For some time I have been studying how to improve my mindset and reach goals and have been helping clients do the same. Last year I participated in a training on how to develop a stronger mindset and one of the daily habits the trainers recommended was taking the time to visualize an ideal future and a scene of you reaching your goals. I thought I would give it a try and began incorporating visualization into my daily mindset journaling practice. I also created a vision board to capture my 5-year goals in picture form.

While I noticed a big return on other daily mindset techniques I practiced, I realized I wasn’t getting much from visualizing my ideal future. And now I know why.

New York University researcher and author of the book Rethinking positive thinking: Inside the new science of motivation, Gabriele Oettingen found in her research that positively fantasizing about an ideal outcome actually doesn’t help you reach your goals on its own, despite how nice it may feel.

She found that positive fantasizing seduces us into feeling already accomplished and it removes our energy to take action on our goals. Dreamers are not necessarily doers. Positive visualization makes us achieve the goal in our minds, which removes the energy to go out and take action towards our goals in real life.

For instance, she found that the more women enrolled in a weight loss program fantasized about being thin and finding success in the program, the fewer pounds they lost. She also found the more positive university graduates dreamed of an easy transition into the workforce, they earned less money in their first job, sent out fewer job applications, and received fewer job offers than those that didn’t fantasize an easy transition into working after college. The same was true for college students. Those that fantasized about getting a good grade on an exam, the less well they did. The same was true for hip replacement surgery. Those that imagined an easy recovery, the less successful their recovery was. Likewise, the more positive people visualized about retirement, the less money they saved.

Oettingen has found that the more one dreams about the future, the less action that person takes to pursuing that goal. But she did find that positive thinking helps one understand the possibilities in the future and positive fantasizing is helpful if it is combined with a grounded sense of reality.

Oettingen offers another way to help you reach your goals, which is the WOOP technique. This is a mental contrasting psychological technique that helps you take action towards your goal in a deliberate way. Oettingen has found in experiments that the WOOP technique has helped people foster healthier relationships, make healthy choices around food and exercise, and perform better on tests. The WOOP technique helps ones decide on the most important goals and take action despite internal obstacles that occur.

Below is the WOOP technique described in a nutshell. It’s a guided reflection activity that takes about 5 minutes to do with a pen and paper in hand. Ask yourself the following questions:

W - Wish: What is the wish you desire? What is your goal?

O - Outcome: What is the specific outcome you hope to achieve that realizes your wish or goal?

O - Obstacle: What are the internal obstacles that could occur to stop you from realizing this outcome? This needs to be an internal challenge that you could address (not caused by anyone else or your environment).

P - Plan: What is your plan to address this internal obstacle? Complete the statement: “If ____ obstacle occurs, then I will do ____.”

I’ve completed this exercise using the website https://woopmylife.org/en/practice and I found it extremely helpful in focusing on my goal and what could happen internally that would get in the way of my success. I encourage you to take 5 minutes and complete the WOOP technique for a goal you’re working towards so you can create an action plan to realize your goal despite the internal obstacles that you may face in realizing this goal.

If you found this article and the WOOP technique helpful, just know that I can help you so much more through one-on-one coaching tailored to your specific challenges and your specific goals. I've gotten great results with past clients, and I'd love to help you, too. Please don't hesitate to schedule a free introductory call to get started. Email me at liz@lizbapasola.com.

Sources:

https://woopmylife.org/en/practice

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/21/904680577/you-2-0-woop-woop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mobxikaYgU