I Tried the Science-Backed Art of Imagining a Better Future—What Happened to My Motivation, Confidence and Goals

Maybe there’s something in the air, or perhaps the algorithm knows me better than I’d like to admit, but my FYP has recently become a shrine to the art of imagining your dream life.

“Do these five things and manifest the life you want"; “How a little delulu led me to my dream life"; “The morning routine that changed everything." You get the picture.

I’m not entirely immune. I quite like the idea of imagining a better future. I’d even go so far as to call it soul food: a little hope, possibility, a reminder that the life you have isn’t necessarily the life you’re stuck with. But depending on the phase you catch me in (I daren’t say luteal), I might still squeeze out an eye roll at the word delusional.

Because here’s where you’ll find me: interested, but with questions.

So when I listened to a recent episode of the Mel Robbins Podcast, in which Dr Cassanda Vieten unpacked the science of imagination and creating change, it caught me rather differently. This wasn’t about asking the universe nicely for my dream life. It was about what happens when we imagine the future - and whether that imagination can actually change what we do in the present.

Vieten, who directs the Centre for Human Imagination at UC San Diego, sent me down a research rabbit hole. And what I found was far more interesting than manifestation: evidence that imagining the future can influence motivation, planning, decision-making and behaviour - particularly when we imagine not just the destination, but the journey there.

Which left me with a rather tempting question: what if I tried it properly? No manifestation, no wishful thinking, but the actual techniques researchers have been studying - and whether they could change anything beyond my mood.

For one month, I’d put the science to the test: imagining not just what I want my future to look like, but who I want to become, what might get in the way and how I might actually get there. And, guess what - you have front-row seats to what happened to my motivation, confidence, habits and goals when I started treating imagination less like an escape and more like rehearsal.

I Tried the Science-Backed Art of Imagining a Better Future

So, What Am I Actually Doing For A Month?

Before I start, let’s get one thing straight: this is not a month of visualising Birkins and my wildly successful future self while waiting for the universe to sort out the logistics. It turns out, there’s homework: a three-part approach rooted in future simulation, neuroscience and behavioural change.

First up: Best Possible Self.

“At the start of the month, I’d either do a guided practice of meeting your future self,” Vieten tells me, “or, if you are more of a storyteller, you can do this exercise by sitting down with a pen for twenty uninterrupted minutes and write about your life - three years from now: what you're doing, who you're with, how you spend your time and how you're showing up in the world."

Then, I'm to repeat this. "Each morning that month, spend five minutes a day with your eyes closed, going back into that scene by either sitting down again for a brief check-in with your future self and asking them a question or two," Vieten instructs.

This gives me my starting point: one longer exercise to construct the future on day one, followed by five-minute sessions each morning to return to it.

Specificity matters here. "Detail helps most on the parts you actually control,” Vieten explains. “Imagery and simulating future scenarios recruits emotion, while writing creates more coherence and discernment. The mental imagery you conjure connects more deeply to emotions, which in turn shapes motivation and behaviour. With writing, you’re more likely to discover what you really want – or whether you’ve simply absorbed expectations from your upbringing, societal messaging or habit.”

Then comes mental contrasting: imagining the future I want, identifying the obstacles that could get in the way and making a realistic plan. Vieten recommends Gabriele Oettingen’s WOOP method: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan.

And crucially, I’m not just visualising the result. Vieten suggests imagining the process of getting there, “how will you face the situation, rather than simply seeing yourself succeeding.” Which, frankly, is much more my speed.

TLDR: construct the future, return to it regularly, confront what might get in the way and see whether any of it changes what I actually do. Assignment understood.

What Does The Science Say?

So, we have our three-pronged method. Tick. But what’s the science behind them?

“There is a strong neuroscience literature showing that imagining future events recruits some of the same systems involved in remembering and experiencing events,” psychologist Dr Sophie Mort tells me. “Your brain knows you aren’t doing the thing, but it is activating your brain in ways that are very useful.”

Vieten puts it even more plainly: “Imagination runs on much of the same machinery as actual sensory perception and behavioural action,” she explains. “Visualise something and your visual cortex engages; mentally rehearse a movement and motor areas engage; even imagining the smell of biscuits can activate the brain’s olfactory areas.”

“Imagination is a “neurological reality” that affects our brains and bodies,” notes Vieten. And importantly, “repeated practice does strengthen the neural pathways involved.”

But how does that get from inside my head to changing what I actually do?

This is where the technique matters. “Imagining the future in detail can make it more familiar before we actually get there,” Vieten tells me. “We can mentally rehearse how we want to behave, anticipate what might get in our way and think through possible responses. When the real situation arrives, we’re not encountering it entirely cold."

Perhaps this is why mental rehearsal has long been part of elite sport. Billie Jean King has spoken about imagining how she’d respond to a ball coming at her from every possible angle; Jack Nicklaus famously described running a “home movie” of every shot before taking it. In a 2004 study, people who repeatedly imagined muscle contractions alongside their physical training increased their finger strength by 35% and their elbow-flexion strength by 13.5%.

It’s a striking example of what mental rehearsal might actually do: not replace the physical work, but potentially make the work more effective.

Which got me wondering: if imagining a movement can influence something as measurable as muscle strength, what happens when the thing I’m rehearsing isn’t a tennis shot or a bicep curl, but the person I want to become?

Does Optimism Actually Change The Brain And Body?

If imagining a better future can make us more optimistic, does that optimism (no delusion in sight) change anything beyond how we feel?

“The evidence suggests yes, but it’s more complex than popular claims suggest,” Mort tells me. “Optimism does influence brain structure and function.” Research published in 2021 linked optimism with activity in parts of the prefrontal brain involved in how we think, make decisions and motivate ourselves. “An optimistic outlook affects how we perceive and attend to our surroundings,” Mort explains, with the research suggesting that what we expect to happen can influence what we actually notice, particularly when it comes to positive information.

Dare I say it, optimism might be doing more than making us feel a little more glass-half-full. It can subtly change what we pay attention to, how we interpret what’s happening around us, and ultimately how we respond to it.

So no, thinking positive thoughts doesn’t simply flood the brain with happy chemicals. It’s subtler than that. A more optimistic outlook can change what we pay attention to, how we interpret situations, and, ultimately, how our bodies respond to stress.

I Put Future Visualisation To The Test

Week One: I Met My Future Self

With the science in mind and the methodology in tow, week one started with Best Possible Self. I certainly wasn’t expecting to emerge as a new woman by week four, nor was I about to credit every random boost of productivity to the power of visualisation. But as I sat at my desk on day one, pen to paper, imagining what my future self might look like, I felt an unexpected sense of comfort.

It started to feel almost game-like. I was imagining what my future days would feel like: how I’d start each morning, where I’d sit with my coffee, what emails I’d be sending, what I’d be wearing, even what I’d have planned for that day. No detail was left unimagined – literally.

Now, ironically, as a writer, I thought I’d have no problem scripting who I imagined myself to be. Instead, I faced an unexpected bout of writer’s block. I couldn’t give myself free rein to write without judgement or control; I wanted the future I imagined to be…well, perfect. I was over-auditing, as per usual (another day in the life of a Type A)

So I revisited my interview notes from my time with Vieten. “Focus on what you can control,” she told me, and “write it properly once before keeping the daily practice short.” I did just that. I spent 20 minutes, as instructed, writing out this future version, then, for the next six days, returned to her for five minutes each morning. I found that once I’d got over myself, the exercise forced me to get specific about what I actually wanted - and what I could control. Imagining the future became less of a fantasy and more a set of choices.

Week Two: I Had To Face What Was Getting In The Way

This is where the exercise became considerably less comfortable. Once I’d got used to my Best Possible Self, I had to look at the gap between her life and mine. What was actually standing in the way? Time. Opportunity. Distractions. Saying yes to something I didn’t really want to do. The general tendency to have excellent intentions at 9 am and completely different priorities by 4:30 pm.

Mental contrasting made me confront what was actually making me feel restless about where I was. I’d mapped out my future self - and the choices I could control - in such granular detail that seeing the challenges that could crop up and derail me felt a little too real. For each goal written (a long list, let me tell you), I asked myself what was most likely to get in the way and what I could realistically do when it did.

Oddly, this didn’t dim my optimism. If anything, it made the goals feel more within reach. The Best Possible Self Exercise had given me the joy of imagining where I could go; mental contrasting made the route there feel approachable. I thought I’d feel pressure identifying challenges and how I’d overcome them; instead, I felt reassurance: acknowledging the trials and tribulations that would come with my future self, and carving out an ‘imaginary’ path so they’d feel a little less unfamiliar when they arrived. Me not spiralling at the idea of things going wrong - that’s what I call growth.

Week Three: I Stopped Imagining The Dream And Started Imagining The Work

It was here that I stopped visualising the finished product and started rehearsing the behaviour. Before sitting down to work, I imagined myself doing stuff I’d been putting off: opening the document, getting through the difficult bit, finishing the paragraph even when it wasn’t very good. If I wanted to be more than one thing, I’d imagine myself making time for the other things I wanted to pursue, too - not just imagining what it would feel like once I’d succeeded.

​I knew what I should be doing, but there was something different about mentally walking myself through it before I started. I wasn’t asking, How brilliant would it be if I achieved this? I was asking, What does the version of me who achieves this actually do when it gets difficult?

​By the end of the week, I couldn’t honestly say I was suddenly more disciplined. I still procrastinated. Gosh, there were days when the last thing I wanted to do was follow through. But I noticed a small shift in my confidence. It was less about believing I could be that person, and more about having evidence that I could practice behaving like her. And that seemed to be the point of process visualisation.

The Final Week: Did It Actually Change Anything?

By the final week, the novelty had definitely worn off. Which, I’d say, was the most useful part.

I wasn’t waking up every morning as my highest self. Some days, I forgot; some days I couldn't be bothered, and some days my future self and I were simply not on speaking terms.

But I had noticed something: my confidence in being able to act on what I wanted felt steadier. For a month, I’d rehearsed the behaviours I needed to get where I wanted to be. I’d preached on paper, and I’d practised each scenario.

I won’t pretend visualisation transformed my life in four weeks. It didn’t, and a one-person experiment certainly can’t prove that. But I did feel more motivated to act on my goals, clearer about what I wanted and, by imagining the woman I wanted to become, a little more like her.

Maybe that’s the real appeal of the science-backed art of imagination: not romanticising a life until it magically appears, but using legitimate methods to rehearse the person you need to become to build it.

MC's Essentials for Your Best Possible Self