GOAL-SETTING – HOW IS YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION?
Posted by Improving Lives Counseling | Articles
A list is made, resources assembled, dates and times established. This year will be different; this time you will succeed. If you are in the 8%, perhaps. Science reports 92% of people don’t achieve their goals, see their visions fail, and live with unfulfilled dreams. Despite these numbers, people are sharing mission statements, implementing visions, and setting goals for 2017. “If you build it, they will come”; whether fact or myth, each new year breeds new intentions. Ambitions are immersed in “doing the same thing and expecting different results.” Society advocates the essence of the mission – planning ahead, visualizing accomplishments, and attracting success. Yet, plans fail, excuses are made, commitment fades, and credibility is lost; disappointment and frustration set in.
Does this mean we should forgo resolutions?
No. Any goal critical enough to want to achieve is going to be difficult. Achieving goals, seeing a vision, and/or fulfilling a dream requires a specific mindset. In the art of goal setting, psychologists Ken Sheldon and Tim Kasser found, “people who are mentally healthy and happy have a higher degree of ‘vertical coherence’ – the achievement of short-term goals leads to the success of long-term goals.” Through motivational interviewing, motivating change, and exploring and resolving doubt, the counselors and therapists of Improving Lives Counseling Services provide the tools and skills needed to develop the goal-setting mindset.
Goal setting can be a source of conflict.
Poor skills lead to unrealistic choices and continued failures. Self-esteem, self-worth, and motivation shrink when desired levels of success are not achieved. Identifying a desired goal or behavioral change can be challenging. You set a goal to be on time, ending a pattern of tardiness, yet fail to identify the passive-aggressive motivation spurring the behavior. Consistent tardiness can be motivated by a disorder. Until the behavior disorder is diagnosed and treated, the goal will fail.
Goal Setting Therapy helps in the sustainable coherence of goal setting and the development of SMART goals:
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. New goals are developed, old ones changed, realities tested, and accountability introduced. Exclusivity in the coherence of goal setting is evidenced in the finding that it is “a motivational technique associated with performance and routine. Therapy offers a new outlook, a valuation of commitment, and a way of providing assessment and measuring progress in a trusting therapeutic setting.
Setting goals is a way to enact the changes people want in their lives.
Lifetime, long-term, or short-term; outcome, performance, process, or therapeutic, Improving Lives Counseling Services can help. Setting and achieving goals in all walks of life is crucial toward living the life you were meant to live. New Year’s Resolutions involve behavioral change. How are you doing with yours? Call us to learn more about the benefits of goal setting therapy.
