A Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Therapy Goals (With Examples)
Last Updated on May 14, 2025 by Prath
Reviewed by April Justice, LICSW
- Published on 14 May 2025
Imagine you’re on a long road trip. The logistics are sorted; you’ll take turns driving with a friend, there’s food available every other hour, and you’ve already queued up your favourite song albums to listen to on the way.
But here’s the question: where are you headed? Sometimes, figuring out the ‘how’ before the ‘where’ or ‘why’ is easier.
In therapy, the destination is your therapy goal, and the route is the therapeutic plan your Therapist may create to get you there. There are a few things you can think about even before your first session to make the most of the process.
In this article, we share how you can set goals for therapy. By following these steps, you can come up with a concise list and ensure your time in therapy is intentional, focused, and productive.
This Article Contains:
What Are Therapy Goals?
Therapy goals are the intentions you share with the professional to help you create a roadmap for measuring progress and achieving your goals.
Here’s the tricky part: The Therapist in Singapore does not do the work for you. Instead, they provide a clear direction for the therapeutic process and help clients identify specific areas of focus to meet their long-term goals.
Below are some common types of therapy goals:
- Increasing self-esteem and confidence
- Improving the quality of sleep and restfulness
- Learning new communication skills to improve interpersonal relationships
- Addressing and managing anxiety symptoms
- Managing symptoms of depression
- Healing and coping from past trauma
- Changing maladaptive behaviour
- Exploring and understanding parenting
- Learning how to set and maintain boundaries
- Discovering yourself, your interests, and your values in life
The above list is non-exhaustive. Similar to how life constantly changes, your goals may also change along the way.
In fact, you may even have multiple goals in various aspects of your life. For example, you may wish to improve your communication skills at work while also focusing on dealing with social anxiety.
Think of therapy as a personal investment. Like planting a tree, your effort today may not be immediately visible.
However, over time, like how the tree grows roots, leaves, and flowers, you may become more resilient, strong, and capable of handling life’s difficulties.
Food for thought
Setting goals in therapy is like deciding what kind of tree you want to grow. Do you want strength and stability? More positivity and calmness? Or something that bears fruit in your relationship and friendships?
Whatever your goal is, your intentions can shape how you appear in the process. While your Therapist in Singapore may prepare the soil and offer the tools to ensure optimal growth, it is on you to nurture yourself daily.
4 Ways to Set Therapy Goals
It’s common in your first therapy session to let the Therapist know:
- What brings you to therapy
- What you want to work on
- Your short-term and long-term goals
- The therapy outcomes that matter most to you
While some Therapists may directly talk about goals, others may ask questions such as:
‘If therapy ‘worked’ for you, what would that look like?’ or ‘What does your ideal life look like?’
These questions focus on the therapy outcome and act as stepping stones towards identifying your purpose.
In the following section, let’s look into the four practical ways to set therapy goals.
1) Identify Long-Term Dreams
Let’s say you’re entering your first therapy session. After some rapport-building, your Therapist may ask, ‘What brings you to therapy?’
Think about the first thing that comes to your mind. Do you want to be happy? Are you struggling with relationship issues? Does work stress make you feel burned out?
Whatever answer you come up with is what you need to connect with and work through in therapy. Ask yourself this question even before you book your first session.
Having clarity beforehand ensures you can better articulate your feelings during sessions. In fact, the Therapist may also find it helpful to build on your answers rather than working with a vague idea of your needs.
Below are some other questions you can ask yourself to identify long-term dreams:
- What does being happy mean to me?
- What problems do I struggle with on a day-to-day basis?
- What problems have I struggled with throughout my life?
Write down your reflections in a journal. One way to develop goals is to list all the possible reasons for needing therapy.
Your reasons can be anything ranging from ‘low moods’ to ‘psychological distress.’ There are no right or wrong reasons to seek support.
As you build the list with your reflections, you may find certain values or goals that stand out more than others. Explore these in detail.
2) Choose a Topic
As you start discussing your goals, your Therapist may ask, ‘Is there anything specific that’s been on your mind lately?’
At this point, you may be encouraged to dig deeper and choose a theme for your session.
Some people go to therapy in Singapore for a specific reason, such as:
- Navigating narcissistic patterns in a relationship
- Having a troubled relationship with parents
- Work-related stress or burnout
However, others may go to therapy to:
- Understand and recover from their past trauma
- Identify the root causes of their issues
- Address various problems in life, like stress, anxiety, and relationship issues
Hence, picking just one theme to focus on might be difficult.
What’s important to remember at this stage is that therapy is a long and ongoing process. If you choose one theme today, you may eventually move on and pick something else to work on tomorrow.
For example, in your first session, you may discuss an issue with your mom. You realise that you often feel drained talking to her, and all conversations are met with a nonchalant attitude.
To address this, your therapist may use family therapy techniques to improve your bond with your mother. However, after this issue is resolved, you may focus on something else, such as improving your assertiveness at work.
3) Set SMART Goals
The goals that often come true are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
The idea of SMART goals can be helpful in the therapy process. It helps you avoid the traps of unrealistic goals or those that don’t align with your values.
Of course, it’s okay to have vague goals at the beginning of therapy in Singapore. However, having only vague goals can make it harder to notice positive therapy outcomes. In fact, as your time in therapy increases, vague goals can also become frustrating and out of reach.
Think of it this way: The root causes of your problems might feel vague, but your goals don’t have to be.
For example, you may not fully understand why you’re socially anxious. The anxiety can stem from past negative experiences, self-esteem issues, or something else entirely.
But your goal can still be clear: ‘I want to feel more confident when speaking in a group setting’ or ‘I want to meet a new person every month and build friendships.’
Your Therapist can help explore the underlying causes while also working with you on practical steps to achieve your goals.
Setting SMART goals
Let’s say you’ve been feeling distant from your partner. You frequently fight and hurt each other and have difficulty articulating your thoughts.
During sessions, your Therapist might ask, ‘What would change in your relationship if things start improving?’
After some reflection, you come up with a SMART goal:
Specific
‘I want to communicate more openly with my partner during disagreements instead of shutting down or becoming defensive.’
Measurable
‘I’ll practise using ‘I’ statements (like I feel unheard when…) during arguments, and I’ll aim to have at least one check-in conversation with my partner weekly.’
Achievable
‘I won’t aim to fix everything overnight. I’ll apply this in smaller, low-stakes conversations and gradually use it in more difficult ones.’
Relevant
‘This goal matters to me because I want a healthier, more supportive relationship, and I’m tired of miscommunication causing stress between us.’
Time-bound
‘I’d like to review my progress with my Therapist after one month and reflect on what’s changed, either in how I approach conflict or how I feel in the relationship.’
4) Create an Action Plan
Once you’ve identified your important therapy goals, you can work with the Therapist to create an action plan.
The action plan is also known as the therapeutic plan. The plan involves a measurable and specific roadmap that includes:
- Therapist’s clinical impressions
- List of specific interventions
- Therapy homework
- Therapeutic techniques and assessments
The plan may also include your therapy goals, both short-term and long-term, space to track and measure progress, and methods you’ll use outside sessions to facilitate this change.
The first important step is to share your therapy goal with your Therapist in Singapore. After this, you will collaborate with the professional to take practical steps.
Example of creating an action plan
For example, let’s say your therapy goal is to build better boundaries in your personal relationships, especially with family. In your family, you often feel emotionally tired and guilty for saying no or being assertive.
You share this with your therapist during your early sessions. Together, you come up with an action plan that includes:
- Therapist’s clinical impression: You tend to prioritise others’ needs over your own, which may be tied to underlying beliefs about self-worth and fear of conflict.
- Specific interventions: Identify people-pleasing patterns, explore how these beliefs were formed, and practise assertiveness techniques in sessions.
- Therapy homework: Try saying ‘no’ to one non-essential request during the week, and journal how it feels emotionally and physically.
- Therapeutic techniques: Use CBT role play in sessions to rehearse difficult conversations. Learn emotional regulation tools like deep breathing and grounding.
- Assessment: Regularly check in with a worksheet that tracks boundary-setting attempts and your emotional responses.
Your therapist may also suggest you bring in real examples from the week, such as a situation where a sibling asked for help with something you didn’t have time for, and explore how you handled it and what could shift next time.
By breaking the goal into small steps and checking in on progress each session, the action plan helps make the abstract goal of ‘setting boundaries’ feel doable and achievable.
Can Your Therapy Goals Change?
Yes, therapy goals can change along the way.
Therapy is not like taking a class where there’s a fixed syllabus and a predictable outcome. Instead, it’s like taking multiple classes, changing them as and when required, and sometimes even realising you’ve outgrown the course you started with.
For example, you might begin therapy focusing on managing stress at work. Through psychodynamic therapy, you start to identify that the stress comes from difficulty in setting boundaries in your personal life.
So your goal of ‘managing stress’ may now change to ‘healing from people-pleasing tendencies’ or ‘working on personal development’.
A change in therapy goals is also an indication of growth. Therapy in Singapore allows space for you to evolve and learn more about yourself and what truly matters to you.
Key Takeaways
- Therapy goals can directly result in positive therapy outcomes.
- You may learn to set short-term and long-term therapy goals, while your Therapist may create a personalised plan to help you achieve them.
- SMART goals have more successful outcomes.
- Goals can shift and change as you grow in therapy.
- Like planting a tree, therapy is a personal investment in yourself. With time and care, you’ll become more resilient and happy in your life.
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