By Dan Remon · Evidence checked October 2026
Seeing yourself at the finish line feels like progress. On its own, it can leave you with less energy to get there.
Visualisation has a real evidence base. Rehearsing a task in your head improves performance, and imagined training has added strength in controlled studies. The version usually sold, a vision board and the feeling of already having the result, is the one the research supports least.
Below is what the research supports, what it doesn’t, and how I use visualisation every Monday inside a 30-minute plan.
Does visualisation work?
Yes, for rehearsing a skill or a process. A 1994 meta-analysis found that mental practice, rehearsing a task in your head without moving, had a positive and significant effect on performance. Imagining muscle contractions has increased strength in controlled studies, though by less than physical training. Picturing the result you want is a different thing. People who indulged in positive fantasies about a goal put in less effort and did worse, and experiments found those fantasies left people with less energy. What helps is rehearsing the process, naming the obstacle and deciding in advance what you’ll do when it shows up.
What visualisation is: rehearsal versus fantasy
The word covers 2 different habits, and the research treats them very differently.
- Mental rehearsal. Running through a task in your head before you do it: the lift, the pitch, the difficult conversation, step by step. Researchers call it mental practice, the cognitive rehearsal of a task without physical movement. A musician thinking through a passage is doing it.
- Positive fantasy. Enjoying a picture of the result: the body, the sale of the business, the house. In the research below, a fantasy means thoughts and images about a desired future that you experience positively.
Most popular advice, vision boards and “I already have it” affirmations included, is the second kind. Most of the evidence that visualisation improves performance is about the first.
What the research says about mental rehearsal
The best-known summary is a 1994 meta-analysis by Driskell, Copper and Moran. Mental practice had a positive and significant effect on performance. How much it helped depended on the type of task, how long after the practice performance was tested and how long the mental practice lasted.1
What you rehearse matters. In a study by Pham and Taylor, first-year college students spent 5 to 7 days before a midterm exam mentally rehearsing either the process of doing well (good study habits), the outcome (getting a good grade) or both, alongside a control group that only monitored their studying. Rehearsing the process increased studying and improved grades, and the effect on grades ran through better planning and lower anxiety.2
That’s the rule I work to: rehearse the steps, not the trophy. Use it on anything you’re about to perform:
- Run it in order, at real speed. The first sentence of the pitch, the setup before the lift, the opening of the conversation.
- Include the moment it goes wrong. The bar slows, the investor pushes back, the meeting runs over. Rehearse what you’ll do next.
- Then do the real thing. Rehearsal prepares the session. It doesn’t replace it.
Can visualisation make you stronger?
Partly, and by less than training. In a 2004 study from Guang Yue’s group, healthy young adults trained by imagining muscle contractions for 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for 12 weeks. The group imagining little-finger contractions increased finger strength by 35%, and the group imagining elbow flexion increased elbow strength by 13.5%. A group that trained the finger physically gained 53%, and the control group didn’t change.3 The groups were small, 6 to 8 people each, and the muscles were a finger and an elbow, not a squat.
A 2018 meta-analysis pooled data from 13 articles covering 370 healthy adults. Imagery practice moderately improved maximal strength compared with no exercise, but less than physical practice. The larger improvements went with about 4 weeks of practice, 3 sessions a week of around 15 minutes.4
So imagined training is real, and smaller than the real session. Use it as a top-up when you can’t load a movement, for example on a long trip. If you can’t train because of an injury, get it assessed first. Why a physio belongs on your team covers what a good assessment looks like.
Why picturing the result can backfire
Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues study what happens when people picture the future they want. In 4 studies, graduates looking for a job, students hoping to start a relationship, students facing an exam and patients having a hip replaced reported how they thought about the outcome. Those whose fantasies about it were more positive put in less effort and did worse, measured weeks or months later and up to 2 years. Positive expectations, judging the outcome as likely, went the other way: more effort and better results.5
Those studies measured fantasies rather than assigning them, so on their own they show a link. Later experiments assigned them. In 4 experiments, people led to fantasise positively about the future showed less energy, on physiological and behavioural measures, than people given fantasies that questioned the future, negative fantasies or neutral ones.6 The authors conclude that one reason positive fantasies predict poor achievement is that they don’t generate the energy to pursue the future you’re picturing.
That’s the problem with a vision board you look at to feel good, or an affirmation that you already have the result. Both give you the reward before the work. Belief still matters. The kind that helps is judging the goal as likely, which went with more effort in the same studies.
Mental contrasting: the version that works
Oettingen’s answer is mental contrasting. Picture the outcome you want, then picture the obstacle that stands in the way. Add an if-then plan for that obstacle, an implementation intention, and you have mental contrasting with implementation intentions, also taught as WOOP: wish, outcome, obstacle, plan.
A 2021 meta-analysis of 21 studies with 15,907 participants found it improved goal attainment with a small to medium effect (g = 0.336). The authors found signs of publication bias, and their corrected estimate was smaller (0.242).7 A small effect from a few minutes of thinking, repeated every week, is a good trade.
- Wish. One outcome for this week, in a few words.
- Outcome. Picture the best result of getting it done, briefly and in detail.
- Obstacle. Picture what’s most likely to stop you. Look for the one inside you or your own habits: the late email, the meeting you always accept, the 5 hours of sleep.
- Plan. Write one if-then for it. “If I open email before 08:00, then I close it and start the first block.”
How I use visualisation in the Weekly Compass
The Weekly Compass is the 30-minute plan I run before each week starts, before opening email. It’s part of the Stealth OS: choose the week’s 3 outcomes, decide when and where you’ll work on each and decide what you’ll say no to. Visualisation takes a few minutes of it, in 3 places.
- Read the vision, then see each outcome done. Read your vision page, then picture each candidate outcome finished by Friday. If you can’t see what done looks like, rewrite the outcome until you could tick it off. If you haven’t written a vision, start with 7 tips for creating a clear vision for your life.
- Name the obstacle and write the if-then. For each outcome, picture what’s most likely to break it this week and write the plan for it. This is the mental contrasting step, and it’s the same if-then the Compass already uses for a bad week.
- Rehearse the hardest block. Take the block you’re most likely to skip and run it in your head for a minute: where you’ll be, what you’ll open first, the first line you’ll write or say and the point where you’ll want to stop.
Then block the time in the calendar. The picture doesn’t count until it has a slot. You default into your day or you design it.
The full weekly rhythm, including the Friday Debrief that checks whether the blocks happened, is in a productivity system that survives a bad week.
How to start
Start with one week. Run the 3 steps above next Monday and check on Friday what happened.
- The 1% Scorecard. 8 questions, 2 minutes, free. You get a score out of 100 and the one thing to install first, which makes a good first outcome to picture, contrast and plan.
- The Quest. The performance membership: the Stealth OS in 28-day cycles, with a Weekly Compass every week, one Monthly Lever at a time and a room of founders and executives running the same rhythm. Cancel anytime.
Give the picture 30 seconds. Give the obstacle and the plan the rest of the time.
Related reading: 6 reasons to assess your life, and how to run the audit, 5 personal success strategies that hold up and 5 things to quit if you keep restarting the same goals.
FAQ
Does visualisation really work?
For rehearsing a skill or a process, yes. A 1994 meta-analysis found mental practice had a positive and significant effect on performance. Picturing only the result you want is linked with less effort, so pair it with the obstacle and an if-then plan.
Can you build strength just by visualising?
Imagined training has increased strength in controlled studies, but by less than physical training. A 2018 meta-analysis covering 370 healthy adults found imagery practice moderately improved maximal strength compared with no exercise. Use it as a top-up when you can’t train, never as a swap for training.
Do vision boards work?
The closest research is on positive fantasies, where people who enjoyed images of a desired future put in less effort and did worse later. A board you look at to feel good is that kind of fantasy. If you keep one, add the obstacle you expect and an if-then plan for it.
What is mental contrasting?
Mental contrasting means picturing the outcome you want, then the obstacle that stands in the way. Combined with an if-then plan, often taught as WOOP, it improved goal attainment with a small to medium effect in a 2021 meta-analysis of 21 studies. It takes a few minutes and fits inside a weekly plan.
Sources
- Driskell, J. E., Copper, C., & Moran, A. (1994). Does mental practice enhance performance? Journal of Applied Psychology, 79(4), 481-492. doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.79.4.481
- Pham, L. B., & Taylor, S. E. (1999). From thought to action: Effects of process- versus outcome-based mental simulations on performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(2), 250-260. doi.org/10.1177/0146167299025002010
- Ranganathan, V. K., Siemionow, V., Liu, J. Z., Sahgal, V., & Yue, G. H. (2004). From mental power to muscle power: Gaining strength by using the mind. Neuropsychologia, 42(7), 944-956. doi.org/
10.1016/ j.neuropsychologia.2003.11.018 - Paravlic, A. H., Slimani, M., Tod, D., Marusic, U., Milanovic, Z., & Pisot, R. (2018). Effects and dose-response relationships of motor imagery practice on strength development in healthy adult populations: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 48(5), 1165-1187. doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-0874-8
- Oettingen, G., & Mayer, D. (2002). The motivating function of thinking about the future: Expectations versus fantasies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(5), 1198-1212. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.5.1198
- Kappes, H. B., & Oettingen, G. (2011). Positive fantasies about idealized futures sap energy. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(4), 719-729. doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.02.003
- Wang, G., Wang, Y., & Gai, X. (2021). A meta-analysis of the effects of mental contrasting with implementation intentions on goal attainment. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 565202. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.565202
This article is general information, not medical advice.
