Posted on January 14, 2010 by Stephan Wiedner

Future visualizations are great emotionally uplifting tools. They allow clients to bask in the possibilities of an open future. While these are great techniques to feel good, clients want to make progress on their goals. Especially if they are paying you for it.

Not surprisingly, research concludes that future visualizations can dramatically improve goal achievement too. But there’s a catch. Researchers Noelia Vasquez of York University and Roger Buehler of Wilfrid Laurier University have discovered [1] that the visualizer needs to imagine looking at themselves successfully accomplishing their goal from the eyes of an on-looker, (third-person perspective), and not from their own eyes, (first-person perspective).

To give you an example, imagine preparing for a public speaking engagement:

Visualized from the first-person perspective

6 months from now, I’ll be stepping onto that stage. I’ll walk up to the podium, look out at the crowd, smile, take a deep breath, appreciate all my adoring fans, and deliver my speech. It’ll feel incredible to be recognized by all the people that are important to me.

Visualized from the third-person perspective

There I am, 6 months from now, standing on the stage delivering my speech. Looking at myself, I can feel the energy of the crowd. I can see that I am nervous but I can also see that they love me and want more. And man, I gotta say, I look good.

Both of these visualizations are valuable for increasing people’s expectations for success but there are two critical benefits to the third-person perspective that enhances people’s motivation to prepare for and achieve their goals.

1) Increased Importance – The successful completion of the task is deemed more significant when viewed from the third-person perspective. In other words, when people view the event from their own eyes, they focus on what the experience means for them. When people view it from the perspective of an audience member, they focus on what the experience means for other people and how it fits into the bigger picture, (i.e. people go from focusing on giving a speech to focusing on how being a good speaker helps influence others). This increases motivation and emotional involvement which in turn, improves the ability to attain goals.

2) Task-Oriented – The third-person perspective is more objective and thereby causes the client to think more about the actual steps that are required to complete the task. By contrast, the first-person perspective can often focus people’s attention on the emotional experience (i.e. pride, joy, excitement) of the successful outcome at the expense of considering what steps are required to achieve success. The third-person perspective induces more realism, objectivity, and task-oriented thinking which again, improves goal attainment.

This was tested with university students that were asked to visualize success for an upcoming midterm. Results concluded that students that employed the third-person perspective began studying earlier, studied more, and could study for longer periods of time. And of course, in the end, they got higher grades.

Using Third-Person Visualizations to Achieve Goals

Here’s a simple exercise you can perform to put this knowledge into use.

1. Get the coachee to choose a specific goal that they have in the near future – anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months from now would suffice.

2. Ask the coachee to picture the upcoming task going extremely well, just as they would hope it would go. Make sure you ask them to see the events unfolding from the perspective of an outside observer. They should be able to see themselves as well as the surroundings. Please note, this step can be done in-person or in writing.

3. Collect feedback from the coachee. If this task was done in-person and you guided the coachee through the visualization, it helps to give them a few moments to jot down their notes about the visualization. Viewing the notes can help you verify that it was done from the third-person perspective.

4. Ask the coachee the significance of completing the goal. Why is it important? What is the impact of completing the goal?

5. Create a list of tasks. Now that the visualization is complete, ask the coachee what steps they need to take to achieve the goal. Jot them down.

6. And for bonus points, get the coachee to commit to a place and time to complete their tasks.

Have fun with it. Any other ways to use the third-person perspective? Please add your comments below.

Notes

[1] You can read their full research paper here – Seeing Future Success: Does Imagery Perspective Influence Achievement Motivation?