Can We Imagine Our Success into Existence?

Can we imagine our dreams into existence? Can we imagine shooting free throws successfully and make that come into our lives? There’s a fascinating study that’s much talked about, where a researcher broke a randomized group of people into three groups, tested them all for their free throw shooting ability.

The first group was to do nothing at all, and 30 days later, they were tested for their free throw shooting ability again. They were just as bad or just as good as free throw shooters as they were previously. The second group was told to practice shooting free throws for up to an hour every day for 30 days, and at the end of 30 days, they had improved their free throw shooting ability by 24%.

And the third group, and this is when it gets interesting, they were told to go imagine shooting free throws every day, consistently for 30 days. And at the end of the 30 days, they had improved 23%, virtually identical percentage of improvement as the people who shot real free throws in the gym.