Month: January 2021

Goal setting is vital to your mental health. If you have no direction, this can greatly increase feelings of depression, hopelessness, and anxiety.

I know that goal setting can be a challenge for some people and some people even feel that it is altogether not right for them. I hope this post helps alleviate some common worries people have around goal setting.

Goal exploration and choosing goals for mental health

Before you begin setting goals, it is a good idea to examine what is important to you so that the goals you set are relevant to your desires in life. There are a few things to think about with this.

First of all, think about where you see yourself five or even ten years from now. What kind of life is this future you living? If that’s too far into the future to think about, then try thinking about one year in the future.

Second, have you considered goals for different aspects of your life? I tend to base my goals off a welless wheel with seven dimensions. These dimensions are:

• Physical
• Social
• Spiritual
• Environmental
• Intellectual
• Occupational
• Emotional

However, you may also create your own categories as you see fit. While it is okay to have the categories not in perfect balance, you can’t let any of the categories slide too far before it starts to impact you negatively. This does not mean you need to set a goal in each category, but you do need to be attending to all of them on a regular basis. You can do this with habits, which we will talk about later.

If this seems like an overwhelming amount of stuff to think about, I really suggest journaling it out. This should help you gain some clarity around what is important to you and what is not.

You can also try another fun journaling exercise to get clear on your goals. Essentially, you just write about your day as if you are the future you who has reached your goals. Write about what you would do every day and what you don’t do anymore. This one can be really eye-opening.

When you feel like you are ready to choose your goals, please remember that you don’t have to do everything at once. It is a better idea to choose 1-3 goals to work on at a time. The specific number will depend on how much time you have to devote to those goals right now and in the near future, how your mental health is doing, and how big each goal is.

You also want to make sure the goals you are choosing are something you have significant control over. One example of a goal you don’t have much control over would be winning the lottery. It would be better to set a goal where you are in the driver’s seat.

Milestones

Milestones are sort of like mini goals that make up your bigger goal. It is common to have monthly and/or quarterly milestones for your goals.

For example, maybe you’re planning a wedding. Your milestone for the first month might be to find a location for the wedding.

Milestones are important for a few reasons.

First, they keep you on track to reach your goal. If you have a long-term goal, this can be especially important since many of us have a tendency to procrastinate.

Second, they allow you to check in with your progress along the way and reward yourself.

Third, they help you plan to ensure that you have enough time set aside to reach your goal.

Habits

Habits are things you can do at regular intervals (meaning daily, weekly, etc.) that move you closer to your goals. Now that you have established a goal or two, let’s think about what you can do regularly to achieve that goal.

For example, if one of your goals is to write a novel this year, perhaps your habit could be to spend one hour per day writing. It could also be to write a certain number of words per day.

You can have multiple habits for the same goal as well. Maybe in addition to your hour per day writing, you also have a weekly research session to research anything you need for upcoming scenes you plan to write the following week.

You can also have habits in areas of your life where you don’t have a specific large goal to work on right now. One example of this could be in the social category. Maybe you make a habit of reaching out to a friend once a week to stay in touch even though you don’t have a specific goal in this area. This is a way you can balance the different dimensions of wellness without overloading yourself with too many goals.

Reward yourself

An important part of setting goals is deciding how you will reward yourself upon completion. There is a vast array of possibilities for this, which makes it possible to customize it to fit your needs.

Maybe you’ll reward yourself by buying yourself that new pair of shoes you’ve been wanting or a new game that just came out. Just make sure the reward isn’t something that you’ve already decided you’re getting either way.

This isn’t to say you can’t do nice things for yourself if you aren’t reaching your goals, but I am suggesting you only have the specific reward you choose if you reach your goal.

You can also use rewards for your milestones and/or for completing a habit for a certain amount of time. For example, if your goal for the year is to write a novel and your goal for the month is to write 15,000 words of that novel, it would still be appropriate to reward yourself at the end of the month if you wrote 15,ooo words. Likewise, if you plan to write an hour per day and do that for a week, perhaps you’ll give yourself a small reward.

Recap: Goal setting for mental health

Goals can improve your mental health by giving you a direction and something to strive for in life. Often, part of depression is feeling hopeless and lost in life. Goals can help with that.

Make sure you brainstorm ideas for 1-3 goals to work toward at a time. They should be aligned with what you want out of life. It’s important to not overwhelm yourself with too many goals.

Milestones can help you plan ahead, reward yourself, and keep on track to reach your goal.

Habits are things you do at regular intervals (daily, weekly, etc.) that help you to either reach your larger goals or to take care of other areas of your life.

Rewarding yourself for reaching your goals is an important part of the process. It helps motivate you when you may be struggling to find the internal motivation on some days.

Goals have vastly improved my mental health, even though I don’t always reach them. I love to dream big and have stretch goals while also maintaining more realistic expectations of myself.

Allow yourself to dream.

Until next time,

Danna