When you can visualize success, you’re apt to increase your motivation, work harder, and ultimately perform better. Whether it be through more creative thinking, increased problem solving, or just the blood, sweat and tears invested in the project, creating a mental image of the future makes it seem more likely and helps in creating a path to reality.

Are some daydreams better than others for motivation? Past research has shown that by focusing on the process of achieving success (i.e., the steps you take to achieve your goal) as opposed to just the desired outcome, is more beneficial towards increasing motivation. In other words, if you want more money, imagine concrete steps you’d take in order to achieve it, as opposed to just the fancy clothes and cars you’d buy. Also, imagining success is more likely to increase motivation when that imagined future is attainable- so imagining a corner office may make you work harder at your present job than, say, imagining yourself as a member of royalty (check your ancestry to be sure).

How else can we maximize our daydreaming time? Noelia Vasquez and Roger Buehler offer this clever suggestion in their recent Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin article: make sure your point of view gives you a ring-side seat to your success. They conducted three studies having people visualize achievement on an important task from different points of view. Participants were either to imagine themselves succeeding in the first-person perspective (”imagining events through your own eyes just as if they were actually occurring”), or in the third-person perspective (”seeing yourself as well as your surroundings, as if you were an observer on the situation”). They hypothesized that those who were able to see themselves succeed were able to highlight the broader meaning of the success and the rewards that befall them. Sure enough, they found that images of success elicited higher levels of motivation when visualized from the third-person rather than the first-person perspective.

How does this apply to dating? First, don’t be pessimistic about your goals- that makes it hard to motivate. Secondly, when you are daydreaming about a relationship- don’t just fantasize about the outcome, but imagine the steps that it takes to get to success. Imagine these things as if you were watching a movie about someone finding love and you were the star. In the movie, where are you looking for love (online perhaps- hint, hint)? How are you preparing yourself to be a good partner? Are you staying active in the dating world by being social, trying new activities, and asking potential partners out? Visualize your story with concrete, attainable details that push your movie forward. And for goodness sake, make it interesting- or else you’ll never want to do it in real life!

Further Reading:

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, 98, 583-597.

Vasquez, N. and Buehler, R (2007). Seeing future success: Does imagery perspective influence achievement motivation? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1392-1405.