Coaching practices for I've Tried This Dreaming and Planning Thing in Bits and Pieces in My Head and it Never Takes I Half Imagine the Win Skip the Hard Parts and Nothing Changes I Think I Keep Cherry Picking the Comfortable Steps Instead of Sitting Down and Doing the Whole Thing Properly Start to Finish
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For I've Tried This Dreaming and Planning Thing in Bits and Pieces in My Head and it Never Takes I Half Imagine the Win Skip the Hard Parts and Nothing Changes I Think I Keep Cherry Picking the Comfortable Steps Instead of Sitting Down and Doing the Whole Thing Properly Start to Finish, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’ve tried this dreaming-and-planning thing in bits and pieces in my head and it never takes
- I keep planning this thing in my head where it all seems to work perfectly, but the second I try to actually make it I realize I had no idea what I really wanted
- I daydream about having it done
- I make perfectly sensible plans but they sit there feeling optional, with no real fire behind them
- I’ve been turning this thing over in my head for weeks, planning and re-planning, and I’ve made nothing
Practices that may help
- Run the full WOOP sequence — not just parts of it
WOOP works as a sequence; running only the wish and outcome steps (pure positive visualization) is not WOOP and may be counterproductive.
Mental Contrasting and WOOP - Prototype to think, not to finish
Build or sketch something rough specifically to learn what you actually want.
Quantity Over Quality: How More Drafts Produce Better Work - Visualize yourself starting — then doing the work, not just the outcome
See yourself in the process of working, not just crossing the finish line.
The Now Habit, Made Practical - Combine mental contrasting with an if–then plan (MCII)
Fantasize about success, then vividly imagine the key obstacle, then write the if–then — the sequence matters.
If–Then Planning, Made Practical - Bias toward action over deliberation
Ship a rough version fast to learn what the problem actually is rather than theorizing indefinitely.
Creative Confidence, Made Practical - Visualization
Mentally rehearse your day and goals — the process, not just the outcome.
The Miracle Morning, Made Practical - Mentally simulate the planned behavior in its specific context
Rehearse the action plan in your mind — visualizing the cue, the response, and the environment — to prime automatic execution.
Action Planning - Implement the chosen solution with a concrete plan
Translate the chosen solution into specific actions, times, and checkpoints.
Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical - Structure multi-step choices to prevent dropping out mid-process
Breaking a complex action into sequenced steps with visible progress increases completion.
Choice Architecture, Made Practical - Write when, where, and how plans for every behavioral goal
Specify exactly when, where, and how you will act — not just what you intend to do.
Action Planning
Related concerns
- When Action Planning Action Plan Specificity Testing
Before counting on a plan, check that a stranger could execute it from your written description — if not, it is not specific enough.
Test your action plan for specificity before relying on it
- When Action Planning Mental Simulation
Rehearse the action plan in your mind — visualizing the cue, the response, and the environment — to prime automatic execution.
Mentally simulate the planned behavior in its specific context
- When If Then Planning Mental Contrasting With If Then
Fantasize about success, then vividly imagine the key obstacle, then write the if–then — the sequence matters.
Combine mental contrasting with an if–then plan (MCII)
- When Transtheoretical Model Stage Identification
Diagnose where you actually are in the change cycle before deciding what to do.
Identify your current stage before choosing a strategy
- Action Planning Confidence
Action planning — specifying when, where, and how you will execute a goal-directed behavior — is one of the best-supported techniques for closing the intention-behavior gap. Orbell and Sheeran’s research, along with Peter Gollwitzer’s work on implementation intentions, shows that forming specific plans reliably increases behavior over vague intentions alone, with meta-analytic effect sizes in the small-to-medium range.
- Design Thinking Step By Step When Overwhelmed
Design thinking is a five-stage problem-solving framework — empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test — popularized by IDEO and the Stanford d.school. It is a process model, not a tested intervention: its value comes from forcing you to understand the user before you commit to a solution, and to learn cheaply through prototypes instead of expensive bets.
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.