I recently came across a formula that explains something I see all the time — not only in patients, but in myself.
We love the idea that belief is enough.
If I just believe in myself a little harder, I’ll work out consistently.
I’ll finish that project.
I’ll build the business.
I’ll write the book.
I’ll run the marathon.
Positive thinking as a strategy. We’ve seen it in every motivational movie ever made.
And don’t get me wrong — I’m deeply optimistic. Optimism carries you far. It gets you started. It makes things feel possible.
But optimism without realism? That’s where things quietly fall apart.
Because when we only visualize the perfect outcome, we forget to prepare for the imperfect process. And at some point — always — something will get in your way. Pain flares up. Motivation drops. Work gets busy. Life happens. If you didn’t mentally account for that moment, it will feel like failure instead of friction.
That’s why I found the work of Gabriele Oettingen so compelling. She developed a scientifically validated mental strategy called WOOP — a dream-realization exercise that blends optimism with reality instead of replacing one with the other.
WOOP stands for:
🧞 Wish – Choose a meaningful, challenging but realistic goal.
“I want to run a marathon.”
📊 Outcome – Visualize the best possible result and how it would feel.
“I finish under four and a half hours and prove to myself that I can follow a demanding training plan while working full-time.”
🚧 Obstacle – Identify the inner obstacles that will likely arise. Not external excuses — your internal patterns.
“I get frustrated when my right ankle tendinopathy flares up. I start doubting whether I can stick to the plan.”
📝 Plan – Create a specific if/then response.
“If my tendinopathy flares up, then I reduce volume or intensity, adjust mileage, or switch to cycling temporarily.”
What makes this powerful is not that it’s negative. It’s that it’s honest.
You still allow yourself to dream. You still feel the excitement of the outcome. But you also sit down and ask: What will probably trip me up? Where do I usually sabotage myself? What discomfort am I not accounting for?
I accidentally did a version of this before my first marathon training block. Not as structured, not as elegant — but I had already decided in advance how I would respond to pain flare-ups, bad runs, or busy work weeks. So when they happened (and of course they did), I didn’t panic. I adjusted.
That adjustment is the difference between quitting and adapting.
Interestingly, the Stoics practiced something similar long before modern psychology gave it an acronym. They called it premeditatio malorum — the premeditation of evils. You deliberately imagine what could go wrong, not to become anxious, but to become steady. When the obstacle appears, it feels familiar. You’ve already met it in your mind.
And maybe that’s the real shift.
Believing everything will go perfectly doesn’t build resilience.
Expecting difficulty — and preparing for it — does.
Recovery fails. Training plans fail. Projects fail. Not because we didn’t believe enough. But because we didn’t prepare for the moment when belief alone wouldn’t carry us.
🧪 Let’s Experiment
Optimism starts the journey — realism keeps you on the path.
We don’t need less belief. We need better belief. The kind that can survive friction, setbacks, and the very normal messiness of being human.
🎯 Try This:
For your next goal, use the WOOP framework.
Take five quiet minutes and write it down — don’t just think about it.
- Define your Wish: Choose a meaningful, challenging, but realistic goal.
- Imagine the Outcome: Let yourself feel what achieving it would mean to you.
- Identify the Obstacle: Be brutally honest about the inner patterns that might trip you up.
- Create a Plan: Form a simple if/then response for when that obstacle shows up.
Keep it practical. Keep it personal. The more specific your “if,” the stronger your “then.”
🧠 Final Thought:
Hope is powerful. But hope with a plan is resilient. Don’t just believe that things will work out. Decide in advance who you will be when they don’t.
Keep it simple, stay curious, and keep learning—you’ve got this.
Take care,
Carina 🦊