Many self-help and motivational programs use positive thinking and affirmations to change peoples’ lives for the better - and now there is scientific proof to back that up. A massive study in the UK has shown that repeating or visualizing a positive result makes you more successful at a given task. This experiment examined two motivational techniques to see if they would improve performance in specific aspects of a task. The methods tested were self-talk (telling yourself "I can do better") and positive imagery (imagining yourself doing the task very well). Participants who used either of these motivations performed much better than the control group in every aspect of the task.  



The results of this research are highly regarded because of its great size and scope. Over 44,000 people participated in this study, which is an astounding number considering that the majority of psychological experiments use fewer than 300 people. In addition, the participants were divided into 12 experimental groups and one control group, whereas most studies have only two or three experimental groups. According to Professor Andrew Lane, the head of the study, “Science is telling us that when we put out positive thoughts we get positive results.”