Instant Genius - How mental imagery training could boost your motivation, with Dr Jon Rhodes

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

Whether your goal is mastering a new skill or losing weight, you’ll know the importance of motivation and effective planning. And one intriguing new field of psychology called Functional imagery training may help here. As an increasing number of compelling studies show, vividly visualising attaining your goal and the road bumps along the way could leave you better motivated when setbacks occur. That’s why functional imagery training is now being used by athletes and the military. How does it work? And how promising are the results? We speak to Dr Jon Rhodes, lecturer in psychology at the University of Plymouth, to find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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the bite-sized master class in podcast form. I'm Thomas Ling, digital editor at BBC Science Focus magazine. Whether your goal is mastering a new skill or losing weight, you'll know the importance of motivation and effective planning. One intriguing new field of psychology called functional imagery training may help it, as an increasing amount of compelling studies show, vividly visualizing attaining your goal and the road bumps along the way could leave you better motivated when setbacks occur.

That's why functional imagery. training is now being used by athletes, the military and even company CEOs. It's a surprisingly complex and broad area of psychology, but to give us a beginner's guide, I'm talking to psychologist Dr John Rhodes, co-author of The Choice Point, The Scientifically Proven Method for Achieving Your Goals. Hello, John, welcome to the show. Thanks, Thomas. So I'm going to start with a big question. which is what is functional imagery training? Yeah, so functional imagery training was born out of research into addiction and cravings. And really it's about how we use multi-sensory imagery to experience your goal or your big dream.

And we are able to support people to increase motivation by getting them to experience their goals in a lot of detail. And again, what we do is we work in. that kind of area of motivation. So we look at what motivates you do, your why, your purpose, meaning behind the goals. And we get you to experience that in a lot of detail. So it's core, is it all about using your imagination and the senses to imagine not only success, but also to imagine the sort of difficult moments and how you can respond to them? Absolutely. Yeah. So the main way that we would amplify motivation with individuals is we would look at their big, dreamy, long-term goal, what success would feel like, look like, smell like, taste like, etc. And we would compare that

with how about if you didn't achieve that goal? So with these visualisations that people have, so are they using all five senses and are there any extra elements as well? Yes. So with imagery, so visualization is one sense and imagery is multi-sensory. So you said five senses, the five senses that you know plus two plus motion and motion. So being able to feel it and also being able to be in the movement, the kinesthetic awareness of what you're doing. So those two factors are really quite key. But, you know, we don't always get you to immerse yourself in multi-sensory imagery. When you're in the throes of things, you may just very quickly use a few senses. The important part for us is three. It's a bit

like the song. Three is a magic number. You know, same with imagery. If you can use emotion and visual and kinesthetic movement-based imagery. They're going to be the real game changes when it comes to performance and also success of your goal. That's interesting. I think when you sort of say a lot of it is about imagining your goals, but some people that might sort of set alarm bells that are ringing off, that it sort of sounds like the, if you think positively, then a positive result will happen. And some people might see a sort of similarity with the so-called law of attraction, you know, the belief that all of your goals can come true if you just believe in them hard enough. I take it that this is not that. Can you explain the difference behind it?

Well, there are similar overlaps throughout. So things like law of attraction and manifestation, there's all overlap with all these areas. So primarily that focuses in on visualization. So visualization is one of your senses. So what we do is we use your five senses that you are aware of plus two plus emotion and motion. And that's the real key factor for us is being able to imagine in multi-sensory detail. So rather than just thinking about, maybe your goal is to have a nice holiday in the Bahamas, that's a great idea to start thinking about it

and to thinking about the law of attraction and also to think about visualizing that. But really it doesn't move the dial unless we start to immerse ourselves in the full multisensory process and also, of course, putting actions to what we're thinking. So we don't really go through just the positive areas. we also go through negative areas as well. What would it look like if perhaps you didn't go?

Or, you know, what would you be doing instead of that holiday? Would you be still sat in the UK, perhaps? Or somewhere where it's, you know, maybe it's sunny, maybe not so sunny. And what would it be like instead? What were the obstacles along the way? What were the challenges that you faced? So what we do within functional imagery training is we get the individual to explore, not just the success, but also what failure would be like as well,

the obstacles, the challenges. And, you know, life's priority is always shift as well. So we're looking at that realistic overview of what you're like and try to put steps in a process in a very formal way. Really interesting. I think it'd be good to sort of latch on to another example just to really explain what this is. Well, I suppose we can put this into action. So should we try it?

What do you think? Let's go. Yeah, let's go for it. So do you have a goal that you want to work towards? What do you think? So I guess I would love to break the bad habit or when I wake up in the morning, reaching for my phone straight away. Would that be something you can help with there?

Yeah, of course, yeah, absolutely. Fantastic. Okay. We'll give it a go, right? So I think that's a big struggle for a lot of us is that we're always accessible. What would you like to do instead? I suppose where we can start. What would you do instead?

I would love to get up and do some exercise instead. Okay, so what's holding you back? The pool of social media. So the instant fix? Yes, yes. Okay. And so on a good day when you've been able to previously negotiate that fix and get up without checking, like what does that look like for you?

What have you done? How has it all worked together? On the days where I haven't done that, it's normally because I've lost my phone or it downstairs and been quite, I'm still quite reluctant to get out of bed and we're still sitting there for about 10 minutes before getting up. And I'm kind of wasted that time anyway where I would have been exercising. So I suppose for you, it's about something that you can do immediately to enable yourself to activate, well, I suppose you to get out of bed.

So what do you think, I mean, there are 101 things I'm sure you could do to get out of bed straight away. What's your, like, what could you do? What do you think you could do to try and swing those feet out of the bed and play some sort of sign near the bed telling me to do that? Okay. Would that be a good, good thing to do? Well, I think, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, there could be a visual image. It could be the chatter that goes on in your head. I recognize that chatter that kind of, you know, when you wake up and it says, this is lovely, stay in bed. Yes. You don't need to go for a run. You know, maybe it's acknowledging that is your cue to go, right, I want to have a conversation with this chatter.

Right, okay, yeah, I know, I know this bed's lovely and warm, but my health is important to me. And the chat will start again, as always, it is always, well, but you know, tomorrow's going to be a better day, you know. And I suppose in a way, it's about having this conversation, this dialogue with yourself rather than a monologue. The monologue is like, to embed, it's okay. The dialogue enables you to then be able to decipher what is in your best interest and to logically come up with an idea. So it could be the actual cue, potentially that you hear that chatter and that could then activate your imagery. So if I'm hearing with

chat in my head, as you say, saying, no, just another sort of 10 minutes, half an hour. I really don't want to get up. It's really warm here. So then I would engage with that by saying, actually, I do value my help quite a lot. And is it the case where I need to be having, imagining this conversation in my head, say, the night before? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, all these things are about planning the best route for you, acknowledging full well that that chat is going to always occur. And even for for me as a psychologist, you know, it still happens. I still get that chatter in my head. And even when I'm out running, I'm still saying, what the hell are you running? You can be doing anything right now

and running. And so you're still going to negotiate that chatter as well. And you've still got to manage that potential mutiny of chatter. Planning for that the day before is really key and how you would overcome it. So how would I plan that conversation? Is it the case of writing it down or I don't know, just continually sort of thinking about it for 10 minutes? What are the sort of practical steps that someone in my position could do. So writing it down is a great way. There's an absolutely great way to get you to think about your thinking. So this is metacognition. Thinking about your thinking, what would I do at this point? Why am I thinking this? How can navigate through this moment? So absolutely, you can write things down. And also you can use imagery.

You know, okay, I'm going to be in bed and I'm going to be lovely and warm. And I'm going to have this thought. As you're thinking this is, this is audio-based. imagery, things that you can hear in your bedroom, maybe it's just your own thoughts, the feeling of the bed covers, well, lovely and warm, okay. And then maybe you're thinking, you know, maybe it's the feeling of you swinging your legs around

and the feeling of, you know, a floor under your feet. Maybe it's the feeling of, you know, the momentum, the movement. Perhaps it's the feeling of you taking control of, you know, your day and activating it in the way that you want to feel, you know, and, you know, make action based on your goals. maybe as you can see that maybe you can you might have a sip of coffee or you know

you might be a drink of water by your bed you have a drink of water but you can taste it so that immersion is imagery that immersion based on what you plan so you know today

to do tomorrow is really quite key and we find that immersion being the most powerful factor in what motivates people because they've planned ahead they've already had that chat they're going to help with these with yourself tomorrow.

They've already planned to have the glass of water by their bed. They've already planned for their clothes to be laid out in a way that is, you know, better, best for them. And again, what happens next is, is really it's about that sequence starting. And what we do is we support people to create a sequence, which fits their priorities, which fits their kind of their routine. You know, for me, it's generally a coffee in the morning is my kind of sequence. You know, same thing where I'll get out of bed and I'll, have a coffee and that coffee, you know, I think about what my obstacles today.

You know, so similar for yourself. It can be feet on the floor is your cue. And your cue that activates, right, I am here for this job and I'm committed to this. And here we go. And the rest is history. So for it to be like an effective cue, the night before, say if we're using the example of sort of my feet touching the floor as I get out of bed, do I really have to be imagining that moment and then think about what I'd be doing next?

Is that basically the crook of functional imagery training? Yeah, so it happens in a sequence. So usually what we do is we start with your big goal. So like down the line, if your big goal is to, you know, for lots of people it could be to lose weight, for lots of people could be to improve their well-being to exercise. So again, like what does that look like to you? What does it look like to you? What does that, you know, if you stuck with your goal for a year or for six weeks, what

it be like? Where will you be when you have that recognition and that feeling that, you know, you've achieved that goal. And then we work kind of backwards, like if you were going to rewind a movie from the, from, you know, from the end all the way back through to the start. And at each point, we might play out key things of, well, three weeks might look like this. And I might think at three weeks, it's just going really well. I'm really surprised that I've been able to commit to this. Okay, we're going to rewind again to one week. If I've stuck with it for one week, what does that feel like? What does that look like? Where am I? What's the, what's the chatter like? The chat is a lot

quieter, weirdly. Hmm. Okay. So again, then we rewind back to today, and then we might even go back to, you know, to how has my experiences helped me get to this position right now. But the point, the important point for each of these phases is the immersion, and we call it elaboration, in the multisensory detail, not just visualization. Visualization is one sense. So you've got to make it multi-sensory.

It's okay if you can elaborate on the elaboration a little bit more. Yeah, sure. So a lot of this research has come out of what's called the elaboration intrusion theory, just to give you some more theoretical kind of areas. When you give a thought attention, you then immerse yourself in that focused thought. So, for example, you might be writing an essay, you might be writing an email. And as you write this email, your mind wanders and you think I could go for a chocolate bar right now. And as your mind starts to wonder, you then give it more detail and you elaborate.

What does that taste like? Hmm, what I have? What's the color of the wrapper? And then you can hear it and you can taste it and you, that's elaboration. And the more you give something attention and you elaborate, the more you're likely to do it, which is why this research and fit is grown out of cravings and addiction. Because clearly that's where people elaborate on that substance. And what we try to do as practitioners and as psychologists and coaches, etc.,

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Yeah, of course, yeah. So in a day, we generally have around 6,000 choices in a day. And of those choices, we estimate you have roughly 80, that are choice point-based decisions. So that could be going for a run in the morning or not, staying in bed or getting up, or recycling or not, or having that difficult conversation or not. And what happens at that decision is really a critical, important choice,

and that is your choice point. And your choice point is underpinned by your values and your potential behaviour. So if you're not aware of your values, then you would often or could potentially, feel, you know, you could feel guilty that you're not doing something. So what we do with using fit. So fit is what we do kind of in the choice point is we work with individuals to be able to navigate that choice point. And that choice point quite often for a lot of us is very quick.

So when we start working with people, the choice point can be a couple of seconds. You think of something and you do it. So usually we see people who say, I want to get really healthy and eat really well, but I keep finding myself eating cheese. You go, okay, well, how do you recognize the thought? When I recognize it, like I have my hand on the fridge door, okay, that's a cue, okay? And can we activate your imagery to like positive-based imagery? Or, you know, can we stop elaboration occurring? That is our choice point.

So we work with people to really come up with a positive-based goal, and we see. support them to use multisensory imagery in a way which is more directive to their long-term goal, which helps them to take control of their choice point. So I feel that's a really good example. And sort of what would you practically advise that person then to do in that moment where they are got their hand on the fridge door? And then what impact could this sort of training have? Yeah, it always starts with with recognizing what a choice point is. That's generally where we start with people. We say, okay, let's examine your value. and then let's recognize what you want to change and potential choice points.

So, and again, you know, it could be priorities. It could be what's important to you right now. Let's focus on one core choice point. It could be healthy eating. It could be exercising. It could be anything. Yeah, then we work with individuals to look at that multisensory ability to use imagery. But everyone's very different, Thomas, as well.

Just being really mindful that the way that you imagine is very different to any anyone else. So what we generally do is we would measure your imagination as where we start. And we could do that now. Absolutely. Yeah. Let's just dive in. Okay. So if you were to use your imagination to, we're going to start with with visualization. And zero is you've got nothing in your mind's eye at all. You can't imagine anything at all. So if I say your word to you, you can't see anything in your head. And ten is it's as vivid as a real thing. You can see it in your mind's eye really.

clearly. Okay. So we'll start off with an apple. Apple probably say about a seven. I can sort of visualize this. Because it'd be like a red, red or red apple with a nice bit of shine on it on the side. Perfect. Okay. Cool. Okay. We'll move on then. So we're going to get three senses. So if I were to ask you to take a bite out of the apple, could you hear a noise? Yes. I can, I would be able to hear a real distinctive crunch then. Okay. Anna, could you rate it? Uh, an eight? Okay, brilliant. Okay. And how about taste? Yeah, I could, it'd probably be less vivid around like sort of five for an apple sort of taste. And if you were to smell it.

I've got some one for that. Okay. And how about if you were to throw it up in the air and catch it? Yeah, I can sort of almost imagine the weight in my head there, so around seven or eight. Brilliant, okay. And how about if you were to take a bite out of it and eat it and you looked inside the apple and you saw that you'd eaten a worm? How does that feel? Doesn't feel particularly great. Pretty disgusted by that thought. Can you rate it on that disgust? Are you imagining that scenario? Yeah, I can number nine, nine out of ten. Okay. So this is multi-sensory. So we can see that there are different senses that it's called highly. So what we find sometimes is that some people have no imagination at all. So when you say, can you imagine your goal?

Can you imagine what you might look like in six weeks' time? They'll say, kind of, but really they got zero. They can't imagine anything. And that's called Afantasia. So we can assess that. So we know that we can always train someone's imagination, even if they have very low imagery. ability. And other senses may also be low. So again, we can support people to increase their imagery ability. On the other hand of the scale, those individuals who are 10 out of

10 for everything, everything's really clear. They may, there are times when they may overthink. They're seeing things really vividly. They see things on repeat all the time. And they want to control their imagination. So again, we can support people to be able to really manage how they're seeing things,

smelling things, and just generally imagining. And this is really quite key because how you imagine, it links to your motivation. Because if you can't see your future, you're not overly conscientious about certain things. And what we know is that being conscientious really links to performance and being able to follow through on tasks, especially when achieving goals. Imagery ability is really quite key for us to look at, to assess. And that's generally an area which is overlooked by a lot of practitioners, because it's assumed that we all have very similar imaginations. So how would we use a sort of visualization if confronted by a choice

point? So say, if I have my hand on the fridge door, what would I need to be visualising at that point? So at that point, again, it depends on your goal. So if your goal is to be very fit and to maybe it's just to control eating or snacking. So why? Why is that important to you? Maybe you just don't want to snack at, you know, late at night. That's usually the goal that we hear from people. So, you know, my issue is I'm really controlled up until 7 o'clock in the evening, and then I just find myself at the fridge looking for things to eat. Okay, so when you touch the fridge door, where do you want your mind to go?

I might say, I want my mind to go to just a healthier version of me, just to me that's in control of my snacking, just to me that is feeling really happy that I've made it through a week. I just feel, you know, I'm sat on the safer still. I've made the right choices this week. And I don't feel guilty about, you know, maybe having a glass of wine on a Friday, whatever it could be. So really, it's about about being on your terms and not allowing that kind of that spontaneous-based intrusive thought to take over your behaviours. So is it, I'm just thinking sort of how that worked practically. Does a person need to be visualising this before they go up, to the fridge for it to work or do they need to just be doing it in the moment or both?

So again, this is really varied depending on the individual. So we generally start with like an overview of a daily queue. So a daily queue being, you know, you in the morning planning for your obstacles and your hurdles. And then, of course, there is when it gets real, when you need it right now, because right now I found myself at the fridge. So it could be a really quick refocus. And a lot of the techniques that we teach, we call it a lab. So a lap is locate my cue.

Locate my cue is, I'm here touching the fridge door, take a deep breath in and I take a deep breath out. Okay, the A is activate my imagery. My imagery is a happy me and it could just be in 30 seconds time when I made the right choice. And then the P is perform. Performers, what do I do right now? Right now I can perhaps take another option, a healthier option, or I don't need to be here at the fridge door. So that is the in the moment application. Locate your cue, activate your imagery, and then perform. Am I right in saying that your research has shown that with these exercises,

you can push this sort of choice point to an average of two seconds to five seconds. Is that right? Yeah. So again, within that kind of that idea of time, so then that's, yeah, that's generally what we focus in on is that we're expanding that time zone, you're making choices. and a lot of the work, again, from my earlier researches, has been really quick around decision-making. So what our aim is is to try and expand that gap.

So it takes longer for you to make the right choice. But again, what we're trying to do over time, ultimately, is enabling you as an individual to make better choices quicker as well. So what are the most compelling experiments that have been undertaken in the realm of image training? Yeah, so I would say probably two of the most well-known. The first one was done by the Solbergin team in 2018 looking at weight loss and snacking reduction. And that was a comparison between motivational interviewing and then motivation to interviewing with imagery.

What we found was what that team found was that imagery was the key point to really motivate individuals to stick with long-term goals. And we found that there was a five times more effectiveness using imagery than other based motivational interventions. and then from my own research probably the work around marathon runners and we looked at two different groups, one that used imagery and one that didn't use imagery, again, using the fit-based model.

We got people who were all very similar in terms of their shared value of health. They were all non-runners at the start and they all went through a program. We didn't tell them what to do at all. We didn't say, you need to run and do this program. We said, you know, could you imagine what a healthy version of you would look like? If we're going to

plan for the moment when you want to quit. Like, what's the conversation going to be like? And how can we navigate through that conversation? And again, similar to the weight loss study, we found that those individuals who use fit were five times more likely to finish an ultramarathon than those who didn't use fit. So again, that's kind of one of our key things that we use. But we also used it in the military. We've used it in lots of different scenarios with similar results around retention rates, success rates for people going through things like commando training, which, we work with the military programs on. Yeah, sticking through that hard work, you know,

improving resilience, yes, but resilience has got to always be paired with, you know, actually going out there and putting in the hard work. And those guys' cases, wet and cold and tired and hungry, and then looking at how they're going to imagine, you know, that success, the Green Beret or whatever it could be that they're imagining is a long-term goal. That's really interesting. It'd be good if I could dive into some of the specifics about when you saying Olympians using this sort of techniques. So is there sort of an example there which immediately comes to your mind? I've got a few. See, I'm really fortunate that I've been working in sport for a while as well as other areas. So for Olympians, it's a nice one. People generally

say, Olympians have got a really, like, it's an obvious goal, right, to get a medal. Well, yeah, yeah, okay. So that's a nice one where we can focus in on the event. You know, we got Paris coming up. And that's a lot of the core focus for guys that we're working with imagery coaching is that's the target. They generally know what it will be like. They've been to, you know, welcome events before. They may have been to Olympic Games before. They know what's going to be like. They know the environment.

They know the sounds will be like. They know the smells. The sports halls generally have a very unique smell, for sure. And we play it back. So if you were going to achieve that goal in the future, what's the gap between then and now? let's work back through that gap. So this is called mental contrasting. And the way that we mentally contrast

is again we break down those big goals into your targets or milestones. I try not to call them KPIs, otherwise people get a channel in the summit. But generally it's a milestone. You know, it's a, I need to go to the European games.

Okay, okay. So how do you get there? To get there, I need to work on my footwork around the court. Okay, cool. How do we get there? So we keep breaking it back down to what we would call process goals,

things that you can control like today. So it could be like we're thinking about, let's say we're talking about tennis player. And the tennis player could say, my goal is to win Wimbledon. Okay, fantastic. How do we get there? So I'll have a journey.

Okay, what's along the route? And we break it all the way down to what are we doing right now? Right now we're going to work on accuracy in our serve. okay like be specific around that accuracy well accuracy on our first serve and we're going to look at exactly where we're going to serve the ball and yeah our first serve success rate cool brilliant what do you need to do to then be able to fulfill that well I need to focus in on where I'm looking okay so today's task is narrow focused vision where you're looking to hit the ball okay let's play that out in an imagery mode okay so what does that look like

Well, I'm going to bounce the ball. I can feel it in my hand. I can see the colour. I feel like, I feel a bit anxious. Okay. I'm going to control my breathing, though. I'm going to relax. And I'm going to take, I'm going to bounce the ball one more time.

And I'm going to look where I'm going to surf the ball. And I'm going to just find balance with myself. I'm going to lick my lips, quite salty. So we play it out. And then we look at, yeah, them committing to an action or a task for the day. So can that actually help sporty performance then? has they been shown to help? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, so there are 101 studies in things like this, like using imagery-based training to improve performance and success rates. The biggest papers in sport are around PEPLEP, so like physical emotion, technique, etc, breaking down all those specific elements and then imagining it before you do it, and then doing it, performing it, and it increases success rates.

So what we do, which is slightly different, and fit is we are focused more so on motivation. So not only is this performance-based intervention, it's a behaviour change intervention. We're focused on, yes, we're focused on performance right now, but we're also focused on performances in a year's time. So looking at that long-term change rather than that immediate focus on performance accuracy or success. But you don't have to be an athlete to use this. No, absolutely not. No, no. And, you know, we use it in weight loss. We use it in health. We use it in, with executives, we use it in CEOs. You know, CEO could be a similar thing where they've got an important meeting coming up and they're going to plan out how the

meeting's going to go. What's the awkward questions that might come up at the end? What slide am I not looking forward to presenting? How am I going to field that question? How am I going to prepare effectively? And what we generally do is we teach them, you know, the same process of finding a queue. And that as we spoke about the fridge door, for those guys, it went me a fridge door. it would be, it could be standing outside the meeting room or standing in your office, taking a deep breath in, that's my cue, looking at my cue, okay, so I'm going to activate my imagery, and it could just be a matter of, what's the worst question that's going to come up? Okay, how have I thought about answering that question?

Okay, I know what I'm going to say. Okay, it's going to look like this, and then perform. So it's what you're doing. And again, what we often find is we work with CEOs and C-sweets, etc. that question never comes up. It's just the thought of it, the anxiety and the stress that's based around negative-based thinking, which is normal. We always go to, we tend to go to negative thinking quite often before positive-based thinking. So again, what we try to do with fit is we use, we use fit based on positive imagery to be able to get people to then navigate through those tricky

moments where they're thinking negatively and to divert thinking to more positive outcomes. That was Dr John Rhodes, Lecter in Psychology at the University of Plymouth, and co-author of The Choice Point, The Scientifically Proven Method for Achieving Your Goals. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you by the team behind BBC Science Focus magazine, which you can find on sale now in supermarkets and news agents

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