The Best Possible Self Exercise: A Studied Way to Picture Your Future

Visualization sits at the heart of manifestation practice. You picture the life you want in enough detail that it starts to feel possible. Most versions of that practice have never been tested in a lab. One has, many times, for more than two decades. It's called the Best Possible Self exercise, and its main twist is simple: you write the picture down instead of only imagining it.

Where the exercise comes from

The psychologist Laura King introduced the exercise in a study published in 2001 in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. King was building on earlier work by James Pennebaker, who had shown that writing about difficult experiences could have measurable benefits for health. King wanted to know whether writing about something hopeful could help too, without asking people to relive painful events.

In her study, participants wrote for 20 minutes a day on four consecutive days. Some wrote about their best possible future selves. Others wrote about a traumatic experience, about both topics, or about a neutral subject such as their plans for the day. King reported that writing about the best possible self was associated with an improvement in mood. She also reported that, in the months after the study, participants in the best possible self group made fewer illness related visits to the campus health center than those in the control group.

Those were the early results of a single study. What made the exercise interesting to other researchers was that it seemed to bring some of the benefits of expressive writing without the short term distress that writing about trauma can bring.

The instructions

The wording researchers use varies a little from study to study. A common version, based on King's original instructions, reads like this:

"Think about your life in the future. Imagine that everything has gone as well as it possibly could. You have worked hard and succeeded at accomplishing all of your life goals. Think of this as the realization of all your life dreams. Now, write about what you imagined."

A few practical details make the session work better:

• Set a timer for 15 to 20 minutes. That is roughly the length used in the studies, and it's long enough to get past the first, obvious ideas.
• Write continuously. Don't edit or worry about spelling. If you get stuck, write about the same scene in more detail.
• Choose a time frame. Many versions ask you to picture your life a specific number of years from now. Ten years is common, but any horizon that feels real to you is fine.
• Cover several areas of life. Relationships, work, health, home, creativity and personal growth all count. You don't have to cover every area in one session.
• Write in the present tense if it helps. "I wake up in a house with a garden" can feel more vivid than "I would like a garden."

What later research found

Other researchers have tested the exercise in different settings since 2001.

Kennon Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky published a study in 2006 in The Journal of Positive Psychology comparing the Best Possible Self exercise with a gratitude exercise and a control task. They reported that visualizing best possible selves increased positive mood compared with the control writing, and that people who found the exercise a good fit and kept doing it tended to benefit more.

In 2019, a team led by Alba Carrillo published a systematic review and meta-analysis in PLOS ONE that pooled the published studies of the exercise. They reported small to moderate improvements in optimism and in well being, and smaller effects on some other outcomes. They also noted that the studies varied widely in how they ran the exercise and in the quality of their methods, which is a reason to read the results as encouraging rather than conclusive.

What the research supports, then, is a modest, real effect on mood and optimism for many people, especially in the short term. It doesn't show that writing about a future makes that future happen. The benefits studied are about how you feel and how you approach your goals, not about the outcome itself.

Why writing may help

Researchers have offered a few explanations for why writing about your best possible self has these effects.

It turns a vague hope into a specific picture. "I want to be happier" is hard to work toward. A written scene of where you live, what you do on a Tuesday and who is at your table gives you something concrete to compare your life against.

It raises expectations. Psychologists use the word optimism to mean a general expectation that things will turn out well. Writing a detailed version of a good future can make that future feel more plausible, and optimism is linked in research to more persistence toward goals.

It clarifies priorities. People often discover, while writing, that some goals they thought mattered barely appear in their story, while others they had ignored show up on every page. That alone is useful information.

A caution about fantasy

There is an important limit here, and it comes from the research of Gabriele Oettingen at New York University. Oettingen has found in several studies that positive fantasies on their own, when people indulge in imagining a wished for future without considering the obstacles, can be associated with less effort and worse results. The pleasant picture can feel so satisfying that the drive to act fades.

The Best Possible Self exercise isn't the same thing as idle daydreaming, since it asks you to imagine having worked hard and succeeded. But the lesson still applies. The picture works best as a starting point for action, not a substitute for it.

Turn the picture into a plan

After you finish writing, take five more minutes for these steps.

1. Underline one goal. Choose one thing from your story that you want to move toward in the next month.
2. Name the main obstacle. Ask what inside you is most likely to get in the way: a habit, a fear, tiredness, distraction.
3. Write one if-then plan. For example: "If I feel too tired to practice guitar after work, then I will play one song before dinner." If-then plans, which psychologists call implementation intentions, have a large body of research behind them.
4. Pick a first step you can do this week. Keep it small enough that you're sure you can finish it.

This combination, a positive picture followed by an honest look at the obstacle and a specific plan, is close to the WOOP method that Oettingen developed from her research.

How often to do it

The studies mostly used daily sessions over a short period, such as four days in a row, or repeated sessions over one to a few weeks. A reasonable way to start is:

• Write on four consecutive days, using the full 15 to 20 minutes each time.
• After that, return to it once a month, or whenever you face a big decision.
• Keep your past entries. Reading what you wrote three months ago can show you how your priorities are changing.

Who might want to skip it

Most people find the exercise pleasant. A few find it frustrating, especially when the distance between the written picture and their current life feels painful. If you notice that writing leaves you feeling worse, stop, and try a different practice such as gratitude writing instead. If you're dealing with depression or anxiety, a licensed professional can help you choose tools that fit your situation.

A first session tonight

Find a quiet spot and a notebook or blank document. Set a timer for 15 minutes. Picture a single ordinary day in your life ten years from now, when things have gone as well as they possibly could, and write it from waking up to going to sleep. When the timer goes off, underline one thing and write the first small step toward it.

You don't need to share what you wrote with anyone. The value is in the writing itself and in the small step you choose at the end.

Sources

• King, L. A. (2001). The health benefits of writing about life goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(7), 798 to 807. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167201277003
• Sheldon, K. M., and Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). How to increase and sustain positive emotion: The effects of expressing gratitude and visualizing best possible selves. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1(2), 73 to 82. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760500510676
• Carrillo, A., et al. (2019). Effects of the Best Possible Self intervention: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLOS ONE, 14(9), e0222386. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222386
• Greater Good in Action (UC Berkeley), "Best Possible Self": https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/best_possible_self
• Oettingen, G., and Mayer, D. (2002). The motivating function of thinking about the future: Expectations versus fantasies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(5), 1198 to 1212. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.5.1198
• WOOP, official site: https://woopmylife.org/