Goals need to be contrasted with your wishes and the obstacles in reality in order to better motivate you to act.
Combine wish, outcome, obstacle, and plan to form a thinking habit of clarifying the wish, imagining the outcome, considering obstacles, and making a plan.
First, clarify your wish: choose something you believe you can achieve, rather than a fantasy. It could be finishing a task today, achieving something a year from now, reaching a certain sales target this month, or gaining a certain amount of wealth within a few years. But keep in mind that each whoop should focus on just one wish; otherwise, your actions may become disorganized and you may feel pulled in different directions.
Then imagine the outcome—that is, picture as vividly as possible what things will look like once your wish comes true. If you want a promotion and a raise, imagine yourself sitting in your own office with a high-end laptop, and finally having subordinates who can take care of the specific tasks you find frustrating but have to do now. The more concrete the outcome you imagine, the more it can motivate you to act. It’s a bit like the law of attraction.
Next, think about obstacles—the key factors that could stop you from achieving your wish. This means considering what might get in your way, including specific behaviors like habitually coasting through life and eating junk food, or emotional states like losing interest after three minutes or being so exhausted every day that you eventually give up. Also consider foreseeable external influences, such as the opinions of people around you and interference from competitors. Think of as many as you can. You may find that the obstacles are greater than expected and feel like giving up, but I think this is the most important step: the more potential obstacles you identify, the better equipped you’ll be to overcome them. If you don’t anticipate obstacles, you may be unprepared when they suddenly appear, leaving you vulnerable to a surprise setback. Being mentally prepared makes it less likely that an obstacle will hit you hard when it arises. And many of the obstacles you worry about may never materialize; that can make the process of achieving your wish go more smoothly than expected, or help offset some unforeseen surprises. Of course, I’m not telling you to blindly charge into a brick wall. If the obstacles are simply too great, reassess whether the wish is realistic. If it isn’t, choose a different wish.
Finally, make a plan. This plan is not an ordinary goal-achievement plan, but a contingency plan for overcoming the obstacles you've anticipated. If the previous step was gaining mental preparation for obstacles on a psychological level, then this step is about formulating targeted measures to resolve obstacles on an execution level. For example, say you want to learn a side-hustle skill, but the obstacles are feeling exhausted after work every day or having no time due to overtime. Then you can create if-then plans targeting these obstacles: if I feel tired when I get home, then I'll take a hot shower to quickly recover my energy. If overtime leaves me no time, then when applying for time off in lieu, I'll take half a day to make up the missed lessons.
The above is just an example—you need to see what contingency plans you set for yourself to be most effective for you. Mindset can support your actions, but it doesn't determine your results. Wishes that are easy to achieve aren't very appealing anyway. Wishes that aren't easy to achieve are inherently full of difficulties, so the probability of success is naturally low, and those who succeed are the minority.