[darkside8]

Hi all,

I had my first therapy session last week and was asked at the end of the session to share the goals I would like to meet by the end of therapy. I shared things such as not to think so negatively, wake up feeling happier, get out of my head etc (I can see now that these are not very specific goals but rather they are possible results to more precise goals). Anyway, my therapist asked how my life would look if these goals were met - I struggled to answer this so she asked I think about it for our next session, which is tomorrow.

I have thought of saying that I would have more energy and interest to do more in my life, such as going out with friends and family without getting so stressed out, but not sure how else to answer this question. (I don't even know if that's what I want. It just seems the normal thing to want).

Have you been asked this question before? How have you answered it, or how would you?

[piggy momma]

My therapist has asked that exact question - right down to “how would your life be different?”

I hate having to make goals, and I tend to make them big, abstract, lifelong goals.

Back in September he asked me this again, and I decided to break it down into smaller chunks. I decided what I’d like to accomplish by the end of that semester - so by now, basically.

I found setting short term goals that build into long term goals easier to do and easier to measure. I was on disability so my goal was to go back to work by November which I did. I wanted to maintain my moods just until December, which I’ve done. I wanted to manage my time well and work on some specific things in therapy, which I did.

Not that December is over and I’ve met those goals, we’ll set some new ones for the end of April, and then some new ones for September.

I find breaking them down into three parts of the year so much easier than having a grand vision.

I am quite a goal-oriented person in general and setting goals comes easily to me. I was not asked but did it by myself. When I started the first therapy of my life with T1 though, I was generally doing quite well and went mostly out of curiosity and to see if therapy is something that could be useful to learn more about myself and for general self-improvement. I was also interested if I could learn more about my anxiety and procrastination tendencies. I did not have much more specific envisioned as the outcome than maybe reduced anxiety and increased discipline, and I was very open to exploring anything.

With T2, I started seeing him when I was in a relapse with my addiction that I could not end for ~2 months at the time. It caused my anxiety to skyrocket and I was not dealing with my responsibilities properly due to the drinking, it all made me very desperate. I told him in my fist contact email that I was seeking therapy to hopefully 1) help me stop drinking and stay sober long-term again, 2) work on my (mostly work and other practical tasks-related) anxiety, and 3) hoped that if I got 1+2 on track, it would lead to improvement in pretty much everything that plagued me at the time. So I envisioned staying sober (100% abstinent) stably again, developing better self-care and discipline to handle my life, and expecting my anxiety to decrease as a consequence of these.

I actually achieved the goals I set with T2 but can't say it was the result of therapy in any major way and it took longer than the time I stayed with the T. I was happy to see that my idea really worked in terms of getting back on track with sobriety and dealing with practical stuff more consistently and with better discipline solving most of what I considered issues. But I don't consider it as an outcome of therapy - I was working very hard during that time to get unstuck in many ways and introduced a lot of new strategies. I guess therapy helped a bit as a reminder that I had to continue working on my discipline regularly. It definitely helped to resolve another bad habit that I did not even set as a goal at start but eventually therapy by itself became a distracting and excessive habit, si I stopped it.