It's easy to create goals but what do we do when we encounter major obstacles? In PART 3 of our four-part exploration of Dr. Gabrielle Oetingen's WOOP goal setting methodology we explore how to clearly prepare for the obstacles and challenges that will come our way on the journey.

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Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.

Once again, welcome back to the daily podcast.

Great to have the pleasure of your company.

We are about to do.

Day three of the four-part woop goal setting master class.

Now, if you have been listening to the other two episodes so far, you're

going to notice a big difference today.

Of course, you will notice that the audio quality over the last few episodes.

Probably about the last three or four has been somewhere south of a Bismal.

We recorded them.

Uh, in the studio using, uh, you know, we, we were recording video at the same time

and we'd been splitting out the audio.

And, uh, we had everything set up correctly and the mikes

went working the right way.

So you'll notice if you've been listening the last couple of days,

the audio was, uh, was terrible.

I do apologize.

So we're back today.

On my favorite microphone, regular listeners know I've got

a thing for good microphones.

I'm back on the shore.

Running through a persona studio, 68 pre-amp everyone goes, we did not.

Listening.

To hear about your microphone choices, but the good news is hopefully

this audio quality is heaps better.

And it's a more full podcast version.

Uh, I've made the decision that I'll keep putting all the content

out on YouTube, but I'm going to do dedicated podcast versions now.

It's an easier platform for me to work with.

I just tend to go a bit deeper on the podcast version.

So I hope today's going to be really useful for you.

As we go on to day three of this masterclass, a housekeeping,

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Okay.

Let's do a quick review.

We're on day three day one in this woop goal setting master class from Dr.

Gabrielle engine.

Who simply somebody that has thought deeply about goals, um, goal efficacy.

And choosing systems, you know, goals sitting that actually

help us and don't hinder us.

So it's easy enough.

Isn't it to identify when there are things in life we want to change, but my gosh, it

can be hard sometimes to really execute.

I'm always interested in that question.

Why is it that sometimes we just don't execute.

Quite the way we want to.

So on day one of the master class, we started with the w of the whoop.

Uh, acronym.

The w standing of course, for wish for the identification of what we want to

change, what we want to have in our lives, what we want to remove from our lives.

But for most of us, it will be.

Uh, an articulation of something that's important to us, something that we

want to improve or add into our lives.

The second day we looked at the outcome.

So I've got the w is wish the first O is outcome, which is a crucial

step because it helps us realize that it's rarely, the actual wish itself.

That's truly what we desire.

The wish is often a kind of.

What's the word, I guess like an icon or a representation of a deeper value

underneath that we're trying to pursue.

So today or yesterday, we talked about outcome being clear on whether

whatever that wish is, what is the underlying driving force behind it?

When you achieve the X in your life, what will it give you when you experience more

freedom, more peace, more connection, more intimacy, more joy, more excitement.

Because all of those things, you know, For the people who

go and buy a brand new Ferrari.

Their wish wasn't to have a bunch of metal and electronic and mechanical componentry

arranged in a particular format.

You know, that's ultimately what a Ferrari is, isn't it?

It's, it's, it's metal, it's electrical engineering, it's mechanical engineering.

All these things put together in a particular form.

Nobody has a wish that says that's what I want.

I want, I want all these components arranged in a particular way.

As they drive out of the showroom and they're heading down the freeway.

There's a feeling attached to it all.

Isn't there.

All of a sudden there's a feeling I'm driving my brand new Ferrari.

What is that?

It's it might be a feeling of, um, of achievement or attainment or, or.

You know, or blessing or, you know, joy who knows if it's going

to be different for everybody.

Right.

And this Ferrari is just one example.

It could be anything.

But always remember that behind what it is you're chasing is a much

deeper motivation, some experience, some human emotion or psychological

state that we're pursuing.

So the second part which we did yesterday was really getting clear.

On what those underlying drivers are for you, because you want to

be really in touch with those.

You want to honor them.

You want to recognize them.

You want to leverage them and use them as a kind of fuel.

Okay.

So we are on to day three, which is the second.

Oh.

In the woop methodology WW.

Oh, the second I was all the second.

Oh, when the third day.

Is obstacles.

Obstacles obstacles obstacles.

You look at the famous book from Ryan holiday, where he

said the obstacle is the way.

A couple of thoughts first.

Well, Dr.

And realized is that people are good.

At articulating the wish people can even get good at articulating the

underlying drivers and motivations.

But she realized that in most goal setting methodologies and in the way

that most people go about goal setting, The problem is that we pay very little

attention to thinking about the potential obstacles that will come our way.

So we get excited about goals.

We get motivated, we get going and write them down.

We.

We start to put some effort into them.

And then all of a sudden, a whole bunch of things start to go wrong

and we get problems and setbacks and difficulties and delays.

And at that point, it can be very hard for a lot of people to continue.

A lot of people sort of give up and think, well, you know, this

is too hard or often we don't even articulate that to ourselves.

We don't even tell ourselves we're quitting.

We just kind of slowly stopped trying.

And then the goal drifts away and more time passes and

life just goes on the same.

So the third Owen, our masterclass this third day.

Input is really around taking the time to recognize all of the potential

obstacles that are going to come your way.

When you begin to pursue something meaningful, you want to lose 10 kilos,

then you can easily identify the wish you can easily identify the outcome.

When I lose that 10 kilos, I'll feel happy.

I'll feel beautiful.

I'll feel handsome.

I'll feel athletic, whatever it is, we can find the outcomes.

But very little of, very, sort of very infrequently do we also

go well, when I start this.

You know, I'm going to be going to business lunches, or I'm going to be

seeing my family every weekend and we always eat all this amazing stuff.

So we don't recognize the potential obstacles they're going to come.

And then we don't develop a response plan or response pattern of how

we're actually going to deal with those things when they come up.

So, what I want to do with you today is I want to ask you to

think about what is your wish.

Identify the driving outcomes underneath it.

And then let's begin to think about what are all the potential obstacles

that are going to come your way.

And this sounds like work.

Doesn't it.

Then.

Often in the journey of personal development and success, people

just find it hard to do this work.

It's actually easier to kind of go man, blah, blah.

I can write the goal.

I can write a couple outcomes, but you know, This stuff, you

know, maybe things will happen.

Maybe they won't, or I really need to do this.

Well, the research makes it pretty clear that we do.

That we do need to identify all the possible things that can go wrong and

that are going to stretch us and test us when we pursue anything meaningful.

So the first thing is to identify the obstacles.

The other thing to realize always about obstacles.

And this is what I think Ryan holiday was getting at in his book.

The obstacle is the way.

Is that.

When obstacles come into our lives, we often resist them.

Don't worry.

I mean, we don't want them.

There's something that we don't want in our life.

We don't want obstacles.

We don't want problems.

But they come.

And what I want to suggest to you as I have for many, many years is.

The obstacles we face tend to force us to quit or to blame.

Ought to be a victim.

Or they force us to grow and to change.

Uh, they force us to grow and to change.

So one of the great things about personal development and goal setting

is not just that we bring into our lives, things that are meaningful for

us, but that it also forces us to grow.

I mean goals by their very nature have to force us to grow because if

they didn't, they wouldn't be goals.

We would have everything we want right now, and we wouldn't really

want to pursue anything else.

But that's not a human experience is that we all.

Experience things encounter things that we would love to have in our lives,

but these obstacles force you to grow.

Yes, but they're not pleasant.

Yes.

We don't want them, but they will force you to become

creative, adaptive, resilient.

To be tougher physically, mentally, spiritually.

So.

Please take some time today.

If you haven't done it already, as we work through this process.

Identify your wish.

What is it that you want?

Identify the outcome.

What are the deeper experiences behind the wish that you're really trying to pursue?

And then third, I want you to get that journal or go for walking

at least think about, okay.

If I'm going to try for X.

What are all the reasonable obstacles they're going to come my way?

How can I mitigate them?

It's basically, what is it?

Risk management, you know, like, um, uh, risk planning.

What are we, there's all sorts of different fancy names and job titles.

These days for organizations that have to.

Do all this kind of scenario planning, risk planning, risk management.

What if this happens?

What if that happens?

What is the stock market crashes?

You know, locusts, eat our crops, who knows fill in the blank.

Right.

There's always going to be obstacles, but it doesn't mean that we can't think about

them in advance and be prepared for them.

So my friend, what are the obstacles you are going to face?

What are the specific obstacles that you are going to face?

When you begin to pursue these meaningful wishes, dreams, and goals in your

life, write them down, get, you know, write them down and say, okay, yep.

I want to do this, but then this is likely to happen.

If this happens, then I'm going to try do this.

If this thing happens, then I'm going to make a decision to do this.

And this is the kind of effort, energy.

You know, focus that is required to really move yourself forward.

All right.

That's all I wanted to cover today.

So what have we got?

Wish we've got outcomes.

We've got obstacles tomorrow.

We're going to talk about the P the final step in our four stage masterclass.

This is not super complex.

This is relatively straightforward stuff.

We just got to be reminded of it.

We've got to do it regularly.

It's the old saying, you know, like, you know, we, we brush

our teeth every day, right?

We don't brush our teeth once and say, well, I'm glad that's done.

I don't have to do it again.

We don't have a shower once or a bath and say, well, I'll

never have to do that again.

There are some things we need to do every day.

And with our goal setting, with our wish chasing with our dream

building, we often need to do these kinds of steps over and over again.

What do I want, why do I want it?

What's going to stop me.

Let's get clear on these things.

Cause this kind of consciousness, this kind of awareness of the

mechanisms that drive our success.

Or a huge part of the puzzle that are gonna move us forward.

So friends, that's it for me?

Go and check out those show notes, please make sure you subscribe.

Get free access to my book, bridging the gap, book me to speak, whatever else I

can do to help move you guys forward.

Go check out those show notes.

My name's Jonathan Doyle tomorrow.

We're going to do the final step and I'm going to be speaking with you tomorrow.