Why your imagination might be working against you
Firstly, a question. When you imagine something you're anxious about, how does it usually play out in your head?
Does it go well? Or does it all fall apart?
If you're anything like most anxious people, it's the second one. And here's the kicker: new research suggests that habit of imagining the worst isn't just uncomfortable, it might be one of the very things keeping your anxiety alive.
What the study found
Researchers at the University of Plymouth recently tested a digital programme called FIKA (Functional Imagery for Keeping Anxiety low), built on something called Functional Imagery Training. Two studies. University students. All self-identified as anxious.
The programme didn't ask people to challenge their anxious thoughts, or breathe through a panic spiral, or white-knuckle their way through exposure. Instead, it trained them to build vivid, detailed, multisensory mental images of themselves achieving a goal they'd been avoiding because of anxiety.
Think about that goal. Picture the steps. Imagine how good it feels to actually do it.
The results? Anxiety dropped, measured using a validated screening tool, compared to a waitlist group who didn't do the training. And in the interviews, people described the imagery as calming, and said it helped push anxious thoughts out of the way rather than just sitting alongside them.
It comes back to which image wins
Here's the part that stopped me in my tracks.
The researchers explain that your brain can only vividly hold onto one goal at a time. So when you're anxious, there are two images competing for that space: the image of you avoiding the scary thing (safety), and the image of you actually doing the thing you want to do (engagement). Whichever image is more vivid and more emotionally charged wins.
If you've done The Thrive Programme, this will sound very familiar. It's Coué's Law, dressed up in 2026 research language: when your imagination and your conscious will are in conflict, your imagination wins. Every time.
The FIKA researchers essentially built a training programme around a century-old psychological law, and used it to help people deliberately load the dice in their own favour.
Your imagination isn't broken, it's just undertrained
Most anxious people aren't short on imagination. If anything, they've got a brilliant one. It's just been rehearsing the wrong outcome for years, over and over, until imagining things going wrong feels more "natural" than imagining things going well.
That's not a character flaw. It's a habit. And habits can be retrained.
This is exactly why, in The Thrive Programme, we spend real time on visualisation and rehearsal, not as a nice add-on, but as one of the more powerful tools you have. Every time you vividly imagine the outcome you actually want, and really feel it, you're strengthening that image's chances of winning the competition against your anxious one.
What this means for you
A few starting points, based on what the researchers found actually worked:
Pick one thing anxiety has been talking you out of. Something specific.
Spend a few minutes properly imagining yourself doing it well. Not vaguely, in detail. What do you see, hear, feel?
Pair it with something you already do daily (making a coffee, brushing your teeth) so the rehearsal becomes a habit, not a one-off.
Notice when your imagination defaults to the worst-case version, and treat that as your cue to switch the channel, not as a prediction.
You don't need to wait until you feel confident to start imagining confidently. The imagining is what builds the confidence.
If you'd like to explore this further, get in touch for a no-obligation chat.
Andrade, J., Hartgen-Walker, S., Morgan, C., Ayan, Aytekin, I., Sekoni, K., Sengul, K., & Rhodes, J. (2026). Self-guided functional imagery training to reduce anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 198, 104962. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2026.104962