Getting In Alignment for the New Year

The turning of a year is a great opportunity to take an inventory of where you are, what you’re experiencing, and where you want to get with it.

Today, I want to share a goal-setting process I use in my life any time I feel like some kind of change is needed. I also use it in just about every client session, both at the start of treatment and periodically along the way. This creates a sweet synergy; using a tool yourself is the best way to learn what it takes to actually apply it.

Step 1: Ask yourself: In the new year, what would I like to be experiencing that’s different from what I’m experiencing now?

Take a little time with this question; there’s no rush. Let yourself feel your way into it.

Step 2: Lean in: What would this different experience look like? Feel like? Sound like? Why is it worthwhile to me?

Change is hard, and it helps a lot when we have a nice, juicy, motivating vision of where we want to get. Let yourself spend some time with this, and get excited. You might even come up with a watchword or an image you can return to when you feel your motivation flagging. Vision board, anyone?

Step 3: Determine: What’s the piece of this change that I can control?

The tricky thing about goal-setting is that you need to laser in on the aspect of your desired change that is 100% within your control. This is especially hard in a relational context, because we often find ourselves wishing our partners (or our friends, or colleagues, or family members) would do something differently. But the annoying truth is, we just can’t control anyone but ourselves. We can only control how we show up.

So, if your desired change has something to do with your relationships, you might ask yourself this: In the kind of relationship that I want to have, how would I be showing up? What kind of partner (or friend, or colleague, or family member) would I be?

While there’s no guarantee that the people in your life will do anything differently, it is true that when we change the way we show up, the people around us often shift in turn. You might learn a lot from how the people around you respond to you showing up a bit differently.

And at the very least, you’ll be more aligned with the kind of person you want to be, and how you want to act. You’ll be able to feel proud of yourself for showing up in accordance with your values and aspirations, whatever the circumstances around you. (And I’ll be proud of you too!)

Step 4: Think of one small experiment you can run in the next week. A good experiment is one that you are very confident you can actually do, regardless of how it affects others.

This should be something actionable and small enough that you are 80% confident you can do it. For example:

• If your goal is to be more present in the moment, you could run an experiment of putting your phone away for an hour each morning.
• If your goal is to be more engaged in civic action, you could put a date on your calendar to spend a half an hour making some phone calls or doing a little research about ways you can get involved in issues you care about.
• If your goal is to be a better listener in your relationship, you could plan to ask your partner three good open-ended questions tomorrow night, with the goal of learning something totally new about them.

This will look different depending on your goals; tailor it, but make sure it’s achievable — we’re shooting for a small win, not a total transformation!

Step 5: Assess your experiment.

Were you able to actually do your experiment? If so, give yourself a round of applause – and also, ask yourself how it went.

• How did it feel to do it?
• Did it get you a little closer to the experience you’re looking for? Distinguish here between your internal experience and any effect it may have had on others; both are important, but the former is where you should focus.
• Did you learn anything in the process?
• What aspects were hard?
• What aspects were easy?
• Do you want to try anything different next time?

If you weren’t able to do your experiment…

• What happened?
• What blocks got in the way?
• Can you come up with a plan, or a new experiment, that will help you work around those blocks?

If you can’t see a path forward, this might be the perfect moment to call in some extra help from a therapist or insightful friend.

Step 6: Plan your next experiment.

Now that you’ve learned a bit from your first experiment, you can craft a better informed plan for your next one. This is a good moment to create a little ongoing accountability structure for yourself. Get creative!

Here are some strategies that have helped others:

• Set some dates on your calendar to revisit how your goal is coming along on a regular basis—say, 15 minutes on Wednesday mornings.
• Share your goal with a trusted loved one. You could even ask them to check in with you now and then, or ask how it seems to be going from their perspective.
• Put a reminder up somewhere you’ll see it often. (I have post-it notes here and there.)

And, by the way, give yourself some love. Change can be hard, and it takes a lot of focus on where you are going and why to overcome ingrained habits and automatic reactions. You can be proud of yourself for making the effort, no matter what stumbling blocks you run into along the way. And just like in the garden, new growth is tender, so be gentle and kind with yourself!

By the way, if you’re a clinician reading this, I’ve got a free series coming out about how I use goal-setting in a therapeutic context. It may sound simple, but it’s a surprisingly deep and essential piece of my work— and very often, when I consult for therapists about cases that feel overwhelming, confusing, or stagnant, it turns out that they missed the goal-setting intervention or couldn’t find a way to work with the client’s resistance to change. If you want to get much greater clarity about how to apply goal-setting with your clients, you can sign up for the free series here.

 Originally published on Psychology Today.