But, if your dreams, goals and desires haven't been met yet, have you ever thought about changing your attitude, or even the way you think?
Whenever things don't seem to be going the way you've planned, or you're experiencing hard times, if someone tells you to stay and think positive, you might become even more uncertain, insecure, or frustrated.
In Dr. Gabriele Oettingen's book, Rethinking Positive Thinking, she suggests that positive fantasies about what you desire for your future can actually be problematic since they don't actually provide effort or energy into helping you reach what you're fantasizing about.
Through timely research, Dr. Oettingen and her team have come up with the term, "mental contrasting" a problem-solving strategy and motivational tool that leads to selective behavior modification. Even though positive thinking is pleasurable, and can seem attractive (especially in a world full of disbelief), it doesn't mean it's good for you when you have a particular goal in mind that you want to achieve.
What is WOOP and how does it help accomplish your goals?
WOOP is a scientific strategy you can use to find and fulfill your wishes and change your habits. It stands for: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle and Plan.
What self-regulatory strategies can you use to turn your positive fantasies about the future you have in mind into binding goals, and what self-regulatory strategies can you use to disengage from your goals?
Dr. Oettingen discusses her latest book, what it means to rethink positive thinking, and how you can find motivational, problem-solving strategies to actually reach your goals, dreams and desires.
Gabriele Oettingen is a Professor of Psychology at New York University and at the University of Hamburg. She is the author of more than a 100 articles and book chapters on thinking about the future and the control of cognition, emotion, and behavior. She received her Ph.D. from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and the Max-Planck-Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Seewiesen.