Perhaps the word ‘goals’ is enough is to make your body tighten up or to make your heart race or to make your hands feel sweaty.
But stay with me!
Goals are important in therapy so that we both know what we’re working on and to ensure that what we’re working on matters to you.
Setting goals is like setting a sat-nav to help you on your way to your destination.
In therapy, people tend to know what they DON’T want:
- I don’t want to be anxious
- I don’t want to be worried
- I don’t want to feel low
So, when it comes time to set goals, quite often it’s tempting to make variations of that:
- I want to be less anxious
- I want to be less worried
- I want to be happy
These might sound reasonable, but it’s hard to know if and when the goals have been achieved.
What do they really mean? And what do they really mean to YOU?
That’s what we need to know.
To bring the goals to life and make them more actionable, we need to make them SMART.
SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and relevant, and time managed:
Specific: I will do A thing.
Measurable: I will do A thing B times.
Achievable: I will do A thing B times with C resources.
Realistic & Relevant: I will do A thing B times with C resources so that D thing occurs.
Time-bound: I will do A thing B times with C resources in D way by E time.
To do this, start with your aim: I want to be less anxious.
Then ask yourself, what specifically would I do differently if I felt less anxious?
The answer could be: I would go to the gym class I’d been scared to try.
How many times would I go: I’d go to the gym class once per week.
How possible is this: I have a gym membership, a pair of trainers, and time available to go to the gym class once per week.
How relevant: Going to the gym class once per week is relevant to me because I care about my health, and I know that exercise is good for taking care of health and combatting anxiety and would provide a sense of enjoyment and connection.
When will this happen: I’ll start going to the gym class this week and I’ll maintain it every week for at least 1 month.
So there we have it, we’ve transformed the broad aim of feeling less anxious into an actionable SMART goal.
SMART goals fill in the blanks: ‘If I felt X, then Y would change’.
Here are some examples of more SMART goals:
- ‘Less anxious’: I will attend a weekly Spanish class once per week on Wednesday evenings for one year.
- ‘Less worried’: I will wear my pink suit to work on Friday for the big team meeting.
- ‘Happier’: I will make contact with my friends on Saturday to arrange a get-together.
Perhaps what would change for you is reading, meditation, a new sport or hobby, arts and crafts, putting yourself forward for promotion, speaking in meetings, wearing new outfits, changing career, trying dating apps, arranging social events, telling people how you feel.
What would change for you?
Therapy with Kirsty 