WOOP Method: Achieving Success Despite Obstacles

Focus on your goal and you’ll succeed in achieving it – pro­duc­tiv­i­ty gurus have been teaching this principle for decades. But this pre­scribed optimism doesn’t work for everyone. Doubts and potential problems can’t always be ignored. WOOP goal setting takes a different approach: It includes potential obstacles in its plans. What’s more, sci­en­tif­ic studies show that the WOOP technique works. What is WOOP and how can you use this technique?

Prac­ti­cal­ly everyone has wishes and goals for their private and pro­fes­sion­al life. But how can we really achieve them?

“I want to lose weight.”

“I want to improve my re­la­tion­ship with my parents.”

“I want to convince my boss to promote me.”

Of­ten­times, these good res­o­lu­tions fail at the first hurdles. Those who don’t take the necessary time for their plans will lose sight of their goal in the stress of everyday life, or they won’t have enough willpower and energy to persevere and overcome their fears.

Many pro­duc­tiv­i­ty experts and mo­ti­va­tion­al coaches advise us to focus as intensely as possible on the desired goals, rather than waste energy on thinking about obstacles and potential problems. Vi­su­al­iz­ing the ideal future and positive af­fir­ma­tions are intended to help sustain mo­ti­va­tion. But many people fail with these strate­gies.

That’s not because they don’t want to achieve these goals or they’re doing something wrong. On the contrary: their ex­pe­ri­ence cor­re­sponds with findings of research in the psy­chol­o­gy of mo­ti­va­tion, which has meanwhile es­tab­lished that a positive focus is not suf­fi­cient.

A range of sci­en­tif­ic studies have found that positive thinking and dreaming can even be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive when it comes to achieving our goals. In various studies, positive thinking had a sedative effect on study par­tic­i­pants. They appeared to gain enough positive feelings simply from their idea so that they no longer took action in real life to actually implement the changes necessary.

Con­verse­ly, those who become aware of what might hinder them from achieving their goal can para­dox­i­cal­ly improve the like­li­ness that they’ll achieve it – provided they still consider it feasible. This technique is called mental con­trast­ing and it plays a key role in the WOOP method.

Other studies have shown that people who define their goals and approach in writing have success more often than test subjects who only took a decision in­ter­nal­ly. Simply for­mu­lat­ing a plan increases the prob­a­bil­i­ty of success by 50 percent. Plans following the if-then model worked par­tic­u­lar­ly ef­fec­tive­ly.

The benefits of the WOOP strategy compared to other methods for achieving goals primarily relate to its everyday suit­abil­i­ty. The method is easy to learn, takes just a short time to apply, and can be used in any area of life. Plus, it has been evaluated sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly.

There’s now even an app that guides users through the WOOP technique.

WOOP is generally suitable for:

• Clar­i­fy­ing your own wishes
• Setting pri­or­i­ties
• Strength­en­ing your willpower
• Con­fi­dent­ly over­com­ing obstacles

The WOOP technique also helps you to be pro­duc­tive at work. It can support proven time man­age­ment methods.

But how can you implement the strategy? It’s important to set aside at least five minutes of time, when you can relax and think without dis­rup­tions. Have a pen and paper or other writing utensil to hand. Switch off all dis­trac­tions and con­cen­trate on yourself and the method.

1. Wish: First, think about a specific wish. It should be chal­leng­ing for you, but also appear doable. Try to free yourself from the ex­pec­ta­tions of others and ask yourself what you really want.
2. Outcome: After you’ve iden­ti­fied a wish, you should imagine what it’d be like to make your wish reality. How would you feel? What would be the best possible outcome? Paint a vivid picture of the future in your mind. Imagining this situation is a key step in the process; it’s essential for the technique to work.
3. Obstacle: Next, honestly reflect on what your biggest internal obstacle is that’s stopping you from achieving your goal. What’s getting in your way? Here too, you should try to imagine your obstacle in your mind as tangibly as you can.
4. Plan: Now think about what you can do to overcome this obstacle. What could be helpful thoughts? Which actions could you take? Finally, prepare a concrete if-then plan in case you actually face the obstacle you imagine: “If ___________, then I will ___________.”

WOOP was developed by psy­chol­o­gy professor Gabriele Oettingen. She teaches at New York Uni­ver­si­ty as well as the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hamburg, and has been re­search­ing self-reg­u­la­tion and future-oriented thinking for many years. In her book, “Re­think­ing Positive Thinking” (2015) she sum­ma­rizes her findings and offers steps that anyone can take to achieve their goals.

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