Category: goal-setting

New Year’s Resolutions

Christina Bruni3 Comments

I don’t ever make New Year’s resolutions.

One thing I like to do in January is spring cleaning. It’s the perfect time to donate a bag of items to the Salvation Army or charity of your choice.

A person should set goals at the time in their life that it makes sense to do so not because of a date on the calendar like January 1st.

For instance I joined a gym in March–at the start of spring. Spring is the season of rebirth and rejuvenation so if you ask me this is a great time to start taking action to achieve a goal.

Too often New Year’s resolutions are too vague or broad like “I want to lose weight.” Why do you want to lose weight and how much did you want to lose and what are the steps (sub-goals) you will take to accomplish this?

A goal should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-sensitive. You should give yourself what I call a “lifeline” for achieving a goal not an impossibly restrictive deadline.

It’s not the end of the world if you don’t achieve a goal by the time you wanted to make it happen. In this case you might have to change your goal or change what you do to achieve the goal. Sometimes abandoning a goal is what really makes sense.

For instance I wanted to take up running and I didn’t ever do this which is fine. I wanted to travel to Barcelona and I haven’t done this either.

One goal I absolutely did do when I was a young woman was to lose 20 pounds when I was overweight. You can click on my Nutrition category and Fitness category to read about how I did this.

I will talk about goal setting next in the context of mental health treatment.

Really any “treatment plan” should be a collaborative effort between you and your treatment provider not a goal that the doctor or therapist unilaterally foists on you.

2017 Blog Topics

Christina BruniLeave a comment

Each of us needs to be able to advocate for ourselves.

We need to dialogue with our treatment providers and to research, research, research our options.

In January I’d like to talk about goal-setting in here: the effective antidote to making New Year’s resolutions that don’t stick.

Setting treatment goals and setting life goals is something under our control.

It makes sense that we’re the only ones who at the end of the day have command over the goals we set.Our family our shrink and our therapist can and should be our most integral allies in helping us achieve our goals.

As peers too we should all be cheering each other on.

We should be happy when one of us is successful and sad when one of us has a setback. Yet either way the goal is to offer feedback and encouragement and–always–hope.

What zings you as something you’d truly passionately want to do and to achieve in 2017?

I recommend that all the ladies out there  buy the Michelle Phan book Makeup: Your Life Guide to Beauty, Style, and Success Online and Off.

Her book is written in an inspiring and down-to-earth voice. She’s still younger yet I’ve enjoyed reading her book.

I’m going to quote Michelle Phan so that hopefully you’ll go out and get the book:

“I didn’t want a safety net under me. I wanted to force myself to make this work.”

Working longer and harder to achieve a goal is often necessary for those of us living in recovery. Yet giving up or not even trying to begin with isn’t the answer.

We can give each other the hope that with courage, strength, and confidence we’ll be able to have our own version of a full and robust life.

For some of us that’s going to be going grocery shopping instead of going to McDonald’s. For others it’s going to be applying to college and taking one or two courses a semester.

Stay tuned for blog entries on goal-setting in January.