Negative Visualization

Day 287 / 365

Today it’s time to look at another stoic practice, the art of negative visualization. It’s exactly what it sounds like — Visualize the negative outcomes of things in your life.

But you must be wondering, doesn’t this go against everything you might have read in any self-help book out there? Isn't everyone supposed to have positive thoughts in order to stay motivated? While it’s good to be an optimist, it’s always helpful to meditate like a pessimist. What all could go wrong and how?

Suppose your boss called a meeting and told you that the project your team has been working on has been a huge success. Everyone would congratulate each other, maybe celebrate for a bit and then go back to their lives as usual. Some might point out the reasons for the success.

But what if the boss told you that the project failed miserably. And he put the question out to you, why do you think the project failed. People would start coming up with reasons why the project failed, what went wrong and who could’ve performed better. Will this not be a more helpful exercise?

Visualizing the negative outcomes and failures is not meant to frighten you or make you anxious. It’s just about making yourself aware of all possible outcomes so that you can choose your actions better. It will also help you appreciate the good things you have in life. Also many times we worry too much about what could go wrong. If you actually sit down and thing about it, you would realize that it’s not actually that bad. And that most of the time you will figure out ways to recover from any failures as well.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — What does a 4-Dimensional cube look like?