If you're trying to master those tricky guitar licks but need some extra motivation, imagine how a cheering crowd would see you, not how you would see them. Taking a third-person perspective is more motivating, according to a study by psychologists at York University in Ontario.
Say you're visualizing a future presentation at work. With a first-person vantage point you zero in on the more immediate elements of your presentation: You're talking to your colleagues; they're taking notes. But by seeing yourself the way someone else would, you appreciate the larger context of the event and its more abstract meaning—say, refining company strategy and opening lines of communication. This more distanced view of the presentation assigns it deeper significance.
Researcher Noelia Vasquez explains that the technique "gives you access to both the immediacy of the task as well as the greater implications." In turn, the more importance you attach to a gig, the more you'll put into it.
