As promised, here is the stuff about values and goals that I've been learning/reading about. (I'm hoping that the mods don't move this thread because I don't find the psychotherapy forum safe.)

Values are "our heart's deepest desires" and leading principles that guide and motivate us: how we want to be, what we want to stand for and how we want to relate to the world.

"He who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how" - Friedrich Nietzsche

I found this worksheet helpful to discovering my values:

http://www.thehappinesstrap.com/upim...stionnaire.pdf

Once you have your values, you can compare your current life to your values and see where you have work to do. Then you come up with goals. Goals are a desired outcome that can be achieved/completed and they should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-focused. You start by thinking of a long term goal for a few years down the line, and break this down into steps needed to take to achieve that goal, right down to something small that you can do starting this week to start the path towards achieving that goal. The book suggests focusing on one domain at a time, so rank the value domains in order of which is most important to focus on first. However working on one domain often improves the other domains.

The book also points out the importance of not making goals that dead people can do better that you! Anything that is to stop doing something or never do something is considered a dead person's goal e.g. 'never eat chocolate again' or 'never be depressed again'. They suggest turning the goal into a live person's goal e.g. instead of 'never smoke again' think about what it is you would rather do instead of smoking, such as take a 15 min walk, so instead of smoking you will go for a walk instead. And the important thing is to not beat yourself up if you don't succeed. If you are trying to eat healthier but eat an entire bar of chocolate, don't think 'I'm such a failure' and drown your sorrow with a binge of junk food. Instead think 'ok it would've been better if I hadn't eaten all of that chocolate bar, but I'm just going to try again and continue working towards eating healthier' etc.

The book is 'The Happiness Trap' by Russ Harris, who incidentally uses ACT for psychosis in Australia. I bought the book for about £7 on amazon. I've only read the values & goals bit cos I promised you guys, but the book is easy to read (important to me cos I find reading hard) and uses examples of other people, which I find helpful.

The guy also has a list of worksheets on his website to go along with the book:

http://www.thehappinesstrap.com/upim...sheets.pdf.pdf

Hope you guys find this helpful

*Willow*