How To Set Your Therapy Goals

If you’re going to therapy, chances are, you want to improve your life and relieve your symptoms. And that’s a great step in the right direction. Psychotherapy can benefit just about anyone, with research suggesting that it teaches life skills that last beyond treatment.

Unfortunately, simply walking into a therapist’s office isn’t like waving a magic wand and — poof! — your problems are gone (if only!). Setting realistic therapy goals is a huge part of the equation. Coming up with things you want to accomplish in your therapy sessions can also ensure that you get the most out of your mental health therapy experience. 

But how do you know what goals to set? And how do you go about actually setting them? Ahead, we’ll walk you through some goal-setting tips and tricks, provide you with some example goals for therapy, and share general information about how to get the most out of therapy.

Whether you’re seeking help for anxiety, stress, depression, or difficulty focusing, or you’re going through a life change, setting treatment goals can enrich your therapy experience. This is partly because goals can help build trust and communication, two important elements of therapy.

So, what makes some goals more likely to lead to progress than others?

Studies have shown that setting specific and appropriately challenging goals can lead to better outcomes. A good way to set goals is with the SMART goal acronym in mind, which stands for goals that are: 

• Specific. Honing in on specific details can make a goal easier to tackle. 

• Measurable. Using specific metrics, like target timeframes or numbers, can help you keep track of your progress. For example, instead of saying, “I want to drink less,” you could say, “I will have two fewer drinks than normal this week.”

• Achievable. Start with smaller goals that you feel like you may realistically accomplish. Setting yourself up for success will allow you to celebrate little wins, which is a great way to stay motivated and work towards larger milestones. 

• Relevant. Make sure your goals align with your values and vision.  

• Time-bound. Set doable deadlines. You might consider a mix of short-term and long-term goals.

And with that, let’s talk about some strategies you can use to brainstorm your own goals for therapy.

1. Find Your “Why?”

Ask yourself: What made me want to get into therapy? 

Maybe you have a frustrating relationship with your family. Or perhaps work anxiety has gotten the best of you, and you need help preventing it from affecting your everyday life. Whatever your reason, it’s a good place to mine for goals. 

For example, if a tricky relationship with your family drove you to therapy, think about whether you want to work on being more patient with them or if you’d like to learn to set better boundaries.

If there was a trigger that inspired you to start therapy, it’s a natural next step to set therapy goals based on that. 

2. Be Realistic 

If you set goals for counseling, you want to accomplish them — right? So, it’s important to be fairly realistic and set achievable goals. 

Say you want to deal with your anxiety. It’s unrealistic to set the goal of never feeling anxious again. And if you do set that goal, you may end up giving up as it won’t feel attainable.

Instead, a more realistic goal would be to say that you’d like to lessen your anxiety around a specific topic. For example, maybe you want to feel less anxiety about giving presentations at work. Your therapist can hone in that as a short-term goal and help you develop tools to do just that. Even better would be to make the goal concrete, for example, “I want to be able to give a presentation at work without having anxiety affect my performance.”

Then, you can set new goals to tackle another anxiety-provoking scenario — and so on and so forth, until you start noticing global changes in your anxiety levels.

3. Focus on the Benefits

Research has found that you may be more likely to stick to a goal if an incentive is involved. So, when you set your goals, try to imagine what good things will happen when you accomplish them.

If you want to start dating again after a bad breakup, consider how fun it will be to meet interesting new people. Or, if you want to eliminate holiday-related stress, think about how great it will be to have a quiet, peaceful day.

Then, set the goal and engage in stress management counseling with your therapist. 

By considering the positive aspects of accomplishing a goal, you may be more motivated to set the goal and achieve it. 

4. Write Down Your Thoughts

Before meeting with your therapist, consider jotting down thoughts on what therapeutic goals you may want to focus on. This will help you gather your thoughts and really think about what specific goals you’d like to set. 

Then, when you show up to your therapy session, you and your provider can dive right in and start working on a plan to achieve your goals.

Aside from that, writing your goals down on paper may help keep you accountable and your intentions clear.

The goals you and your therapist develop will be specific to your symptoms, values, and treatment plan. But if you need a little inspiration, the common goals for counseling below may help you identify what you want to focus on or serve as a good jumping-off point for you and your therapist to address your concerns.

Work on Emotional Regulation 

Many people have trouble managing their internal reactions to external situations. Learning how to cope with emotions and better control them makes daily life much more manageable.

If this is one of your goals, a therapist can help you develop strategies — such as mindfulness techniques — to help you process your emotions in healthier ways.

Improve Self-Esteem

A therapist can help you figure out ways to change negative self-perceptions and build more self-compassion. Their approach may look different depending on what type of therapy you’re in.

For example, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help you improve negative self-talk. If the little voice in your head always puts you down, it can chip away at your self-esteem. A huge part of self-care is building up your self-image and quieting negative self-talk by challenging thought patterns and replacing them with healthier ones.

Build Healthier Habits

Some people enter therapy because they want to address and unlearn unhealthy habits. That said, habits can be hard to undo.

This is because, as research shows, certain environmental signals can prompt behaviors without us even really being aware of them. For example, when the clock strikes a certain hour, your body might start to crave whatever it associates with that time — whether it’s going to the gym or having a glass of wine.

Your therapist can identify certain environmental triggers and devise ways to help you break unhealthy habits.

Change Unproductive or Harmful Behavior 

Many of us engage in deep-seated behavioral patterns that aren’t serving us. Maybe you have a debilitating phobia, or you’re dealing with past trauma in a way that’s more harmful than helpful.

A therapist can talk through some of your behavioral patterns to help you figure out what needs to change. From there, they can also help you address underlying issues — like trust problems or insecurities, feelings of anger, shame, or fear, and more — that have led to unhealthy behaviors in your life.

Or, if you’re working with an exposure therapist, your goals will be built around conquering a specific fear or phobia by confronting it gradually and safely.

Become a Better Communicator 

Having strong communication skills can positively impact almost every facet of life, from work to relationships and beyond. Learning how to express your emotions effectively and calmly can improve how you feel on a daily basis. But it’s also easier said than done.

If this is something you want to work on, your therapist can help you zero in on a more specific and measurable goal around communication. From there, they can help you learn and practice your new skills — whether through dialogue or worksheets — to help you build better communication skills.

To set and achieve your therapy goals, it’s imperative that you have a therapist you trust.

The American Psychological Association emphasizes the quality of your relationship with a mental health care provider is crucial for achieving positive treatment outcomes, potentially even more so than the specific method of treatment used.

If you’re beginning to look for a therapist, consider what will make you feel most comfortable. Ask yourself things like:

• Would I feel most comfortable with a male or female provider?

• Would I feel most at ease talking to someone with the same ethnic background as me?

• Does the age of the provider matter to me?

Once you find someone you think you’ll have a good counseling relationship with, you can also ask them some questions, like:

• Can you go over your training with me? It may feel slightly uncomfortable to ask, but your potential therapist has probably heard it before. And it’s an important question. Hearing their qualifications may give you more security in knowing they have the training necessary to help you and are familiar with any mental health conditions you’re dealing with.

• What would my treatment with you be like? Understanding their methodology, how often you should attend therapy to meet your goals, and what happens in sessions can help you prepare and feel comfortable with the game plan.

• How do we determine if I’m making progress? If your goal is to, well, set goals, you need a way of quantifying whether you’re achieving them. Hearing how a potential therapist views this will tell you if their sensibility aligns with yours. 

These questions are just to get you started. You should feel comfortable asking any other therapy-related questions that come to mind. You should also pay attention to your gut feeling about the therapist. There needs to be good chemistry between the two of you, often referred to as a good “fit.” The best therapist in the world isn’t a good fit for every patient, so you need to ask yourself if you feel comfortable enough with this person to open up about some of the difficult things inside you. You might approach it in a way similar to buying a car - test drive a few models before deciding which one is right.

Something else to keep in mind is that you can have a touch base at any point with your therapist — not just when you first start seeing them. If you don’t understand something about your treatment or need a better grasp on treatment protocols or how your therapist approaches things, you can — and should — ask them. 

Social workers, licensed therapists, and other mental health professionals are accustomed to answering these questions — it’s part of the therapeutic process.

Whatever your specific issues, symptoms, or life goals are, addressing them in therapy can be useful. Here’s what to keep in mind as you set therapy goals:

• Setting therapy goals can make your sessions more fruitful and organized, and help you track your progress.

• Before you set your goals, identify your needs, values, and concerns. Try to be as realistic and honest as possible while you do so. Focusing on how great it will be once you accomplish your goals can also inspire you to actually set the goal and go after it.

• Creating SMART goals is an evidence-based approach to goal-setting. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-related. Writing them down never hurts, either!

• Once you set your therapy goals, your therapist will work with you to create an action plan and go through the therapeutic process of working to achieve them.

Whether you opt for online therapy or you’d prefer to meet in person, seeking goal-oriented treatment is a great first step in improving your mental health and overall well-being.

Ultimately, a therapist can help you understand yourself better and equip you with the right tools and techniques to put you on the path of self-improvement.