The cool thing is that this process doesn’t sap your drive the way just fantasizing does. But there’s an even bigger benefit to WOOP, one that’s key when you’re thinking about grit and quit. Ironically, this added advantage is that WOOP doesn’t work for everyone, and whether it works isn’t random. In her research, Oettingen found that mental contrasting gives a motivational boost when your goal is something you can achieve but it doesn’t when your goal is outside the realm of possibility. It’s like a personal litmus test for feasibility. When what you want is something reasonable (I’m a
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