WOOPing for agency
If you’re reading a post on agency, it’s probably because you have something you want to do. I’ll keep this short:
Recently, I learned about ‘Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intention’ (MCII), also known as WOOP (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan). Clearly, both names are nightmares in terms of popularization, but the evidence-backing (and my own personal n of 1) indicates the technique is effective when it comes to achieving a goal.
The technique is simple. Here are the steps:
W: Write down an important Wish or goal. This wish or goal should be something that is challenging, but that you can achieve within the next few weeks or months.
—> e.g., My wish is to find a job that maximally allows me to help others.
O: Write down the one best Outcome, the one best thing of fulfilling your wish or reaching your goal.
—> e.g., The outcome is that I would feel a sense of meaning and fulfillment from this.
O: Write down something that could prevent you from achieving your wish or goal, an Obstacle that stands in the way of you achieving your wish.
—> e.g., A possible obstacle is that my good intentions come to nothing because I choose the wrong career pathway.
P: What can you do to overcome your obstacle? What action or behavior could you do that would help to overcome the obstacle? Write down your Plan.
—> e.g., My plan is to consult with people who have thought a great deal about this question, like the team at 80,000 Hours, and then to follow their advice.
Or, if you prefer academic jargon to cheesy acronyms, you can use the roughly equivalent language of Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intention instead. That is: “Mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) entails mental contrasting a desired future with relevant obstacles of reality and forming implementation intentions (if-then plans) specifying when and where to overcome those obstacles.”1 E.g.: My desired future is one in which I stop eating so many HARIBO gummy bears and my teeth shine with good health (not gummy-induced decay); an obstacle of reality is that I tend to steal them from my fiancé each time she buys them, so my implementation intention is to buy a cheap lockbox from Amazon and have her put them in there without telling me the combination.
In over twenty years of studies, those who WOOPed/MCIIed were more likely to attain goals related to things like exercising, eating vegetables, studying, and excelling at school. One especially impressive study was done by Angela Duckworth in 2013 on the impact of teaching WOOP to disadvantaged middle schoolers. The students in the (extremely cheap and easily teachable) WOOP condition were more likely to achieve goals they themselves set — as well as to have higher grades (η2 = .07) and better attendance (η2 = .05).
There’s been documentation that WOOP/MCII increases agency for decades. Having used it for the past month myself, I feel somewhat stunned and offended that I wasn’t taught it before. It’s been effective at getting me through both the things I put off excessively (laundry, going through mail in a timely fashion…) and at high-importance career goals.
You can learn more about WOOP/MCII in this conversation between Dr. Lori Santos (of Science of Happiness nerd-fame) and Dr. Gabriele Oettingen (of WOOP fame). There’s also a WOOP-ing app for download at woopmylife.org (rudimentary, but I’ve been using it and it’s useful).
If it ends up working for you, let me know in the comment section below!