The fallacy of Wishful Thinking

When we try to reach a certain goal, we tend to imagine ourself succeeding doing it. This is a common idea that relates trust in your own attitude to a gaining of the possibility of success, and can indeed lead to a reduction of stress, and the related improvement of performances. The major improvements can be noticed in health. For example there will be lower rates of depression, greater resistance to the common cold and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Those positive effects are related to the fact that  with wishful thinking stress is controlled better, and its negative aspects are less effective. 


However this common idea has recently been disproved. Painting your life easier than what it really is can indeed lead to a drop of performances. When someone envisages positive outcomes, energy levels and blood pressure, drop. This obviously leads to a fall of performances.

If you want to improve your performance you should rather imagine the event, trying to face every possible complication, analyzing it under most aspects as possible. It can possibly lead to a overestimation of the problem, that is the better way to face a problem in the most prepared way possible.


We should try to put aside the idyllic idea of a positive outcome, typical of wishful thinking, and replace it with a more realistic and detailed one. Doing so we'll be able to face grater challenges, self-evaluating our actual ability, and maybe improving it. According to Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis of the University of Thessaly, "It's positive thinking, plus instructions".