[del12]

I was wondering what is the best way to set goals for one's therapy. Last week my T and I talked about setting goals. I think I know what I need to work on, but writing down all the improvements I want to make seems a bit overwhelming. Is there a let's start life over goal? just kidding. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them. Thank you!

[lifelesstraveled]

(((del12))))

I have been wondering the same thing...T and I went over my goals when I first started seeing her...

I still have NO clue...I don't even know where to start when trying to figure out my goals...for me i think my main goal is trying to improve my quality of life (finding things I like to do and doing them instead of engaging in self destructive behavior, stopping my drinking, getting a support network/forming better relationships, reducing my anxiety, reversing the negative thinking patterns I have about myself etc...) as you can see the list goes on and on and like you I am not even sure WHERE to start. I told T everything just seems like one tangled mess and I don't know where I need to start first, but I guess that is where T comes in.....

I'd say make a short list first of about 3 things to work on...for me it was finding something I love (photography), getting out more either with friends or by myself and learning out to reduce anxiety(this one I am still working on). my next few goals now are learning to open up more--starting with T, allowing myself to FEEL my feelings and know its OKAY and reversing my negative thinking patterns I have about myself. These three are the hardest for sure...

Im sorry this probably isnt much help, but just know you are not alone in trying to figure out your goals for therapy...I say tell your T you are not sure where to start and I am pretty sure she will help you that is what she is there for

[mightaswelllive]

Goals are so hard!! There are so many ways to do them. This is what works for me...

I find it helpful to start with a list of more abstract issues.

Issues:
-Relationships
-Panic Attacks
-Body Image
-etc

After that I go through and I make 2 lists of goals for each of the issues. The first list is of things that I need to resolve/talk about and the second list includes things that I can measure a difference with.

So for relationships it would be..

Things I need to resolve/talk about:
-Where the issues came from
-Get over ex
-Feel comfort in social situations
-etc

Things that I can measure:
-Go out with current friends at least once a week
-Talk to at least 3 strangers every week
-Make eye contact and smile when passing coworkers
-etc

And then I would do the same for panic attacks, body image, etc

Another way you can make goals is to think about what you want to do in the long term and then what you want to do in the short term. Sometimes it helps to make long term goals first and then base the short term goals off of what you're hoping for the future. If you're not sure what you want to do later - sometimes it helps to base the long terms goals off of what you're doing right now.

Whatever way you choose to do it.. just make sure that the goals you are setting are your goals and not your lovers or your fathers or your sisters or whatever. And in contrast - make sure that your goals aren't for other people. Just remember therapy is for you to improve yourself and not for others to improve you or you to improve others.

I hope this helps a little.

[chaotic13]

I've had many different types of goals.

I often start with:
I would like to be able to....
I would like to be better at...

I went into therapy this time with goals of improving self-esteem, figuring out why I overdo (overeat, overdrink, overspend), and improving relationships. I discussed these goals with my T in the first session, and then I recently brought them up again - I said that I felt they were too generic, but she thought they were good and that we were right on target. I think it's good practice to continue to revisit your goals - I can see myself making them more specific and adding action items to them as we go deeper in therapy.

Good luck, del!

[sunrise]

My goal when I went to therapy with my current T was to get unstuck. I was stuck and could not move forward with my life, which meant getting a divorce. I was terrified of all that--just the thought of telling my H I wanted a divorce totally panicked or froze me. So we worked in therapy on getting unstuck. This involved doing a lot of work on past trauma because T said that was why I was stuck. It's been a long road, over 2.5 years and I have definitely gotten unstuck and made a huge amount of progress on my divorce. We are not done yet with the D, but almost.

T and I talk occasionally about life goals rather than therapy goals. We talked about this almost a year ago and T wanted to know what I was going to work on in my life, what I was going to do and be. I thought and said what I most wanted to work on was my relationship with my daughter. So T helped me get started with that by hooking me up with a colleague of his who is a family therapist who works with teens. My D and I did family therapy with him for about 9 months and just ended therapy. We made some important gains and will keep the work up on our own. So now, I am wondering, what is the next goal I will attack in my life? And when I define that, I will see if T can help with it.

[Sannah]

I started with the most pressing issue at that moment. I most of the time just worked on one thing at a time. I didn't switch to a new topic once the first one was solved completely. I switched once I worked it all I could at that point. Most issues need to be worked on again another round or so.

I broke things way down to their basics. The basics that I worked on were self worth, boundaries, expressing feelings (past and present), social skills, empowerment/control over my life, living in the moment, anxiety/triggering..........

[del12]

Thanks everyone. All of your insights really helped now I just have to sit down and write them out. Why is it so difficult and is a bit scary!

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by del12

Why is it so difficult and is a bit scary!

The unknown? Fear of failure?