It is now 2021 and after the anergy of 2020, you are ready to get back to life and accomplish you goals. Hopefully you have clearly defined those goals, if not, check out this article on developing a long-term vision and the following on setting goals.
Of course setting goals is one thing and achieving them is something else. It is in the achieving of them that most people fail, often in just the first week. Fortunately, researcher Gabriele Oettingen has been studying what goes wrong with goal setting and how to overcome the obstacles. She summarized her research in the very practical and readable book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation (Amazon).
First the bad news.
Thinking positively about what you want will not attract it to you. Sorry The Secret readers but science says “manifesting” does not work. Here is what Oettingen says on the subject “… you would be ill-advised to indulge in dreams about achieving your goals and then assume you’re well on your path to success. Life just doesn’t work that way.”
Why doesn’t dreaming about what you want make it happen? It turns out that daydreaming about what you want tricks your brain into thinking you have already achieved it. The result is that you become less motivated to pursue your goal when you daydream about it. In her own words Oettingen said, “We’ve seen that the principle of ‘Dream it. Wish it. Do it.’ does not hold true, and now we know why: in dreaming it, you undercut the energy you need to do it. You put yourself in a temporary state of bliss, calmness—and lethargy.”
Lethargy is no way to achieve results. Yet that is exactly what researchers see when they have people imagine achieving their goals. By measuring physiological parameters like blood pressure and heart rate, researchers found that fantasizing about goal attainment robs subjects of the energy they need to pursue those dreams. Again in Oettingen’s words, “It never ceases to impress me that we can measure a decline in energy and motivation almost instantly after a fantasy of wish fulfillment passes through a person’s mind.”
So if dreaming about wish fulfillment does not help us to achieve our goals, what does?
Enter Mental Contrasting
Turns out dreaming can lead to the exact opposite result from what you are looking for. But… If you immediately contrast that ideal outcome with the reality that stands in your way, then you can get yourself fired up to take action. Oettingen calls this technique Mental Contrasting and says that it catalyses a “necessity to act.” And that is good, because dreams are not achieve by fantasizing about them, they are achieved by taking action.
One important caveat: your wish must be feasible. You must believe that you are capable of accomplishing your dream. If you believe you can obtain your goal, then mental contrasting will fire you up. But, if you do not think you can achieve your goal, then your motivation will drop to an even lower level than the pure daydreamers. Oettingen suggests this may actually be a good thing as it directs us to disengage from unrealistic dreams.
In her words, “Our study suggested that mental contrasting could help people do both things: engage even more forcefully when it made sense to engage, disengage even more forcefully when that made sense.”
Once you are fired up for a feasible goal, then what?
Implementation Intention
Implementation intentions are If/Then statements that convert thinking into action. The ‘If’ part of the statement defines some stimulus for action. The ‘Then’ part of the statement describes the action you will take. Using these statements delegates control of our behavior to a specific stimulus without requiring us to make a conscious decision.
The problem you often face is that you know what to do, but in the heat of the moment, you decide not to do it. Using an implementation intention allows you to pre-decide what to do so you don’t have to make a decision each time. Instead, you have already committed to doing a certain behavior and all that remains is to follow throught.
I used this technique to lose 100 pounds by relying on the statement: if I am finished with work, then I will go to the gym. That eliminated the need to decide what to do after work. I already knew. By deciding in advance, I did not have to ask myself if I felt like going to the gym, I just went — whether I felt like it or not.
WOOP it up!
Of course no good idea will ever catch on without a good marketing slogan and words like ‘mental contrasting’ and ‘implementation intention’ may be accurate, but they are not very catchy. Introducing WOOP, as in “WOOP, there it is!”
WOOP stands for Wish, Outcome, Obstacle and Plan. It neatly packages all the points we addressed above in a simple formula. Best of all, it is scientifically shown to get results.
Wish + Outcome + Obstacle + Plan = Results
Wish: What outcome do you want to see in a week, month or year? Remember to make it challenging, but keep it feasible.
Outcome: What is the specific benefit you want to experience?
Obstacle: What obstacle within you stands in the way of your achieving the outcome you desire?
Plan: What do you intend to do to get around that obstacle. This is best stated in the form: If I encounter __________, then I will ____________.
Results require action.
That all sounds good in theory, but you’re not here for theory. You are here for results. To get results you need to take action. So let’s get busy.
Think of a wish. Some goal or dream you want to obtain. Close your eyes and get a clear vision in your mind. Once you have that vision , fill in the blanks below.
I wish to achieve (in 3 to 6 words) _____________________________.
Identify the best outcome/benefit (in 3 to 6 words) ______________________.
Name the obstacle that stands in your way ______________________.
Write down a plan. IF ______________________________ occurs, THEN I will __________________________.
Repeat as necessary for every goal and all your obstacles.
I was so inspired after reading Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation2 (Amazon), that I purchased a stack of 4 x 6 notecards and printed the WOOP formula on them. I then sat down and filled them out for each of my goals and obstacles. The cards looked like this;
WISH _________________.
OUTCOME ___________________.
OBSTACLE ________________.
PLAN
If ________________,
Then I will ________________.
I had cards for exercise, eating, meditating, making more time for family, etc. And it worked for me.
I’ll let professor Oettingen sum it up in her own words,
“Again and again, we’ve found that WOOP enables people to pursue their wishes more wisely, producing more desirable short- and long-term results than more traditional treatments or no intervention at all. If you want a proven means of regulating your energies so that you move more effectively toward fulfilling your wishes, and if you want a method that is also safe, cheap, and easy to use, you should try WOOP.”
There are only two questions you really need to ask right now:
What do you want?
What is holding you back from obtaining it?
Now WOOP it up!
Want to learn more. Check out other great content at Chuck B Philosophy.
