Less energy
Picturing only the dream isn't enough.
In four small experiments, people who pictured an idealized future, like winning a prize or having a perfect week, came out with less energy right afterward than people who questioned the fantasy (Kappes & Oettingen, 2011). In Gabriele Oettingen's studies, the people whose fantasies about the job, the weight or the grade were the rosiest ended up with less of it. Her fix keeps the dream and adds one step: picture the goal, then picture what stands in the way. She calls it mental contrasting, and it's the backbone of this program.
