Negative Visualization – The KEY To PRODUCTIVITY That You Have NEVER Heard Of

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In our busy lives, we rarely stop and think about what we have. Moving from task-to-task quickly and mindlessly is an excellent recipe for burnout and unhappiness. However, there is an ancient method to change your mindset practiced by Stoic Philosophers, such as Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. This practice is known as negative visualization, and it will change the way you go about your daily life.

Seneca and other Stoic philosophers repeated the mantra ‘Memento Mori’ to themselves as a form of negative visualization. ‘Memento Mori’ literally means ‘remember death’. This mantra was meditated by these philosophers in regards to themselves and to their loved ones.

It is at this point where one may wonder, ‘How would negative visualization help me? All I am doing is picturing things going wrong in my life,” This is exactly correct. All you must do to practice negative visualization is to imagine the things you appreciate most in your life to disappear or the relationships you have to falter. Again, this may seem counterintuitive to a happy and productive life, but the value that arises from this exercise is the intention and purpose of practicing negative visualization. Negative visualization puts your life into perspective and allows you to truly appreciate all that you have. There are several benefits from this exercise:

1. Expecting Success and Prepared for Failure

It is now commonplace for CEOs of companies to practice negative visualization on their workers in order to prepare them if a project does not go as planned. For example, the practice known as premortem, developed by the research psychologist Gary Klein, is a method where team members of a specific project assume that the project they are currently developing has failed. This allows for team members to develop plausible reasons for the project’s failure, and then avoid those issues prior to them occurring. Additionally, team members who currently disagree with the current approach to the project are now able to speak their opinions more freely with this practice. This form of negative visualization prepares the team for failure while also allowing the project-in-development to improve further and resolve potential issues.

2. Productivity as a Consequence of Gratitude

Outside of the business environment, an individual can increase their productivity through negative visualization. This applies to students, hobbyists, and more. For example, imagine a student studying for their final exam in a course they struggle in. They despise this course and would rather study for another course that they are currently doing better in. This is likely because it would make them feel better short-term, but could have negative effects long-term. Negative visualisation could assist this student in pushing through this obstacle. The student could imagine themselves giving into their temptation and studying for the course they are more prepared for. Thinking further into the future, this could have detrimental effects on the course they abandoned studying, and now they may not be able to pass that course this year. After these thoughts, the student may now feel miserable that they are essentially forced to study the course they dislike. However, the simple mindset change associated with negative visualization can change the thought from, “I have to study this course or else I’ll fail and do it all over again next year” to “I have an opportunity now that I will not have later that will allow me to succeed and achieve my goals”. Through negative visualization, the student will now feel more compelled to study and may even be happier to do so. By being grateful to learn from this course and capitalizing off of a rare opportunity, the student will become more productive and motivated.

3. Accepting the Less Desirable Future

After practicing negative visualization, an individual will be more prepared for failure than they would normally be. If the individual does fail, they will have already thought of follow-up steps should this occur (even if those steps were just subconscious). The individual will not be caught off guard and they will have likely already accepted the lesser alternative if they meditated the thought long enough. Essentially, negative visualization can allow one to be prepared for the worst at all times, regardless of the situation.

It is clear that negative visualization could benefit anyone. Stopping to think about all possible outcomes and truly reflecting on the negative (with the context of preparing and accepting) can take stress off of an individual or members of a team, increase productivity, and increase gratitude. Start practicing negative visualization today. Be thankful of what you already have and capitalize on the opportunities that have been sent your way.