It has long been believed that visualizing success helps us accomplish our goals. I’ve always thought that this was probably helpful and, at worst, could do no harm, but now there’s an interesting scientific explanation of how visualization works.
We create memories by connecting individual neurons throughout our brains into neural networks. The more often we fire the connections that hold a network together, the stronger it becomes and the more persistent the memory is likely to be.
When we visualize future events, our brains do exactly the same thing: they create networks of neurons that represent various parts of the plan. The more often–and the more precisely–we envision our future success, the stronger the network becomes, and the more persistent our vision of the future is likely t be.
In other words, strong, precise visions of future work just as memories do. In the brain there is no difference between a neural network representing a memory and one representing a visualization of the future (except that the latter contains the concept “tomorrow” rather than “yesterday”). A visualization is a memory of the future.
Visualizations of future success (or failure, for that matter), therefore, can be a powerful physical presence in our brains. The more we repeat our visualization, the more concrete that version of the future becomes, and the more likely we may be to think and do the things necessary to realize that future.
This is a good thing. But I wonder if there may be a downside as well.
Connections between neurons are plastic and can change easily, but an established neural network loses its plasticity. Each time we visualize, connections between neurons are wrapped with insulating myelin. This makes them more efficient. The more you repeat your visualization, the more efficient and powerful it becomes.
But here’s the thing: you can’t remove myelin after it’s applied, so once a connection is strongly established it can’t be changed. We’ve all experienced this. It’s why habits are hard to break while New Year’s resolutions are seldom kept.
Your visualization of the future can only become powerful enough to move you through repetition, repetition, repetition. And once it’s locked in, it won’t go away.
Suppose something changes?
I know someone who wanted something very badly, someone who was driven to accomplish a goal. She wanted very badly to be a lawyer. She worked all through college to get into a good law school. She barely had a life. She exhausted herself to finish at the top of her class. She got a job at a good firm.
And she hated it. It just was not anything like what she’d dreamed it would be.
Knowing where you want to go is great. Visualizing it clearly can help you get there. But memories of the future, like memories of the past, may not always be accurate. I worry that a clear vision of the future may make it harder to change directions when the world changes–or you do.
Visualization, is like most great tools: you need to be careful how you use it or you might get hurt.
I think we often think best when we think together. A new study provides additional evidence that our brains were made to interact.
David Brooks had some 
I ran across this quote by Douglas Adams this morning:
Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers hit my Kindle at about 2:00 this morning. It is an examination of what makes the very successful, well, very successful. And the conclusions strike right at the heart of one of favorite national myths: the belief that each and every one of us is uniquely and exclusively responsible for our own success.
I came across this quotation from Alfred North Whitehead in Keith McFarland’s book 
I write a lot about the power and importance of fresh ideas. I also write a fair amount about how to get fresh ideas and see things from new perspectives. But here’s a question: how do you know which ideas are really good? That’s another way of asking: how do I take new insights and decide what to do?