps, I bring up this graphic that I was given at Precision Nutrition. It's called the cost of getting lean. And every sort of level of leanness, from you know, certain body fat percentage all the way to six pack apps and even beyond when you are a competing bodybuilder or fitness model, each level they paired up with the sacrifice that's needed to achieve that level. Like yesterday, also, that couple, a woman asked me, Well, how do you get six pack also? Right? How do you look so fit almost in your 40s? And she asked me, But you probably don't eat many sweets. I'm like, You're probably right. By the way, I eat sweets, probably you can do it a little bit more, but I personally eat my sweets as fruit, and I eat desserts almost never, literally. So she asked me, Yeah, you probably don't ever eat dessert. I'm like, Yeah, I don't. Because and and in that graphic, the cost of being clean. People, especially women who have six packs, what they do not have is, for example, alcohol and uh any sort of dessert in big amounts more than once a month. And that's like the the top. Usually, people who have six packs for life kind of learned to what to have instead to enjoy their life and have the body that they want that they are committed to have. But the purpose again of this story is there is a cost to there is a price to every single goal that you have. And if you want to achieve that goal and keep that goal, you not to you need to not just fantasize about achieving that goal. You need to equally fantasize about all the obstacles that are gonna come in your way, and all the ways that you need to put in the work, the effort, the energy, and the time to overcome those obstacles. And when you're ready to do that and you plan for that, your mind is ready for frustrations, for failure, for obstacles, and they don't stop you, and that's how you persevere, and then how you that's how you achieve your goals versus going back and forth, back and forth, and wondering why I am not achieving all these goals, even though I'm fantasizing or thinking about it all the time. And the reason is being that you are just not ready to actually do the work to actually pay the price required.

Share Rate Review And Final Reminder

SPEAKER_00 18:10

So that is it for today's podcast, guys. Don't forget to share this podcast episode with at least one other person who's going back and forth and like, why can't I achieve this goal? Why can't I make progress toward that objective that I've been thinking about for years? Maybe that is why, right? So share this podcast episode with that one person. And also don't forget to rate or review our podcast on any platform that you find it on, so we reach beyond those 11,000 cities that we are listening to currently on. I think it's like four or five continents in the world. We're basically covering the whole world. Share this episode, it helps me to help more people. So let's do it together. And again, a reminder: don't just fantasize, don't just think about achieving the goal. Think through about and plan for all the obstacles that required to be to be done, to be dealt with on your way of getting there. And that's it for today, guys. Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in. And till next time, keep growing and keep fantasizing about your goals in the right way with all the obstacles and work required.