Seeing a Task from a Third Party Perspective

Science Daily has an article titled Looking Into The Future: Can Your Perspective Influence Your Motivation? Motivation is key to accomplishing goals, be they sports related, business goals, writing goals or goals of any type. The correlation between imagining a successful performance and enhanced motivation to perform probably extends beyond the situations alluded to in the linked article.

The article cites studies indicating there were two ways of going about the future visualization process. In both cases you watch yourself but the watching could be through one's own eyes or from the perspective of a third party watching yourself. Not surprisingly researchers found envisioning a good performance through a third party perspective confers more meaning to the task and therefore more motivation to succeed. Envisioning oneself perform a difficult act from the perspective of onlookers can provide enhanced motive to prepare. Although it was not stated in the article the choice of the onlooker might be a key factor as well. Imagining the onlooker to be someone we wish to impress seems a natural way to go.