Overcoming Obstacles

You have big plans for the new semester. Better grades, more interesting classes, deeper friendships, new work study opportunities, more fun – the possibilities are endless! Pursuing too many goals at the same time can be overwhelming and going after just one goal without a plan rarely leads to success. When the options are as vast and varied as they are when you are in college, it can be helpful to bring some focus to what you want and how you are going to get there.

Below are three steps to accelerate your progress and keep up your momentum.

Vision

Before you can make any progress, you need to know what you want. The more specific your vision of success is, the easier it will be to plan a strategy to get there and to motivate yourself to keep going when life gets in your way as it inevitably will.

Take some time to visualize what you want in great detail. Where are you? What are you doing? Who else is there? How are you feeling? When is this vision happening – how far into the future is it? Why does this scenario appeal to you? What needs – physical, emotional, social etc. – have you fulfilled?

Your vision should make you feel excited and energized. It should be appealing enough that you are willing to work for it. It should be something you are proud to tell your family and friends about. It should match your values and allow you to use your strengths.

Obstacles

Daydreaming about your vision can get you excited and energized about your goals, but staying motivated when the path to your vision gets rocky can be hard. Obstacles between you and your vision can derail your progress quickly if you aren’t prepared for them.

Before you start pursuing your vision, think about potential obstacles which will get in your way. Are the steps you need to take to accomplish your goal time consuming? Do you have the spare time and the time management skills to manage those extra tasks? Will there be temptations which will distract you from the important work of accomplishing your goal? Do you have habits which are in opposition to your goal? Are your friends and family supportive of your goal?

This exercise is not meant to be frustrating or to take the energy and enthusiasm out of your pursuit of your goal. Instead, it is meant to help you mentally prepare for the challenges you will inevitably face and to set realistic expectations for the journey. When you are expecting a particular obstacle, it’s a lot easier to accept it and to work through it instead of allowing it to impede your progress.

Plan

Once you have an idea of which obstacles are likely to get in your way, you need to plan strategies to overcome them. It is helpful to use an if/then format to do this. If insert obstacle here happen, then I will insert strategy here. For example, a student who wants to earn better grades might resolve to study more, but be concerned that social media will be a distraction. That student would craft an if/then statement to say, “If I hear a notification ding while I am studying, then I will silence my phone and move it across the room until I have finished studying.”

Create an if/then plan for each obstacle you thought about in the previous step. When you have a concrete pre-determined response to an obstacle, that challenge can feel less like a problem and more like a planned part of the process. Knowing how you will respond to each type of obstacle takes a lot of the thinking out of staying motivated. Rather than having to turn away from the tasks you need to accomplish to get to your goal to strategize ways to deal with the obstacle, you can simply deploy your if/then plan and keep moving forward.

Learn more

Gabriele Oettingen presents a similar technique in her book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the new science of motivation. Check it out if you would like to learn more.