A 4 Step Plan to Better Goal Setting

These Whooping Cranes will show a better way to practice the art of goal setting.

Daydreaming of the life you want is fun. You envision the goals, see yourself easily conquering them, and moving onto this better life. However, this type of goal setting never leads to results. This is just a positive visualization that doesn’t promote actual execution on the goals.

The problem isn’t envisioning a better life or even setting ambitious goals; it is okay to dream of finding a dream job or managing finances better. The answer is there – what’s missing is one small but important step.

In the Science of Happiness course offered by Yale, Laurie Santos dives into better goal setting because pursuing dreams and creating meaningful work is a major source of lasting happiness.

Goals act as mile markers along this path to skill development and creating a more meaningful life.

Goals are a lot like New Year’s Resolutions – by March nothing has changed. There needs to be a better way to set goals.

That is where Gabriele Otettingen comes in. She is a psychologist who found that positive thinking is helpful, but not great for actually accomplishing our goals.

She created the WOOP method, which uses human psychology and goal setting in tandem, leading to people having more follow-through with accomplishing their goals.   

WOOP: The 4 Step Process to Goal Setting

The acronym stands for: wish, outcome, obstacle, plan. Using this tool can be done with a quick five minutes of uninterrupted time. Otettingen WOOPs on public transportation into work every day.

The point of this tool is to gain insight into yourself, set priorities, and serve as a blueprint for tackling the goals that are worthwhile to build your better life.

Wish

Ask yourself, what is my most important wish in the next (timeframe)?

The time frame can be today, it can be this week, month, year, or even five years. It is whatever you need it to be for that particular time you are contemplating.

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself while searching for this wish. This is supposed to be a no-pressure exercise that helps align life and is done quickly, allowing many chances to examine all your wishes at later times. 

Outcome

Visualize the ideal outcome. How does it look, and feel? Experience all the emotions and good feelings that this goal will bring once you complete it. Completely indulge this feeling for a minute or two.

Obstacle

Here is the difference between positive visualization and the WOOP method. Positive visualization focuses on the top two; WOOP goes a step further and encourages you to think about the obstacle. After indulging in your wish, switch gears. What stands in your way of this goal? What realistic obstacles can you expect to encounter as you work towards this objective? Visualize those obstacles to the fullest detail.

Plan

Establish a plan by thinking about what can overcome those obstacles. The most effective way to make a plan is to make a very simple “If/Then” plan. If the obstacle happens, then I will do y. It eliminates the feeling of just giving up when we hit an obstacle because you already anticipated this obstacle and planned for how to overcome it towards your way to the goal.

The Benefits of WOOP

WOOPing can take some getting used to, mostly because it forces taking positive visualization a step further and make actionable steps towards overcoming the inevitable obstacles. The benefits of goal attainment are highlighted above, and WOOPing has a second benefit: it encourages goal prioritization.

1. The WOOP exercise helps narrow down which interests to pursue

Many of us have a mile-long list of things we would like to learn or to experience during our lifetime. This can make it hard to focus on which goals really have meaning to us.

For example, I’ve always wanted to learn to sing. I am a horrible singer and wanted to see what it would feel like to become a good singer. I WOOPed. I wished to be good at singing and visualized what that would look like to me, singing on a stage to an audience. It felt alright. Then I looked at the obstacles, and it was a lot.

I’d have to research, get a vocal coach, devote time and the list went on. I did the planning stage for practice, but my heart wasn’t in it.

The time commitment to get good at singing isn’t something I want to dedicate myself to, which made the five minutes of WOOP well worth it. I realized I can move it to the bottom of the list because it’s not what I most want to accomplish.

2. WOOP clarifies existing goals

In the above exercise, I realized my goal wasn’t to be the lead singer to an audience but to play live on stage to an audience.

I already play guitar, Though I am not good enough for a live performance yet, I am working on it. I now dedicate an extra thirty minutes a week to guitar practice to work towards this goal instead of allocating that time to searching for how to sing. This allows me to better prioritize my time for other things.

3. WOOPing is Encouraging

The fatal flaw of positive visualization is it can make us feel like working towards our goals will have everything go smoothly – all rainbows and butterflies.

Then when we hit obstacles and it derails us – we might not continue. However, with WOOP, you anticipate obstacles. They might not be the ones you anticipated but you are already in the problem-solving frame of mind. You know the value of the goal you want, so this temporary obstacle will be solved to get there.

It is an empowering feeling knowing you can overcome the obstacles on your path to get to your dream results because there will always be obstacles.

Main Take-Aways:

• Goal setting is important because it gives milestones to hit on the way to building your ideal life.
• Seeing obstacles and planning for them ahead of time can help overcome obstacles that are in the way, and can also clarify which goals are worth putting in the effort for.
• Seeing obstacles ahead of time turns them into a fun challenge to be solved, instead of a debilitating crisis.

Action items

• What are the goals you have for yourself today, this month, this year, the next three years, and the next five years? Take five days this week and perform the WOOP exercise on one of your goals in each of these areas.
• How do your goals change, and how do you plan on overcoming the obstacles?