Scroll through any social media feed and you will be inundated with motivational quotes. Anything is possible. Believe in yourself. You can do it. It’s enough to make you jump for joy.

Positive thinking has become part of the everyday vernacular. Let’s not forget what the law of attraction tells us: focus on positive things and positive things will come to you.

Mental Contrasting

While these messages are meant to inspire us on the path to a happy life, they don’t always work. More often than not, they make us feel bad when our own dreams don’t come true. How often have you felt disappointed when things didn’t turn out quite the way you expected?

Not that I have anything against positive thinking. To the contrary, I love it! It makes me feel good in the moment. It fuels my ambitions, gives me hope, and encourages me to be a better person. In the grand scheme, these thoughts can be powerful and even life-changing.

BUT …

As great as it is, what people often forget is that positive thinking is a stepping stone and not the end game. Thinking happy thoughts isn’t going to solve your problems, not unless you get off your ass and actually do something about them.

How Positive Thinking Gets It Wrong

A book by psychologist Gabriele Oettingen challenges the popular notion that positive thinking will get us ahead. In fact, Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation tells us it might do exactly the opposite.

As a professor at New York University and the University of Hamburg, her research shows that when we take the time to visualize our dreams and goals, they are less likely to come true. What?! Sadly, we are the unsuspecting players of the ultimate mind game. Instead of motivating us to reach our goals, all that visualization leads us to subconsciously feel as if we have already achieved them. Our mind moves on to other things and we do not take the action steps to bring those goals to fruition.

In a quick fix world, that’s not what anyone wants to hear. It is easier (and lazier) to believe the law of attraction will take care of us. Instinctively, we know this is not how the world works. No matter how happy you act, your odds of winning the lottery stay exactly the same. If you really want to be a millionaire, you literally have to change the way you think about things. You need to make an action plan.

How Mental Contrasting Gets It Right

If only there was a way to stop our brains from playing tricks on us.

Enter mental contrasting. This psychological exercise encourages you to visualize the positive outcome of your goals. Wait. Isn’t that what Oettigen tells us not to do? Yes and no. That’s because mental contrasting has an extra step. After reveling in those happy thoughts, she dares you to challenge yourself. Think about any obstacles that stand in the way of your achieving that goal. Do it right away. Don’t wait.

The solution isn’t to do away with dreaming and positive thinking. Rather, it’s making the most of our fantasies by brushing them up against the very thing most of us are taught to ignore or diminish: the obstacles that stand in our way.

Gabriele Oettingen

By visualizing what it is you want to happen, to see, feel, and even taste how much you want it, you tell your brain that it is important to you. Yes, brain, I really want this. If you stop there, you feel satisfied in the moment and your brain goes into default mode, telling you that you do not need to do anything more. Mental contrasting and tackling the obstacles head-on stops that default process in its tracks. No, brain, I haven’t achieved it yet.

It is a simple way to reprogram your neural circuitry and jumpstart your motivation. Essentially, that mind game is now yours to control. Take advantage and make an action plan. With those obstacles in sight, how are you going to play your hand?