Achieving your goals can be difficult to say the least.
There are many articles and methods all over the Internet to help you reach your goals. I’m sure by now you’ve maybe heard of setting SMART goals or used the HARD method to set your goals in the past.
While each one is unique and different in their own way one method I’ve recently found is the WOOP method. WOOP stands for wish, outcome, obstacles, and plan. Pick a goal you’ve been striving towards and use this method to reach it.
Wish
To start off the WOOP method you need to identify your wish or goal. If you set New Year’s resolutions already go through your list and pick one of those. If not take some time to write down some wishes or goals you’ve recently hoped to accomplish.
Your wish can be anything. Maybe you want to learn something new, finish a project or lose weight. Identifying your wish will get you one step closer to accomplishing it.
This is the first step in the process and the most important step. Sometimes we write down a ton of wishes or goals but narrowing it down to one wish will help you set up a straight forward plan of action.
Outcome
The next step in this method is identifying an outcome or multiple outcomes that align with your wish. Think of all the possible outcomes that can come with accomplishing your goal. How will you feel once you’ve accomplished it? How will you feel if you didn’t accomplish your goal? Thinking of the negative outcomes that come with not achieving your goals will help motivate you to accomplish them. List out some possible outcomes and emotions that align with them. Be as specific and detailed as you possibly can with these and every step moving forward.
Obstacles
After you’ve picked your wish and identified possible outcomes, now is the time to list out some of the obstacles that are preventing you from accomplishing your goals.
If your goal is to lose weight, one of the obvious obstacles of the pandemic is that gyms are currently closed. Another obstacle could be the lack of equipment or not knowing how to clean up your diet.
Knowing your obstacles before attempting to achieve your goals can help you better prepare for them. Take your time with this step and make sure you list out all possible obstacles that can occur during your journey to reaching your wish.
There may be some obstacles that come up halfway through your time trying to accomplish your wish and others may come up at the very beginning of your process.
Plan
The very last step in the WOOP method is planning. This is where the method comes full circle. Look through your list of obstacles and possible outcomes and use these to create an action plan. Let’s go back to the losing weight wish. One of the obstacles was not knowing how to eat healthily.
During the planning part of the WOOP method, use this time to look up healthy, easy and cheap meal ideas or snacks. Make sure your plan has action methods in place if faced with the obstacles you listed above.
Your plan should be detailed and include ways to not only avoid your obstacles but give you the details needed to accomplish your goal. Give yourself an action plan that is well thought out and will guide you through the many obstacles listed. Your plan can include multiple steps and have small milestones set up on how you would like to accomplish your wish or goal.
After reading through the WOOP method, give it a try with one of your long-held wishes and let me know how it works out for you. As mentioned above, there are many methods out there on how to achieve your goals, but I think this method is a great way to thoroughly think before you do.
I think a lot of the times we write down goals on a piece of paper and never get any closer to achieving them daily, using this method gives you space to critically think about your goals, emotions, and the many roadblocks that come up when trying to accomplish them. One of the things I love the most about this method is going through the obstacles step. Reflecting back on my goal setting methods in the past, I never correctly planned or thought ahead about obstacles that could occur when I was trying to reach a goal.
In the end, I’d hit an obstacle and give the goal up completely because I wasn’t fully prepared. This method takes care of that beforehand and allows you to plan, plan, plan, which is important in achieving your goals and wishes.
If you try out this method let me know and if you have any other methods you’d like me to test out, make sure to leave them in the comments below.
