Goals are about wanting. You want to travel. That is a start, delivery of your supplies, now you have to check your tools and then build something with that lumber

Tools: What does travelling need? Time, money, direction (where to?) means (airline, bus, train, boat tickets), ability to communicate along the way

What are you going to build and how are you going to go about it? Well, you want to see April in Paris but don't know much French so you'll do a one week trip to Quebec next month, see how that goes and maybe take a continuing ed class in French from your local community college. You figure you need another $500 so you'll take a part-time, evening/weekend job at a Mall store over Christmas, if you clear $50/wk., you have to work at least 10 weeks (2-1/2 months) so you need to apply now. You'll skip the Quebec trip, check the scheduling on working and taking a French class and maybe switch to a good French course on CD's that you can listen to driving to/from your regular job.

You just put together a plan based on what you want with what you need to get what you want and play with the pieces until it looks like it will work.

What does "getting better" mean to you? You have to have the specific want before you can explore the tools you need? Say you are depressed.

You want to feel better, less depressed.

Tools: Meds, therapy, better lifestyle/habits, more/better support/friends (less sad and lonely)

Don't want meds, no money for therapy, that leaves better lifestyle/habits, more/better support/friends (less sad and lonely).

For more/better support/friends (less sad and lonely) one has to go out and "find" people. I like to read, I'll go to the library, see if there are any local reading groups and/or interesting community handout newspapers listing classes and other groups I might be interested in.

For lifestyle/habits: I'm having difficulty with my sleep habits, I'll start a simple diary of my meds/OTC vitamins and drugs and when I take them, how I'm feeling; I'll work on going to bed the same time each night and getting up the same time each morning; getting at least 5 fruits and vegetables a day and paying attention to my water intake, caffeine (lessen), pay attention to bowel habits (drinking too much too late in the day so wake to pee and not getting adequate dietary fiber so going to the bathroom irregularly), I'll start doing some stretching and simple exercising and make sure I go out and take a 10 minute walk at least once a day.

Or: I belong to an online group where I can do my food/exercise tracking and talk with others about problems I am having similar to theirs (aging, arthritis) and keep a health blog there too. Getting involved in something (my health) is a very good way to help lessen depression.

Look at what you want, and what you need and work on gathering what you need so you can go after what you want effectively. If you want more friends, you have to go to where there are people; a class, hobby, public interactive event/volunteer, a job at a large organization that has extracurricular events of its own (softball/bowling team :-)