Goal Setting: A Creative and holistic view
“A goal without a plan is only a dream.” – Brian Tracy, Motivational Speaker
What is goal setting and why is it important in the context of counseling and in your daily life?
Goal setting is when you are able to identify or imagine a desired outcome of something you want to work towards, improve, or achieve. Goals are important to set because they help us stay on track and motivated, and they help us clarify what we are actually striving towards. Goal setting in counseling with your therapist is common practice as it gives you and your therapist the ability to track tangible and realistic goals for therapy. When we set goals with our clients, we are able to name objectives that will help the client reach their goals, like stepping stones toward the goal, as well as therapeutic interventions that can help the client meet and maintain their goals. Some of examples of goals one may have (in or out of therapy) could include:
· Make new friends
· Buy a new car
· Workout three times a week
· Fight less with your partner
· Learn how to sew
· Increase your self-esteem
· Get a Bachelor's degree
· Decrease nicotine or other substance intake
· Experience less anxiety
· Increase the amount in your savings account
Different Types of Goals
Goals can be short term or long term; meaning you can have a goal for next week and you can have a goal for the next ten years. In addition to the difference between short term and long-term goals, we can also have different goals for the different areas of our life. We are encompassed by eight different areas of wellness that include physical, emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual, occupational, environmental, and financial (Stoewen, 2017). In terms of goal setting, we can use these eight areas of wellness to help us identify goals that fall underneath each category. As dynamic beings, it is important to look at our lives holistically because we are not merely defined by one area of our life. For example, an intellectual goal could be learning a new language such as Spanish, but it may have an occupational and financial impact because you could end up earning a raise at work due to a new skill. Additionally, someone focusing on a physical goal of getting more sleep each night, could experience unexpected gains in one’s spiritual and emotional dimensions: perhaps the increased sleep results in more brain space to consider “higher level” needs, such as spiritual and emotional growth.
The use of Vision Boards in Goal Setting
Vision Boards are an assembly of pictures and words that include objects, places, people, colors, or things that show or represent goals and visions for yourself. Vision boards are a way to creatively explore what you are wanting to achieve, physically or digitally. Sometimes we do not know what our goals are yet, and that is okay! It can take some personal exploration to identify what is missing from your life or what is not serving you anymore (therapy helps with this, too!). With creative expression, vision boards can help goals and visions come into awareness. In my personal experience, the best way to make a vision board is to choose words and things that simply catch my attention without deeper thought until the end. Once I have gathered the parts of my vision board, I analyze what this means for me. What is missing from my life that I have chosen for my vision? What do the themes tell me that I am wanting more of? What words are in it and how do I interpret them? What do I need to do to achieve this? In the end, vision boards are a fun way to visually see an end goal to keep yourself motivated. As always, there is not a right or wrong way to do this. Give yourself the grace and permission to be creative during this process. Wouldn’t it be fun thing to bring to a therapy session to discuss with your therapist?! Some vision board’s themes could be:
· What I want my mental health to look or feel like
· What I want my relationships to look or feel like
· What I want my future house to look like
· What I want my year to look like
· What I want my life to look like
· A combination of the above, and more!
The use of Journaling in Goal Setting
Journaling is another tool to help with manifesting goals. Journaling is a technique that helps people track different experiences in their life. In terms of goals, journaling can first help you process what your goals and visions are as writing freely provokes thought and emotion! Once goals are identified, goals can help you track your progress by logging steps and obstacles faced. This can be important if you ever feel discouraged and need to see physical evidence of challenges you have overcome and how far you have already come.
Counseling and Mental Health Goals
If you have ever been to counseling, it is extremely likely that your counselor asked what brought you to counseling and what you hope to achieve while you are there, or some version of that. This conversation helps us start to identify goals. In the therapeutic relationship, we collaboratively identify goals together while taking into consideration every area of your life (think the eight dimensions of wellness). We will look at which of your strengths would be helpful in reaching your goals, and explore any barriers that might have kept you from reaching them in the past. Counseling is here because we as humans were not made to go through hard things alone. As counselors, we help you become more healthy versions of yourself, and we are always rooting for you to reach and maintain your goals! If this sounds like something you want to dive into, reach out to schedule an intake session with me. I would love to meet you and hear about your goals!
References:
Perry, E. (2023). What are vision boards & how to create one and ideas to get started. BetterUp. https://www.betterup.com/blog/how-to-create-vision-board
SAMHSA. (n.d). How do the eight dimensions of wellness affect your life? https://www.goiam.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/New-Eight-Dimensions-of-Wellness.pdf
Stoewen, D. L. (2017). Dimensions of wellness: Change your habits, change your life. The Canadian Veterinary Journal, 58(8), 861-862. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5508938/