How Goals Help Mental Health

Setting goals can help important life milestones throughout your years, but it also has additional benefits to your mental health! Goals not only help you create a tentative plan of what you would like to happen but it also gives you something to look forward to, boosts your self confidence, and helps with problem solving skills. Not only this but if you’re struggling with your mental health and you feel as if nothing is getting better, setting a goal to work towards may help with some of those feelings of distress and discouragement.

Goals and Mental Health

One thing that goals can help with in your mental health is providing a sense of security and direction. It’s important that when you’re creating goals to be honest with yourself and make them attainable. If you’re someone who has struggled with depression for years, it may be an unrealistic goal to say it will disappear tomorrow. However, following the S.M.A.R.T goal rubric can help guide you along your way in making healthy goals for yourself. 

The S.M.A.R.T goal model has helped millions of people, and it’s for good reason! The following is how it should be looked at: 

S : Specific 

M : Measurable 

A : Achievable 

R : Realistic 

T : Timely 

These are the main components for successful goal setting. Applying these principles to either your mental or emotional wellbeing can be a great way to keep yourself accountable. Learning how to set mental health goals or goals in general can be challenging at first, but by learning from experience and continuous practice, you’ll be an expert in no time.  

What Is A Good Mental Health Goal? 

You may be asking, what does a  good mental health goal look like? This will be different to everyone in accordance with your needs and wants but it’s vital to remember the main components of what helps your mental health. Is this self care? Going for walks? Scheduling an appointment with a therapist? Whatever that looks like for you, creating smaller goals leading up to the “big” one will give you great value in the end.  

Benefits of Setting Goals 

The benefits you will gain from setting goals will vary depending on what the goal is for, regardless, there is a baseline that you can get no matter the goal you set. For example, you may notice an increase in your productivity, confidence, a more positive mindset, and a new found motivation that may have been lacking before. For your mental health, these are things that can make all the difference in your daily life and eventually your happiness. 

At Eva Carlston Academy, we employ the S.M.A.R.T goal model and teach our students what it looks like to have goals in your life and in your mental health journey. We’ve noticed a great increase in our students’ mental health along with their ability to take responsibility for what they want in the future. Setting goals can be beneficial at any age or at any point in your life. This is the main reason anyone from a mental health professional to a business entrepreneur suggests setting goals and sticking to them!