The Best Possible Self Exercise: A Research-Backed Way to Imagine Your Future

One of the best-studied future exercises out there

Plenty of manifestation techniques are popular but barely researched. The best possible self exercise is the reverse: not widely known, yet tested in dozens of studies over more than twenty years. If you want a future-focused practice with real substance, this is one of the first places to look.

The idea is simple. You imagine your life a few years from now, assuming things have gone as well as they realistically could. Then you write it down. Not as a wish list, but as a vivid description.

Where it comes from

In 2001, psychologist Laura King published a study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin with 81 college students. For four days in a row, they wrote for 20 minutes about one of four topics: their best possible future self, a traumatic experience, both, or something neutral.

Students who wrote about their best possible self reported greater well-being afterward. And unlike writing about trauma, it wasn't upsetting to do. Over the following months there was also a difference in visits to the campus health center, though with a sample that small, that finding deserves caution.

What later research found

• The meta-analysis. In 2019, Joel Carrillo and colleagues pooled 29 studies with 2,909 participants in PLOS ONE. They found small to moderate effects on optimism and well-being, and a moderate effect on positive emotion right after the exercise.
• Two weeks of optimism. Yvo Meevissen, Madelon Peters and Hugo Alberts (2011) had people imagine their best possible self every day for two weeks across three areas: personal, relational and professional. Their optimism rose compared with a control group.
• Mood and motivation. Kennon Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky (2006) compared the exercise with a gratitude practice. The best possible self group got a bigger immediate lift in positive emotion, and people who stayed motivated benefited most.

What the research does not show: that writing it makes that future happen. The effects are on optimism, mood and well-being. That is worth a lot, but it's different from wish fulfillment. For the bigger research picture, see the science of visualization.

Why it seems to work

• Clarity. Writing reveals what you actually want, versus what merely looks good from outside.
• Optimism you can feel. For a few minutes, you experience a good future as possible. That nudges your expectations.
• Structure. Writing puts thoughts in order. Vague hopes become a picture.
• A link to your future self. You see yourself as someone who walked a path. More in your future self.

How to do the best possible self exercise

Set up

Give yourself 20 to 25 minutes, pen and paper or a blank document, and a quiet spot. Take a few slow breaths before you begin.

The prompt

Paraphrasing King: think about your life in the future, say five or ten years from now. Imagine everything has gone as well as it possibly could. You worked hard and reached the goals that truly matter to you. Think of it as your life dreams coming true. Now write about what you imagine.

Prompts if you get stuck

• Where do you wake up? Who is with you?
• How do you spend your days? What makes you proud?
• How do people who know you well talk about you?
• How do you feel in your body and your mind?
• What have you learned that you can't do yet today?
• What do you look forward to on an ordinary evening?

Ground rules

1. Keep writing. Don't edit or judge. Spelling doesn't matter.
2. Get specific. Not “I'm happy at work,” but “I get to the office at 8:30, my team already made coffee, and today I'm presenting the project I fought for two years to get approved.”
3. Realistic optimism. The best that's possible, not the impossible. If you laugh because it's absurd, take a step back.
4. End with a feeling. Close with a paragraph about what this life feels like.

Afterward

Many studies added a short phase where participants pictured what they had written, about five minutes with eyes closed. Worth doing: mental images usually stir stronger feelings than words alone.

A sample excerpt

It's a Tuesday in May, 2031. I wake up without an alarm because I go to bed earlier these days. From the kitchen window I can see the garden I wanted for so long. I spend three days a week at the practice I built with a colleague and two days writing. My first book is on the table. Not a bestseller, but something I made. Friends come over in the evening, and I notice how calm I've become. I'm proud, not of the house or the practice, but that I kept going.

Variations that fit real life

• Three domains. Like Meevissen and colleagues, write separately about personal life, relationships and career, one per day.
• Daily short version. Write the full version once, then spend five minutes each day for two weeks walking through it in your mind.
• A day instead of a life. Instead of a summary, describe one full day with times. It makes the exercise more sensory. More in day in the life visualization.
• As audio. Record your text or listen to it as a guided scene to go deeper. Bhava is built on this exercise and turns your description into a personal guided scene.
• As a letter. Your best possible self writes you a letter today. See letter to your future self.

Important: from picture to action

A caution from Gabriele Oettingen's research: positive images of the future can lower motivation if they're never connected to reality. The fix is simple. After the exercise, ask: what stands in my way today, and what is one first step? Write it as an if-then plan. That turns the picture into a direction.

The takeaway

The best possible self exercise is simple, takes twenty minutes and is among the most studied exercises in positive psychology. It doesn't promise your future will turn out that way. It can make your view of the future brighter and clearer. Add one concrete step afterward and optimism turns into movement.