Read 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot for Free Online

your toes. This type of exercise has been promoted by the self-help industry for years, with claims that it can help people lose weight, stop smoking, find their perfect partner, and enjoy increased career success. Unfortunately, a large body of research now suggests that although such exercises might make you feel good, the technique is, at best, ineffective.
    In one study, conducted by Lien Pham and Shelley Taylor at the University of California, a group of students was asked to spend a few moments each day visualizing themselves getting a high grade on an important midterm exam that would take place in a few days’ time. 1 They were asked to form a clear image in their mind’s eye and imagine how great it would feelto make a high grade. The study also involved a control group of students, who went about their business as usual and were not asked to visualize doing especially well on the exams. The experimenters asked the students in both groups to make a note of the number of hours they studied each day, and monitored their final grades. Even though the daydreaming exercise lasted only a few minutes, it had a significant impact on the students’ behavior, causing them to study less and make lower grades on the exam. The exercise may have made them feel better about themselves, but it did not help them achieve their goals.
    In another experiment, Gabriele Oettingen and Thomas Wadden, at the University of Pennsylvania, followed a group of obese women taking part in a weight-reduction program. 2 During the work, the women were asked to imagine how they might behave in various food-related scenarios, such as going to a friend’s house and being tempted with tasty pizza. Each of their responses was categorized on a scale ranging from highly positive (with, for example, someone stating, “I would be a good person and stay well away from the cakes and ice cream”) to highly negative (“I would be straight in there, consuming both my own and other people’s portions”). After the women were tracked for a year, the results revealed that those with more positive fantasies had lost, on average, twenty-six pounds less than those with negative fantasies.
    Oettingen’s work has also shown that the same effects happen in many different situations. 3 In yet another study, she worked with a group of students who admitted to having a serious but secret crush on a classmate. She asked them to imagine what would happen in various scenarios, such as arriving early for class, sitting down, then seeing the door open and the apple of their eye enter. Once again, the degree of fantasizing was rated, this time varying between those whoseemed to live in a world that would make even the most ardent reader of Harlequin romances blush (“Our eyes meet, and we both know that this is the type of love that happens only once in a lifetime”) to more negative scenarios (“We are both free and single. He turns to me, smiles, and asks how I am. For some reason that I still do not fully understand, I explain that I already have a boyfriend”). Five months later, the results revealed that those with positive fantasies were less likely than others to have told the desirable classmate about their crush or made any other overture toward having a relationship with them.
    Exactly the same effect applies to career success. Oettingen asked her senior students to note how often they fantasized about getting their dream job after graduating from college. A two-year follow-up revealed that the students who had reported frequently fantasizing about success had submitted fewer job applications, received a lower number of job offers, and commanded significantly smaller salaries than their classmates.
    Why should it be so bad for you to imagine yourself achieving your goals? Researchers have speculated that those who fantasize about how wonderful life could be are ill prepared for the setbacks that frequently occur along the rocky road to success, or perhaps