visualization practice | Chris Aldrich

I’ve noticed that u/khimtan has a more visual stye of note taking with respect to their cards, but is anyone else doing this sort of visualization-based type of note taking in the vein of sketchnotes or r/sketchnoting? I’ve read books by Mike Rohde and Emily Mills and tinkered around in the space, but haven’t actively added it to my practice tacitly. For those who do, do you have any suggestions/tips? I suspect that even simple drollery-esque images on cards would help with the memory/recall aspects. This may go even further for those with more visual-based modes of thinking and memory.

For those interested in more, as well as some intro videos, here are some of my digital notes: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=sketchnotes

Listened to Episode 7: Don't Accentuate the Positive by

Dr Laurie Santos from The Happiness Lab

We often think positive thinking is the best way to achieve our ambitions - but the science shows it holds us all back. Dr Laurie Santos hears how champion swimmer Michael Phelps imagined the worst to help make his Olympic dreams come true.

• Bob Bowman’s book

• Kristin Beck | Wikipedia

• Gabriele Oettingen’s website

Dr. Santos mentions Norman Vincent Peale and his book The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) as one of the earliest in this space. I might suggest that Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich (1937) was a natural precursor to this and these ideas of visualizing what you want as a means of helping to get it. His work assuredly influenced Peale’s and probably sells as well today.

It takes what it takes.

–Bob Bowman, swimming coach of 23-time Olympic medal winning swimmer Michael Phelps

On planning:

Hope is not a course of action.

–Kristin Beck, Senior chief petty officer, United States Navy SEAL, ret.

Gabriele Oettingen’s work and the Woop concept (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan) sound interesting. Perhaps worth reading some of her work:

Oettingen, G. (2015). Rethinking positive thinking: Inside the new science of motivation. Current.

“You name the goal, and research shows that positive thinking makes it less likely you’ll reach it.”

Oettingen, G., & Mayer, D. (2002). The motivating function of thinking about the future: Expectations versus fantasies. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(5), 1198

Oettingen, G., & Wadden, T. A. (1991). Expectation, fantasy, and weight loss: Is the impact of positive thinking always positive?. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 15(2), 167-175

Oettingen, G., Mayer, D., & Portnow, S. (2016). Pleasure now, pain later: Positive fantasies about the future predict symptoms of depression. Psychological Science, 27(3), 345-353.

“It’s a strategy Gabrielle calls “mental contrasting.”

Oettingen, G., Mayer, D., Timur Sevincer, A., Stephens, E. J., Pak, H. J., & Hagenah, M. (2009). Mental contrasting and goal commitment: The mediating role of energization. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(5), 608-622.

“In addition to simulating the obstacles, Gabrielle also recommends taking time to imagine— very intentionally— what it would feel like to implement our plan whenever the obstacle comes up.”

Oettingen, G., & Gollwitzer, P. (2010). Strategies of setting and implementing goals: Mental contrasting and implementation intentions (pp. 114-135).

Some of the ideas behind the WOOP concept remind me of some tangential sounding philosophy and framing that Matt Maldre wrote about in his recent posts about New Year’s resolutions. ^{[1] [2]}

WOOP also seems tangential to some areas of memory research as the visualization can tend to create “false” memories that one can look back on as experience when moving toward a particular goal. I often found that in my diving practices in college I did significantly better on new dives when I visualized them or practiced them in my mind several days and even the night before practices.