The Shocking Counter-Intuitive Science Behind The Truth of Positive Thinking with Dr. Gabriele Oettingen

In this episode we discuss the shocking truth about the dangers of positive thinking. Is it always good to visualize your goals? Could there be potential downsides to daydreams and fantasies about the future? How can we identify what stands in the way of our goals and take concrete action to get there? We look at these questions and much more, along with a proven evidence-based methodology for creating effective behavior change - to actually achieve what you want - with our guest Dr. Gabriele Oettingen
Dr. Gabriele Oettingen is a Professor of Psychology at New York University and the University of Hamburg. She is the creator of the WOOP process and author of the book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside The New Science of Motivation. Her work has been featured in The Harvard Business Review, NPR’s Hidden Brain, and much more!Positive thinking must be positive, right?The shocking and counter-intuitive science behind the truth about positive thinkingPositive fantasies and daydreams about the future can be very helpful when we think about improving our mood - but when it comes to actually executing and creating results, positive fantasies can have a serious negative impact on our behavior and our resultsStudies show that inducing positive fantasies about the future causes a drop in energy and motivationPositive fantasies and daydreams sap our energy for moving towards our goalsMental Contrasting of the Positive Future and the Inner Obstacles of Reality standing in the way of that positive futureMental contrasting helps you prioritize your goals and figure out the right ones to pursue The myth of “positive thinking” and “being optimistic” is very seductive - but it can be dangerous and misleadingMost of our wishes are more challenging, difficult, and complicated than we think they areSheer positive visualization won’t help you get to your goals, and may be harming you and making it less likely for you to achieve your goals Positive visualization creates a measurable physical change in your body that makes you less likely to the action and create results The idea that you have an obstacle in the way will stir up the energy necessary to overcome your obstaclesThinking about your obstacles will produce strategies that will help you overcome your obstaclesThe Conscious Exercise of Mental Contrasting triggers nonconscius processes and the conscious processes do the workThe work of Mental Contrasting builds associative links to the subconscious that produces the behavior change necessary to achieve your goalsThe combination of Mental Contrasting + Implementation Intentions it the “WOOP” StrategyWishOutcome (imagine)Obstacle (imagine)Plan (if/then)It only takes 5-10 mins to apply the WOOP methodology - 5-10 mins of concentrated focusSlowUninterruptedFocusedBy yourselfWOOP builds the subconscious framework that creates the behaviors that result in actionWOOP is a skill you can learn and its different because it draws on automatic subconscious processes to create behavioral changeWOOP is a discovery tool - dig a little deeper into your wishes - what is it really that stands in the way?Homework: WOOP for yourself (details on woopmylife.org)

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