“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our responses. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”

—Viktor Frankl¹

By Joanna Grover, LCSW, and Jonathan Rhodes, PhD

Functional Imagery Training (FIT) is a behavior-modifying intervention based on the principles that mental imagery elicits emotions, and emotions are the key to amplifying motivation and changing behavior.  

Academic psychologists studying addiction at the University of Plymouth, in the UK, and Queensland University of Technology, in Australia, developed FIT. They observed that people suffering from addiction had good intentions and a strong desire to quit their destructive habits until cravings hijacked their thoughts, often leading to relapse. FIT is a method that teaches people to override cravings (and other pleasure-based decisions) by training how to stick with a target goal. 

Mental Mutiny Versus Cognitive Control

Imagine your alarm sounds on an early January morning. You wake up and look outside. It’s cold and raining. Even though you have every intention to get healthy, you decide not to go out for a run. You think tomorrow will be drier. You go back to your cozy bed and snooze for an extra thirty minutes. You get up feeling guilty, which depletes your drive and derails your hopes for a healthier start to the year. You then realize that the same thing happened yesterday and the day before that. You think, I’ll try again tomorrow. This is the Choice Point: to run or not to run?

We ask ourselves “to-do” or “not-to-do” questions every day, then make key decisions to influence our behavior moving forward. Choice Points usually happen when we face a challenge. This is the moment you need to make a critical decision that will reveal aspects of your character—your mental toughness and grit. 

We experience about six thousand to sixty thousand thoughts per day. To understand that you are free to choose which of these thoughts you act on can change your life and has the potential to shape your destiny. Yet, our decisions often default to the question of willpower because, at that critical Choice Point, we forget to ask ourselves why we want to do the action and what it means for our future.    

The Choice Point is a moment that offers two options: mental mutiny or cognitive control. While mental mutiny threatens to lead us to disappointment in our actions, cognitive control is the antithesis, rooted in a commitment to our long-term goals, values, and meaning. 

In a day, even if only 0.1 percent of the sixty thousand thoughts you have are Choice Point moments, that amounts to sixty critical “yes or no,” “stop or go,” “quit or continue” opportunities to choose. 

Psychologists not only suggest that the average person has up to sixty thousand thoughts each day, but they will likely make thirty-five thousand decisions each day (roughly twenty-four decisions each minute). 

Of the thousands of daily thoughts, eighty percent tend to be negative for the average person. If we accept that we have thirty-five thousand thought decisions, that amounts to twenty-eight thousand negative decisions each day and seven thousand positive ones. 

Will tomorrow be different? Not likely. Psychologist Robert Leahy suggests that ninety-five percent of our thoughts on one day are the same as they were the day before. Therefore, if we are experiencing a constant stream of negative thoughts today—thoughts that may be detrimental to our goals and self-image—and if we do nothing to counteract the thoughts, the odds are tomorrow will be the same. The good news is, that we can shift those odds by working on our thoughts today to experience a more optimistic tomorrow.

Unlock the Power of Attention & Imagination  

Core values are often neglected or compromised due to day-to-day shifts in personal circumstances, such as changing work or family commitments. As these priorities shift, each individual’s handling of their Choice Point becomes of ever greater consequence.

As researchers, when we have study participants rank their top core value, they rate health above all else ninety-nine percent of the time. Yes, above family, relationships, happiness, and even above world peace. We know that to stay healthy, we need to exercise, eat the right nutrients, and stay hydrated. Yet many opt not to work out today because there’s always tomorrow. The fact is, today’s actions often result in us having the same thoughts, the same excuses, and the same lack of progress tomorrow. 

If personal health is so important to us, why do we struggle to follow through with decisions that directly benefit us? The answer is in your attention and imagination.

One dramatic demonstration of this was revealed in the most significant weight loss study ever conducted without medication. Conducted by Linda Solbrig, Ph.D., and colleagues from the University of Plymouth and Queensland University of Technology, it became the most widely read FIT study published on weight loss. 

In the 2018 investigation, 121 participants were recruited from an ad placed in a local paper in Plymouth. They were split into two randomized groups. One group received motivational interviewing—an evidence-based, client-centered intervention that uses open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries. Of note, motivational interviewing is the standard in “change talk”—a method that maneuvers people to discuss solutions and plans—and is used by teachers, doctors, coaches, therapists, and counselors in every field.     

The other group received FIT training and learned to use imagery to plan, anticipate obstacles, and try out new solutions based on past successes. 

Solbrig worked with both groups over a period of six months and followed up after twelve months. The time investment to participate in the program was brief for both groups: each participant received a single one-hour in-person session, one follow-up phone call (forty-five minutes or less) every two weeks for a period of three months, and then monthly check-in calls for three months. 

Each participant had just four hours of contact with Solbrig. The results were newsworthy and reported in media outlets around the world. 

The FIT group lost an average of nine pounds at the six-month mark, and most significantly, the results continued beyond the intervention. At twelve months, the FIT group had lost an average of fourteen pounds, while the motivational interviewing group had lost only an average of 1.5 pounds. 

Despite not having received any support after the first six months, the FIT participants continued to make progress. Up until this study, this kind of outcome was unheard of in a weight-loss program. With just four hours of contact with the FIT practitioner in the first six months, and zero contact in the second half, the FIT group became self-sufficient and self-directed, and the participants continued to progress toward their goals. 

The study showed that through FIT, individuals can learn to manage impulses by replacing an unwanted thought or impulse with goal-oriented imagery. 

Multisensory Imagery Exercise

Most of our clients, students, and even the other coaches we work with assume at first that imagery is about images and what we see in our mind’s eye. It’s not. What we “see” in our mind is visualization. Imagery is different (and more powerful) than visualization in that all senses are engaged. 

Here’s an example: In your mind’s eye, picture an apple. See its shape, color, and size. Can you see it? This is visualization. 

Now, imagine what it feels like to hold the apple, its firmness, its texture. Imagine its smell, what it sounds like when you take a bite, how it tastes, and how you feel while eating it. This imagery—images linked to emotions, to meaning. When you engage your senses in your imagination, your body reacts with a physiological response that is close to the real deal. So close, in fact, that your mind can trick your body into action. 

In the case of setting long-term goals, most of us can imagine the outcome of our goal in some way, including a consideration of the effort that will need to be put in to achieve the goal. The way imagery works is by connecting your current self to your future potential—imagining the outcome, performance, and the process of successfully reaching the target. 

Training for Success

In another study testing the power of FIT, Jonathan Rhodes and colleagues recruited a group of thirty-one self-proclaimed “nonrunners” who valued the importance of health but lacked the motivation to consistently exercise. 

The group initially received a motivational interview to explore goals, evoke motivation, and develop a self-prescribed plan. They were then left to exercise in whatever way they deemed effective. After five months, the participants were asked if they would consider running an ultramarathon. Jonathan was pleasantly surprised when fifteen agreed to give it a go.

Those fifteen participants were split into two groups: a motivational interviewing group in which participants were given support by a psychologist, and a FIT group whose members were taught how to retrain their thoughts and impulses using multisensory imagery.

Eight months later, the participants ran an ultramarathon. Those in the FIT group were five times more likely to finish the run than those who did not receive FIT. Researchers found that even during times of severe fatigue and sometimes pain—when emotions were hypersensitized because participants had been running for several hours and were cold, hungry, and soaked—they remained in control of their thoughts and continued running toward their goal. 

They say life isn’t a dress rehearsal, but with imagery, you have a tool that allows you to do some run-throughs and better prepare you for what may await around the corner.

—

Jonathan Rhodes, PhD, is a chartered British psychologist, researcher, and lecturer specializing in cognitive psychology. He helped develop FIT by raising the performance levels of Olympic athletes, Premiership footballers, and hundreds of others. He partnered with the British army to develop the Pre-Commando Resilience Program and currently supports organizations with culture change programs. Jonathan lives in Plymouth, UK.

Joanna Grover, LCSW, is an executive coach with two decades of experience as a cognitive behavioral therapist specializing in anxiety. She’s worked with the US Department of Commerce, Olympic athletes, and C-Suite executives, and she is a board-certified coach and member of the International Coaching Federation and the Harvard Institute of Coaching. Joanna lives in Miami.

Well Being Journal adapted the above excerpt from The Choice Point: The Scientifically Proven Method to Push Past Mental Walls and Achieve Your Goals by Joanna Grover, LCSW, and Jonathan Rhodes, Ph.D., © 2023 and reprinted with permission of Hachette Books. 

References

1. From The Choice Point by Joanna Grover, LCSW, and Jonathan Rhodes, Ph.D. Hachette Books (2023), page 37.