Coaching practices for Obstacle Planning Goals
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Obstacle Planning Goals, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- My plans hold up fine until something throws them off
- I get genuinely fired up about a goal and then keep falling at the exact same internal hurdle
- I know exactly what trips me up, but in the heat of the moment I freeze and fall back into the same pattern because I haven’t decided ahead of time what to do instead
- There’s one specific thing that wrecks this for me every single time
- I can see exactly the moment I’m going to slip
Practices that may help
- Plan for obstacles with coping plans
Anticipate the specific obstacles most likely to block your plan and pre-decide your response to each.
Action Planning - Map the obstacles: WOOP your life-crafting goals
For each goal, identify the most likely internal obstacle and plan your response before you need it.
The Life Crafting Intervention: Scripting Your Future Self - Plan — make an if-then plan for the obstacle
Pre-decide your response: "If [obstacle], then I will [effective action]."
WOOP: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan - Write an if–then plan for your biggest obstacle
"If [obstacle occurs], then I will [specific response]" — pre-deciding removes the obstacle’s power.
If–Then Planning, Made Practical - Form an if-then plan linking the obstacle to a specific response
"If [obstacle occurs], then I will [specific action]" — this plan is what converts mental contrasting into behavior change.
Mental Contrasting and WOOP - Decompose distal goals into proximal action plans
Break long-term goals into short-term action plans with specific behavioral targets for this week.
Action Planning - Map your current edge: what is one step away from where you are?
List everything that is genuinely accessible from your current skills, relationships, and resources — your adjacent possible is defined by what you already have.
The Adjacent Possible, Made Practical - Generate multiple routes to the goal
Map at least two viable pathways before starting — obstacles block single-path thinkers cold.
Hope Theory: Agency, Pathways, and Getting Unstuck - Run WOOP as a quick repeatable routine
Use the full four-step sequence regularly — it is a few minutes, designed to be reused.
WOOP: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan - Build a Massive Action Plan (MAP)
Brainstorm every possible action that could move you toward the result, then ruthlessly prune to the ones that actually will.
Tony Robbins’ Rapid Planning Method (RPM), Made Practical
Related concerns
- How To Plan Around Obstacles
Anticipate the specific obstacles most likely to block your plan and pre-decide your response to each.
Plan for obstacles with coping plans
- Obstacle Planning
Anticipate the specific obstacles most likely to block your plan and pre-decide your response to each.
- Woop Wish Outcome Obstacle Plan Under Stress
WOOP — Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan — is Gabriele Oettingen’s science-based goal strategy: you picture the best outcome, then deliberately confront the inner obstacle in your way, and pair it with an if-then plan. Unlike pure positive thinking, WOOP combines mental contrasting with implementation intentions, and both halves have genuine support from randomized trials.
- Woop Wish Outcome Obstacle Plan When Overwhelmed
Pre-decide your response: "If [obstacle], then I will [effective action]."
Plan — make an if-then plan for the obstacle
- If Then Plan Obstacle
If–then plans (also called implementation intentions) specify in advance how you will respond to the specific situations that typically derail your goals: "If situation X occurs, then I will do Y." A meta-analysis of 94 studies found a medium-to-large effect on goal attainment — one of the most reliable single techniques in goal-setting research.
- If Then Plan Woop
"If [obstacle occurs], then I will [specific action]" — this plan is what converts mental contrasting into behavior change.
Form an if-then plan linking the obstacle to a specific response
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