I’m Going to Kill Bamboo
I fail all the time but learn how I use WOOP goals to set better goals
I’m not a plant person. I know this about myself. I will kill plants. Since it can’t tell me it’s hungry, I will forget about it. Don’t try to tell me how easy it is and all plants need is water. I’m speaking from experience — I killed bamboo.
I fail all the time and I see them as lessons. The biggest failure in my life happened at the age of twenty when I failed out of college. I’ll share more of that story another time but the experience made me explore goal-setting systems. There were two problems when I failed out of college at twenty, that many goal systems don’t address. One, I didn’t know the outcome of going to college. Two, I didn't know how to manage distractions.
WOOP Goal Setting
I discovered WOOP relatively recently but I have always been an intuitive goal setter. Nobody taught me how to do this but finding WOOP has been amazing. I like it even more knowing it’s now taught in schools. Dr. Liz Breese talks about the system and why it’s good for students.
What is WOOP?
Wish
Outcome
Obstacle
Plan
Why do I like this style of planning?
I find that people often start goal planning with a wish. For example, these days mine is often to publish a book. People often struggle to do is identify why they want something, how they will get to that goal, and how they will deal with obstacles. This method of goal setting is a way to start thinking about this process.
I like this when beginning a project and then I get into more specific goal setting systems to break down tasks.
W
Start with your wish. What do you want to do? When I first wrote the goal, I thought it was to publish a book.
O
The outcome is something people can struggle with. I learned to think of the wish and outcome as two parts of the same statement. What I realized was that my wish was to write a book in order to publish it. Publishing the book was my outcome, not the wish. So, I revised.
I like to state this as the wish IN ORDER TO get to the outcome.
O
The Obstacle is where most people start to struggle with achieving their goals. It’s not easy to find your obstacle. This is something that’s going to stop you from reaching your goal. I find it helpful to focus on the things around you. What stops me from writing? I have a long list of ways I can be distracted: YouTube videos, the dog, chores, knitting, my phone games, errands. I find when I hit a strong obstacle, it can often derail me because I feel guilty for giving in.
This phase isn’t a judgment or about understanding why these obstacles get in our way. It simply identifying them.
For me, the obstacle was all these distractions around my house. I can’t focus, especially with an attention-seeking dog.
P
Planning continues this process by creating a plan to manage the obstacles. Since these play a large role in why people fail to meet goals, creating a plan to address your obstacles will help you use them to your benefit. For me, I need to get out of the house. I couldn’t focus here so I found a place I could — a local cafe. I know, if I want to write, I have to get out of the house and work there for a few hours.
While WOOP planning isn’t going to help me keep bamboo alive but that’s never been something I’ve really wanted to do. When I have something I truly want to do, I always start with WOOP goals and I hope you’ll explore the system so you can too!
