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hey there everybody and welcome back to the addiction and mental health Disorders Treatment
manual I'm your host Dr Donnelly Snipes today we're talking about setting specific smart goals
in this section we're going to identify the purpose of setting goals and then discuss
what smart goals really are so why do you care well goal setting is an integral part
of behavior change if you don't set goals you don't know what you're working toward so goal
setting gives you something to look forward to goal setting is something you do every day
you probably set goals in the morning for what you're going to accomplish you set goals at the
gym you set goals at work and they help keep you motivated and they help keep you on track
unfortunately ineffective goals can have a negative impact on your self-esteem if you
set a lot of goals but they're not effective goals they're not good goals they're not set
correctly then you may not achieve your ultimate goals then you start feeling hopeless and hopeless
so let's start out with a simple activity to see how good you are at goal setting
write out instructions for for how to do laundry and give it to somebody who doesn't know how
to do laundry or pretend they don't know how to do laundry this may take about 20 minutes
once you do that then review and see how complete were your instructions
did you remember to tell the person to sort their clothes did you remember to tell them to look at
the tags for care instructions make sure you're not going to dry something that's made of wool
did you explain how to choose which temperature how much detergent to use or how to handle stains
and heavily soiled laundry there's a lot of stuff that if you're doing it all the time
you may take for granted and there's a lot of little steps that you may Overlook that make
a big difference in how your laundry turns out the same thing is true for your recovery
so what are goals and why do we set them well problems are the overarching reason that you
probably begin to do something or probably begin to set a goal you're like okay I don't like
where I'm at right now or I don't want to be here anymore I want to be over here how do we get there
goals are broad abstract Solutions a lot of times where a person says okay
I am unhealthy I want to be healthier I am depressed that's the problem the
goal is I want to be happy or I have an addiction and I want to get sober
goal setting helps provide that road map with checkpoints just like doing the laundry where
you had a checklist if you do this then this then this when you set goals you have those checkpoints
along the way so you can actually see your progress and that helps you feel more empowered
and that helps you feel like you're actually moving forward even if those steps are small
so I mentioned we would talk about what smart goals are and smart goals aren't
just choosing the right goal smart stands for specific measurable achievable realistic
and relevant and time limited for so specific means that you are actually defining something
that you're going to do it's not this broad abstract thing like I'll be happier well okay
let's get a little bit more specific what does that look like measurable you're going
to be able to see or note measure a difference when I was working in Community Mental Health
we would have audits the Auditors would come in and look at our charts to see if our clients were
progressing in their treatment we had to have measurable goals so they could come in without
talking to the people and say yes it looks like Jim Bob is progressing or no Jim Bob's been doing
the same thing for the past six months and doesn't seem to be getting any better achievable is also
important we need to make sure that the goals are not too big or not achievable for example
at my age is it realistic and achievable for me to go back to medical school yeah probably not
could I do it yeah but I'd be you know really old by the time I got out so that might not be
something that's achievable in my particular lifetime at this point in terms of recovery
if somebody has schizophrenia for example if they set a goal to get rid of their schizophrenia
that's not achievable we know that schizophrenia has to do with structural issues in the brain
therefore they can get their schizophrenia in remission but they're not going to get rid of it
and finally time limited we only have so much time we can go doing something that is difficult
before we need a reward when you start pushing it too far we go into what's called Behavior
strain and your motivation starts to kind of dwindle so it's important to make sure
that each goal is time limited so you're very frequently stopping looking noting your progress
and getting some sort of reinforcement or reward for the changes that you've made
it's also helpful to phrase your goals as adding a positive instead of removing a negative if the
problem is depression then the goal would be happiness so I want to be happier so
ask yourself if I'm not X or if I don't have this problem what I am I or what's different
possible goals people may choose to start with when they're starting to set specific measurable
achievable realistic time limited goals I want to have more energy I want improved sleep I want
to have reduced pain or improved health I want to have reduced Cravings yeah I know
that one is a negative but I couldn't think of a positive for that one I'll feel happier more
empowered and content I'll have better control of my emotions I.E fewer meltdowns I'll have
better control of my thoughts fewer ruminations fewer intrusive thoughts better concentration
I'll have improved problem solving more optimism improved self-esteem or improved assertiveness and
communication skills all of these are goals that or sub goals of the recovery process the recovery
process getting happier and sober if you will well that's great but there are a lot of goals that you
need to achieve along the way there's a lot of different things you need to do so instead of
having this recovery out here that you're probably not going to achieve for a while we want to have
goals that you can achieve in a shorter period of time that help you move toward that larger goal
so let's do an example what's the overall goal for treatment well in this example we're going to
use the problem as depression and my goal to feel happier I want to feel happier emotions most days
so what does that look like in order to be measurable you know if somebody
came and looked at me and said are you happier than you were yesterday
who knows you know that's a very vague concept I might even have difficulty going well I don't
know if I'm happier than I was yesterday or not so we're going to identify observable targets
How will I know when I'm happier physically I will have more energy to do stuff and will be eating
healthier so I might lose some weight okay that's observable effectively or emotionally I will feel
I'm hopeful and empowered and will not mind getting out of bed okay that's those things can
be answered with yes or no do you feel hopeful do you feel empowered did you mind getting out of bed
cognitively I will be able to concentrate better and relationally I'll have more
energy and desire to nurture my relationships which will give me support and encouragement
so I've identified some things that are going to be different once I'm happier that way I
have targets that I can look at and I can say yes I've achieved that yes this is starting to happen
so spend about 10 minutes and identify a goal that you want to start working on and
you can go back to this one back here more energy improved sleep reduced cravings and just pick one
and then identify physically what will be different when you have achieved that goal
affectively or emotionally how will you feel different when you've achieved that goal
cognitively what will be different about your attitude your concentration or your ruminations
and relationally how will your relationships change when you've achieved that goal
okay so once you have sort of defined what that's going to look like then we've then we
need to say how do we get there so you're going to learn about your overall problem
and the goal so you're going to learn about what causes depression What treatments are out
there for depression what can I do to address my depression you know it's important to know
what's causing the problem just like when your car goes on the fritz or you get sick knowing what's
causing the problem helps us figure out how to treat it but it's also important to identify
the solution how are we going to know when you've achieved Your solution if you've got
the flu then one of the benchmarks for Recovery is your fever is gone you're back to 98.6 so one
of the benchmarks for depression uh or for moving towards happiness is more energy that was one of
the things that we defined so physically does the person have more energy does the person
um well we'll stick with that for right now and then you're going to learn about your symptoms
causes and triggers for the problem and the goal so the problem is in this particular
instance depression so what are your symptoms of depression what does depression look like for you
what causes those symptoms for you and what triggers your depression and causes and
triggers can kind of be the same thing sometimes but it's important to identify what is going
on that is leading you to feel depressed it's also important for you to look at the solution
and and you started identifying this in the last activity what are your symptoms of Happiness when
you're happy what will that look like physically affectively cognitively relationally and what
triggers those things in you what triggers your happiness because it's not just about
eliminating the things that cause depression it's also about adding things that promote happiness
identify ways to address your specific problem the symptoms the causes and the triggers
and then pick one way one thing you're going to start doing today to address two of your
two or three of your specific symptoms a lot of times there is one thing that you can do that
will address a lot of different things like when you're sick one thing you can do is get
plenty of rest that's going to help address um a lot of the symptoms that are going on
so pick one thing that you're going to do whether it's um to address your your affect your mood or
your concentration or your energy whatever it is what is it that you're going to start doing today
spend 30 minutes using the goal you identified already whatever goal you picked
describe the general and specific things you already know about that goal
or about that problem and that goal what causes it for you and what your symptoms are and what do you
still need to learn maybe you've had depression all your life and you have no idea what causes
it you know what your symptoms are and you know some of the things that make it worse for you but
you don't really understand what's causing it okay so that's something you may need to learn