I will give credit to Gabriele Oettingen – https://www.characterlab.org/woop/, an Education Psychologist for developing this idea to improve classroom learning. However, the concept is a very helpful way to think and I have been using it for a while now. In fact it was a WOOP session that led me to the thought process that created The 365 Commitment in the first place.
WOOP stands for Wish, Outcome, Obstacles, Plan – and is a very simple method for visualizing future success. I recommend doing WOOP sessions when you are getting stagnant in your 365 list. When you notice that you are just putting things down, going through the motions and are not really effectively doing anything to really change your life and the lives of people around you.
We all have Wishes. Things we want, attributes that we wish we had, people we wished we knew, accomplishments we wish we had on our wall or in the trophy case. Wishes are kin to ideas – they mean absolutely nothing without execution. I am a wish and idea generating factory. If you ever need an idea – just ask – I probably have several ideas to share. My challenge is always execution – and it is my opinion that most people suffer from the ability to execute. Even a plain ordinary idea can become successful with proper execution.
This is where WOOP comes in. Most execution fails because of obstacles. Annoying things that get in the way and cause your ambitions to fail. You know what I am talking about probably. You get all excited to start your new idea, to accomplish your wish, just to have an obstacle get in the way and poof there goes your wish. For example, I have this wish to eat really healthy all the time. Inevitably whenever I set my mind to eat healthy, one of many obstacles will appear in my way. A birthday party with a nice tasty cake and ice cream, a business trip with free meals that always have dessert, my mother-in-law decides today is a great day for triple chocolate layered cupcakes with cream centered filling – I think you know the story!
WOOP is better demonstrated then explained. By the way, there is a cool WOOP app you can download on your phone that will walk you through it. However, the first thing you need to understand is that WOOP is a writing exercise. Yup – you have to write and you need to spend time on your wish. Believe me, the 30min to 60min that it takes to go through a WOOP session will be well worth it. You will have a lot of good tasks to add to future 365 lists.
Step 1 – WISH
I will use my example of my desire to eat healthy as my wish. Probably better said that my wish is to feel good as a results of healthy eating habits. In this step I want to write my wish down and be as specific as possible. I have noticed that it is better to put something down that is really motivating, inspiring, and something you can visualize obtaining. For example – rather then say my wish is to lose 20 lbs, you might want to say I wish that in one year from now when I look in the mirror, I will see a body that I would not be embarrassed to put into a bathing suit! You can really visualize that I bet! Although you could step on a scale and visualize seeing the scale ready 220 instead of 240, that is not all that inspiring. Or other examples – putting on a pair of size 34 instead of size 40 pants, or size 6 dress instead of a size 10 (sorry ladies, I have no idea what dress sizes mean – I made that up). You WISH should extend beyond simple measures. Do not get me wrong simple measures are necessary – but you get bogged down focusing on them and you forget the real wish. In one year from now when I walk into a meeting, wearing a new suit with a slim fit dress shirt I am going to look great, vibrant, healthy and I am going to feel that way as well. I am going to visualize the wish happening and this is going to start by me achieving my wish of eating healthy. Be careful that you wish is not too difficult. Generally think of something you can accomplish in about 3 months or so. My example of a full year is a bit extreme, so maybe break your wishes down into smaller wishes so that they are more feasible.
In the Wish Step ask yourself the question – What is an important wish that you want to accomplish? Remember – this should be something you can actually do, however challenging.
Step 2 – OUTCOME
I already started down this path. I got ahead of myself in writing about the Wish. The Outcome is where you reflect on what outcome you want when obtaining your wish. My wish would be to eat healthy for the next 3 months. What outcome do I want? Here is where you imagine a little bit. This is the most vital step of WOOP. You really need to imagine what the outcome will be. What will I feel like? How will I look? What is the absolute best result you could have from this wish?
In my example, I would want to feel healthy and energetic when I wake up in the morning, I want to feel encouraged by steady weight loss, I want to be satisfied by eating a healthy, portion appropriate meal size and I want to be satisfied to wait an appropriate amount of time before eating again. The most important I do not want to be worried about or obsessing all the time about what I am eating.
In the Outcome Step ask yourself the question – What will be the best result from accomplishing your wish? How will you feel? Remember – this is a writing exercise. You need to actually write this down.
Step 3 – OBSTACLES
WOOP thinking requires you to evaluate the things that you believe will get in your way. What obstacles are you going to encounter? What has stopped you in the past? Do not worry about solving the obstacle just yet, but really think about this carefully. You may come up with many obstacles – that is ok – but you really want to think about the main obstacle in your way.
In my example, there are many examples that get in the way of me eating healthy. I will take the time to write some of them down, but the one that I can really visualize is lack of preparation. If I wake up in the morning, and I do not know in advance what I am going to eat – then I am probably going to go with what is quick and easy and that is usually unhealthy food. If we have a family movie night, I and I have not planned in advance for what I am going to eat during those situations – then I am going to eat bad things. If I am traveling and going to restaurants and I do not have a plan for handling that situation – then I am going to eat poorly.
In the Obstacles Step ask yourself what is the main obstacle that might prevent you from accomplishing your wish? Once again this is a writing exercise. Take the time to actually visualize the obstacle happening and how you will feel when it does.
Step 4 – PLAN
The plan is where you come up with deliberate things you are going to do to overcome the obstacles that will stop you from accomplishing your plan. Focus on the major obstacles as your primary target. You have to come up with an answer for those, or other wise you will fail. A great idea from Gabriele Oettingen is to use When-Then when writing out your plan. It works like this – When a certain obstacle occurs, then I am going to do (and then you describe what you are going do to).
For example I might say:
When I am going on a business trip, then I am going to sit down for a few moments the night before and plan out what I am going to eat when I am a restaurant. I am going to make my decisions before I am sitting down with a menu in front of me.
When I realize that I do not know what to eat, rather then just going to the cupboard or refrigerator, I am going to spend 15 minutes and sit down and write down what I am going to eat for the next few days.
In the Plan Step ask yourself what’s an effective action to tackle the obstacles that I have identified? Use the When – Then thought process. By writing these down you will now be well armed to handle the obstacles when they come up – because you will already made a decision on what you are going to do.
That is the process for WOOP thinking. This is a great activity for a Sunday morning and gives you a sense of accomplishment because when you write this down you now have something very specific that you can execute on. You simply implement the decisions that you have made in the Plan portion of your WOOP session.
I have written down on my 365 lists today to do a few WOOP sessions to see if I can come up with some better ways of accomplishing my wishes. I encourage you to try this yourself. This is a great way to motivate kids to fix their own problems as well. So if you have kids – try it out on them!
Guy Reams (64)
365 Member
