Have you heard of WOOP? Well, I hadn’t. It’s a useful tool created by Gabriele Oettingen, grounded in her research on motivation and behaviour change. It caught my attention recently while listening to Ali Abdaal’s podcast episode How To Actually Achieve Your Goals in 2025.
WOOP stands for:
Wish: Define your ultimate goal. What is it that you truly want to achieve?
Outcome: Picture how your life will change once you achieve it. What will be different? This step creates a vivid, motivating vision that you can feel in your body.
Obstacle: Identify the challenges that might get in your way. This step reminds me of the W and T in Albert Humphrey’s SWOT analysis.
Plan: Develop a strategy to overcome those obstacles. What specific actions will you take? Setting a timeline and tracking your progress helps keep you on course.
What stands out to me is WOOP’s simplicity and how each step connects to the next. It has the potential to be a powerful tool, especially for achieving short-term goals. The model helps you identify what you want, visualise success, and prepare for setbacks—all in a structured way.
But what about long-term goals? This is where WOOP might need to be paired with additional habits to build the sustained effort required for bigger aspirations. Abdaal offers five goal-setting habits that complement WOOP beautifully:
1. Write Them Down
2. Look at them every week
3. Monitor your Progress
4. Visualise Obstacles/Use mental contrasting (this is where he mentions Oettingen’s WOOP tool)
5. Tie them to an Identity
Reflective practice is key here—and it’s one of the reasons I see potential in integrating WOOP into coaching or personal development routines. In many ways, it aligns with Tony Latimer, MCC’s non-directive coaching approach, which emphasises:
Absolute clarity on where we are now.
Absolute clarity on where we need to be.
Absolute clarity on what we need to do to get there.
As Latimer demonstrates, tools like WOOP can be useful, but they’re just one piece of the puzzle. What really drives success is the depth of our reflection and the clarity of our actions. As George Box famously said: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”
Marshall Goldsmith (here, I asked marshallgoldsmith.ai)reminds us that many people struggle with maintaining daily habits due to common challenges. The “ideal future self” illusion leads us to believe we’ll have more time or motivation later, causing us to delay goals. A lack of immediate rewards makes it harder to stay committed, as the benefits of good habits often take time to appear. Many also underestimate the effort required to build habits, starting with enthusiasm but losing momentum over time. Lastly, a lack of accountability allows habits to slip. To address these challenges, he advocates for the Daily Questions process and to have accountability partners, which help us reflect daily and stay on track toward consistent improvement.
In conclusion, while WOOP is a powerful tool for setting and achieving goals, it’s the reflective practice—the consistent doing and revisiting of our goals—that truly drives long-term success. WOOP can help us set the stage, identify obstacles, and create a plan, but it’s the ongoing reflection, clarity, and adjustments we make along the way that ensure we stay committed and grow.
To paraphrase Hamlet, “To WOOP or not to WOOP” is the question we face when setting our goals. But perhaps a deeper question is: “To reflect, or not to reflect?” Reflective practice isn’t just a method; it’s a mindset that propels us forward, helping us stay grounded, focused, and adaptable in the pursuit of our aspirations. So, while WOOP can be a great starting point, it’s the journey of reflection and consistent action that ultimately leads us to success.
As a coach, I work with people to think through their roadblocks so they can learn, grow, and move forward with clarity. But I also believe that building a reflective practice can also be a powerful way to achieve your goals—sometimes even more powerful than the tools we use.
Candida Javaid Coaching & Mentoring 