As the old year ends and a new year lies before you with blank pages and endless possibilities, your thoughts will most likely turn to personal goals for the new year. This is traditionally what people in Texas and others across the world do as well. Unfortunately, many of those people will quickly put what they planned aside. This happens for any number of reasons. The goals may have been too large, they may have seemed overwhelming, or there may have been no accounting factored into the equation. What is needed is the knowledge of how to set achievable goals. At Santé Center for Healing, we help you take a look at what you can do to help you set and achieve your mental health goals for the New Year. Life skills therapy can help. Therefore, call us at 866.238.3154 to learn more.
Limit the Number of Mental Health Goals for the New Year
Rather than make a long list of things you want to achieve in the new year, resist the temptation and limit yourself to no more than three. You don’t want to place unrealistic expectations on what you can achieve. Doing so just makes the inevitable failure that much harder to handle. Cycles of failure can cause people to give up setting goals entirely. You don’t want that!
These should be in categories such as physical well-being and especially mental health goals. In addition, you may have other personal goals such as financial or a fun goal like a planned vacation. When you have these goals, it becomes necessary to prioritize them.
Limiting the number of goals for the new year is very practical. By doing so, you give yourself the chance to approach them with confidence rather than feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work needed to accomplish them all. By seeking professional mental health services, you set yourself up for a greater chance of success.
Break Things Into Steps
A goal without a plan is merely a dream that remains a dream. Once you have your main goals, take the time to break them down into steps. Saying you want to feel better is much too vague. Make the goals more specific such as “I will get more physically fit” or “I will seek substance abuse treatment” or “I will seek life skills for addiction recovery.” Now, it is time to get even more specific. Take each goal and break it into 12 mini-goals that work toward the main goal.
For example, your goal might be, “I will start drinking eight glasses of water a day or exercise three days a week.” Each step will help move you toward your goal. By concentrating on the smaller goal, you have the chance to allow it to become a habit before moving on to the next step. You also give yourself a chance to experience many moments of success that will help keep you focused and motivated to continue. On some goals, you may even want to break the monthly goals into weekly ones. Through something like life skills therapy, you can learn to achieve these things more easily.
Set Up an Accountability System
This step requires that you open up and share your goals with at least one other person you feel you can trust to keep you motivated. Maybe the two of you can be each other’s accountability partners. Choose someone who will be willing to check in with you regularly and make a point of reaching out to report your progress. This person needs to be someone who can encourage you to keep going if you start to falter or even give you hints on how to stick with your plan.
You don’t want this person to turn into a rigid drill sergeant that berates you at every turn. However, you do want someone who won’t let me get away with bad behavior. In other words, someone who isn’t afraid to tell you to get off your rear and start making real progress.
Life Skills For Addiction Therapy Helps Make the New Year Better
If you are dealing with mental health issues that also involve substance abuse, this is the time to think about getting help from a mental health dual diagnosis treatment center as one of your personal goals for the new year. Give Santé Center for Healing a call at 866.238.3154 and see how we can help you reach that goal.
Our center in Texas will meet you on your healing journey and help you continue on your path. Let the new year become the beginning of a new life for you.