Setting The Mind To It: Self-image Thinking To Accomplish Goals
by Carol H. Lankton, M.A., LMFT

Active intention as a motivation strategy

Before we can set the mind to something, we have to identify what that 'something' is. It only takes a moment to activate an alarm clock but you have to know what time you want to be awakened. So it is also with personal and interpersonal goals. We have to know what we want. Asking someone the question - what do you want? - is a seemingly simple question that is often surprisingly difficult to answer. It sometimes is answered by a recital of details of some problem or oppression or reason why it is impossible to get what is wanted. People can easily discuss (and loudly complain about) what other people expect them to do or what they believe they should do or have to do. But if we continue to repeat the question since it has not yet been answered, awareness may begin to dawn, like daylight does, and with the same enlightening results. Mechanisms for tuning in and attending to indicators and signals for what one wants may
be "rusted over" from decades of inactivity but the potential and capability is still there with virtually everyone.

Milton Erickson, M.D. a leading pioneer in psychotherapy, instructed clients that "you deserve to have all your feelings, simply by virtue of being alive." He went on to suggest that even the perception and memory of anxiety or pain was a useful indicator of a healthy nervous system and that it would have been a shame if the person had been unable to experience that feeling. It is, in fact, valid, permissible, ethical, safe, and legal for people to tune in to what they feel and want. Even the awareness of anxiety or tension, though not necessarily pleasant, can serve as a reliable road sign on the way to discovering what is wanted. Then, with active intention they can set out to accomplish something they do want instead of simply stopping something they don't want. And this is the key to successfully using active intention and Self-Image Thinking.

All active intention involves self-management, not control over others. While everyone has the right to know what he or she feels and wants and to make this information known to significant others, they do not, of course, have the right to demand that the other(s) automatically comply. Hopefully, others will have their best interest at heart and will cooperate in a way conducive to best meeting both parties' needs. But essentially, the question "what do you want" largely refers to matters of how the designated person wants to manage his or her own behavior in such a way that he or she approves of himself or herself and the outcome.. Desired behavior or approval from other parties, while certainly desirable, is an additional or "fringe" benefit, not the main goal.

Identifying and retrieving needed resources.

A person may initially succeed in selecting a goal and then become discouraged that it seems unattainable, given current limitations, both
real and imagined. However, in the same way that knowing what is not wanted can lead to identifying what is wanted, being aware of apparent limitations can lead to knowledge of what is needed. The question is: "What do you need in order to accomplish your goal?" In assessing what is needed, feasibility issues can be put aside for the moment. In fact, people regularly under estimate the availability of significant resources that they believe are necessary to solve the problem, only because they haven't used these experiences already in the context of that particular problem. They conclude that they don't have these resources available at all, when instead, they simply haven't had them organized and associated to the context in which they are experiencing a problem that is worsened or not solvable when those qualities are absent. So, when people retrieve psychological experiences from those contexts where they do have them and create an associational link that renders them available in desired situations, they have begun to set the mind to this outcome.

Self-image thinking really begins with imagining a visual example of the self as is, and then generating a list of at least three valued or desired qualities, characteristics, feelings, or traits. Anything else that might be remotely desirable can also be added to the list. It doesn't matter if you think you already have the quality or desire it but believe that it isn't something you have available. Simply identify all potentially relevant and helpful experiences, whether they were modeled, encouraged, forbidden, ignored, practiced, or unknown within the personal history. We are not operating on a scarcity model. Any resource that can be identified can be imagined, built, borrowed, remembered, or hallucinated.

Having decided upon which characteristics are desired for a particular goal, all that remains is to retrieve them, one at a time, and add behaviorally specific cues for each quality to the visual image of the self. Simply remembering the last or best example of a particular
experience usually results in an unconscious search that actually produces a current form of that experience. Focusing awareness with an intention of finding an experience is usually enough to produce it. Don't be inhibited by a belief that you must find a truly extraordinary or exceptional example of the experience in your personal history for it to be useful in this strategic undertaking. If you are convinced that you have never personally experienced even the smallest trace of the desired quality, then it is time to borrow it from others who have attained it. Observe or remember how a quality looks on someone else and imagine those same cues superimposed upon the visual image of your self. You can merge with that self and imagine what it feels like to have that quality as if you are simply remembering it. It is interesting to remember that memory is imagination too! Imagined "memories" can be just as valid and potent for beneficial use as "real" memories in this context.

When you imagine another self "out there" who is a part of and yet apart from the imagining self, the self out there can be seen to "have"
psychological characteristics that your imagining self may not even believe you actually possess. You can observe the imagined self as "it" goes through difficult or anxiety producing situations while you remain comfortable, safe, relaxed, etc. Time can be distorted to empower you to review a future time as if present or even to "look back" on the future as if it is now just a remote memory. You can have a sense of having all the time needed to detail desired qualities and interactions even if this is inconsistent with the realities of "clock time." A dream sequence that seems to last for three detailed, action-packed days can transpire in the twenty seconds that an alarm clock rings. So, too, can scenarios be imagined in only a few minutes that depict detailed behavior over hours and days.