Mental contrasting and visualization are powerful tools that can help health professionals and coaches support their clients in reaching their health goals. These techniques involve using the power of the mind to focus on specific goals and outcomes, and to visualize the steps needed to achieve them.
What is mental contrasting?
Mental contrasting is a technique developed by Dr. Gabriele Oettingen, a leading expert in the field of motivation and goal achievement. It involves focusing on a specific goal and then identifying the obstacles or challenges that may stand in the way of achieving that goal.
By mentally contrasting the desired outcome with the potential obstacles, individuals can better understand what they need to do to overcome those challenges and reach their goals.
Let’s discuss a specific example in healthcare:
Sarah, age 47, is waking up exhausted every morning, which is related to significant brain fog at work. Because of this exhaustion and brain fog she is afraid that she won’t get the promotion that she wants this year.
Her goals are:
1. To wake up feeling 8-9/10 rested at least 80% of the time, after getting 8 hours of sleep within the next 6 weeks.
2. Improve her cognitive endurance and focus at least 80% of the time through the working hours of 8am - 6pm every week day by the end of next month.
3. Get promoted to the job desires within the next 6 months.
"Mental contrasting and visualization are powerful tools that can help health professionals and coaches support their clients in reaching their health goals." - Dr. Jessica Drummond
free worksheet download
"How Health Coaches Can Use Mental Contrasting and Visualization to Overcome Barriers to Health Behavior Change"
To achieve these goals, she makes the following plan with her health coach and health professional team:
- Have a bedtime routine each night that includes turning off all blue light devices by 8pm, finishing eating by 6pm, taking a warm shower, taking 3mg of melatonin, and resting comfortably and closing her eyes while listening to a calming yoga nidra practice by 9:30pm.
- Drink a full glass of water with added minerals upon waking.
- Eating a high protein and fiber breakfast while listening to jazz music for 30 minutes before work.
- Drink a cup of adaptogenic tea and take her vitamin supplements before work each morning.
- Take a 5 minute breath work break at work, twice daily.
- Take a 15 minute walk outdoors after lunch each day.
Mental contrasting exercise helps clients and patients to anticipate their values conflicts and barriers to change and pre-decide how they will navigate them." - Dr. Jessica Drummond
Now that she has clearly detailed her goals and the action steps that she needs to take to reach those goals, she can use mental contrasting to anticipate any potential obstacles to implementing those action steps each day.
In Sarah’s case she notices a few snags in her plan.
One such snag is that her daughter has soccer practice every Tuesday and Thursday and doesn’t get home until 6:30pm. If she wants to maintain her value of having family dinner each night. She will have to wait and eat dinner at 6:30 or 7pm when her daughter gets home.
Using mental contrasting she can assess what is more important to her during the next few months, family dinner at 7pm, or finishing eating by 6pm each night to improve her sleep. The mental contrasting exercise will help her to address this conflict before it arises.
Using this technique, she will make a clear decision about how she will handle the conflict before it occurs to make it more likely that she will achieve all of her goals.
She also must decide whether or not she is ready to exchange her morning coffee for adaptogenic tea, take the time needed to make a high protein and fiber breakfast or have someone else make breakfast for her, and prepare clothes to take to work so that she will be more likely to walk outside even if it’s cold.
Mental contrasting exercise helps clients and patients to anticipate their values conflicts and barriers to change and pre-decide how they will navigate them.
free worksheet download
"How Health Coaches Can Use Mental Contrasting and Visualization to Overcome Barriers to Health Behavior Change"
What is visualization?
Visualization is another effective technique that can help individuals reach their health goals.
This involves creating a mental image or "movie" of the desired outcome, and then visualizing the steps needed to achieve it. By regularly practicing visualization, individuals can reinforce their commitment to their goals and create a roadmap for success.
Once Sarah has decided how she will handle the obstacles that are likely to come up, for example, once she has decided to eat dinner alone on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that she is finished eating before picking up her daughter at soccer practice, then she can visualize how her evening will go on those busy nights.
Who will be responsible for cooking dinner for her and another dinner for the rest of her family? When and where will she eat? Will any meal prepping be needed in advance and who will do the meal prep?
"Visualization involves creating a mental image or "movie" of the desired outcome, and then visualizing the steps needed to achieve it. By regularly practicing visualization, individuals can reinforce their commitment to their goals and create a roadmap for success." - Dr. Jessica Drummond
Apply These Strategies To Your Practice
By incorporating these tools into their practice, health professionals and coaches can provide a valuable resource to their clients, helping them to overcome values conflicts and barriers to change, and finally reach their health goals.
Both mental contrasting and visualization can be used in conjunction with other goal-setting and attainment strategies, such as setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, detailing a specific plan to reach those goals, and tracking progress towards the goals in the container of a supportive coaches and a community.
Improve Your Client Compliance & Success Rates
Health professionals and coaches can help their clients use mental contrasting and visualization by guiding them through the process and encouraging them to regularly practice these techniques.
Health professionals and coaches hold clients accountable to regularly practicing the processes that they decided on and visualize regularly.
By incorporating these tools into their practice, health professionals and coaches can provide a valuable resource to their clients, helping them to overcome values conflicts and barriers to change, and finally reach their health goals.
free worksheet download
"How Health Coaches Can Use Mental Contrasting and Visualization to Overcome Barriers to Health Behavior Change"
- Oettingen, G. (2012). Mental contrasting and goal achievement: A meta-analysis. Motivation and Emotion, 36(1), 77-91.
- Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119.
- Hanson, R. (2020). The power of mental contrasting and visualization. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-choice/202006/the-power-mental-contrasting-and-visualization
- Kabat-Zinn, J. (2013). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness. Hachette Books.
- Klein, S. (2018). SMART goals: Definition and examples. The Balance Careers. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/smart-goals-definition-and-examples-2275247
Interested in learning more about how to better support clients who want to learn how to more effectively set and reach their goals?
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Founder & CEO
Dr. Jessica Drummond,
DCN, CNS, PT, NBC-HWC
Dr. Jessica Drummond, DCN, CNS, PT, NBC-HWC, is the founder and CEO of The Integrative Women’s Health Institute, The Outsmart Endo Health Coaching Program, and the creator of the Women's Health Coach Certification. She is passionate about caring for and empowering people who struggle with women’s and pelvic health concerns. She is equally passionate about educating and supporting clinicians and wellness professionals in confidently and safely using integrative tools to transform women’s and pelvic healthcare. Dr. Drummond has two decades of clinical experience as a licensed physical therapist, licensed clinical nutritionist, and board certified health coach working with women with pelvic pain, including endometriosis, vulvodynia, and bladder pain syndrome. She brings a unique, conservative, and integrative approach to supporting women to overcome hormonal imbalances, and chronic pain conditions. She is a sought after international speaker on topics such as integrative pelvic pain management, natural fertility options, optimal hormone health, menopause, and female athlete nutrition. Dr. Drummond was educated at the University of Virginia, Emory University, Duke Integrative Medicine, and Maryland University of Integrative Health.
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