Last Updated on May 14, 2025

Changing your drinking habits can feel like an endless stream of tough choices. You want to cut back; it’s important to you. In some moments, though, you forget why you started in the first place. In those moments, a visualization tool called the Time Machine Exercise can help.

This simple, impactful technique helps you zoom out from today’s choices and focus on the bigger picture, directing your attention to your future instead of the present. The future is why you’re doing this, after all: You want to build a life you’re wholly proud of.

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Why is Visualization So Powerful?

Visualization strategies like the Time Machine Exercise are commonly used by pros at the top of their fields, like athletes, chefs, entrepreneurs, musicians, and more. By “rehearsing” success and imagining what it would feel like (physically and mentally), they boost their own motivation and resilience. 

The same principle applies when you’re trying to change your drinking habits. Research shows that imagining future outcomes helps you connect your present decisions and long-term goals in your brain. When you can truly picture the impact of your habits over time, it becomes easier to stay committed, even when obstacles come up (and they will).

The Time Machine Exercise taps directly into this power. It challenges you to step outside of today and look five, ten, even twenty years ahead. The key is to visualize two versions of yourself: one who implements change and one who does not.

How to Do the Time Machine Exercise

Ready to give it a try?

1. Identify Your Motivation

Start by getting clear about why you want to adjust your drinking habits. Whatever your reason, make it personal and specific.

Ask yourself:

• What am I hoping to change by drinking less?
  
• What is currently motivating me to start this journey?
  

2. Visualize the Future If Nothing Changes

First, imagine yourself five years from now. If you were to continue your current drinking habits without making any changes, what might your life look like?

• Are you in good health?
  
• Are your relationships strong?
  
• Are you achieving your goals?
  

Next, picture yourself ten years from now. What are the consequences of continuing on the same path you’re currently on? 

This part of the exercise can be tough to take in. It’s supposed to be. If discomfort comes up, allow yourself to feel it. This unease isn’t a bad thing, necessarily: It just means you’re waking up to the long-term effects of your daily choices.

3. Visualize the Future If You Do Make the Change

Now flip the script. Imagine that starting today, you commit to your mindful drinking goals.

Fast forward five years. How has your energy improved? What new activities or hobbies have you taken up? What opportunities are you ready to crush because you feel vibrant and present?

Next, imagine ten years of consistent mindful drinking. Twenty years. What does your life look like when you’ve aligned your actions with your goals, not only in theory, but in practice?

Feel the pride and peace that come from knowing you honored your future self.

4. Capture the Difference Between Your Projections

Once you’ve completed both parts of the exercise, write down the key differences you noticed. Keep these visions handy in a journal, a note on your phone, or a letter to your future self.

Then, when you hit a rough patch or feel tempted to revert to old habits, revisit these images. They’ll remind you of the reason you embarked on this mindful drinking journey.

How This Exercise Can Impact Your Choices

Daily choices around alcohol might seem small, but their effects compound over time. The Time Machine Exercise helps you see that even one mindful decision today can ripple out into massive positive changes in your future.

Rather than focusing on willpower alone, this exercise taps into something more profound: a vision of your best life, free from the limitations your old habits have imposed.

So, set aside ten minutes. Find a quiet space, close your eyes, and walk through your future selves: the one who didn’t make a change, and the one who changed for the better.

Start reframing your mindset with a 15-day free trial of Sunnyside.

What is Sunnyside?

Sunnyside is a mindful drinking and alcohol moderation app that can help change your habits around alcohol using a proven, science-backed method. Whether you want to become a more mindful drinker, drink less, or eventually quit drinking, Sunnyside can help you reach your goals. We take a positive, friendly approach to habit change, so you never feel judged or pressured to quit.

When you join Sunnyside, you’ll start by completing a 3-minute private assessment so we can learn a bit about you. Once that’s done, you’ll get a 15-day free trial to test out everything, including our daily habit change tools, tracking and analytics, community and coaching, and education and resources. It’s a full package designed specifically to adapt to your goals, and help you reach them gradually, so you can make a huge impact on your health and wellbeing.

Sunnyside is a digital habit and behavior-change program that is incredibly effective on its own, but can also be the perfect complement to other work you’re doing to cut down on drinking, whether that includes talk therapy or medication such as Naltrexone.

Get your 15-day free trial of Sunnyside today, and start living your healthiest life.