Therapy Goals Examples and Worksheet: Building Intentions That Support Real Progress
Clinically reviewed by: Samantha Hill, LCSW
Sometimes you may find it difficult to know what you need from therapy, especially at the beginning. You might feel overwhelmed, uncertain, or just aware that something isn’t quite right. Although you don’t have to show up to your first session with a perfect plan or fully formed goals, having a starting point can help you and your therapist shape the work in a way that feels more intentional and supportive.
Rather than focusing on outcomes alone, therapy goals create direction. They help bring clarity to your therapy sessions, guide your therapist’s approach, and make space for the small shifts that can add up to meaningful change over time. You might begin with something broad, like wanting to feel less anxious or more in control of your emotions, and slowly shape that into something specific and actionable, together.
Therapy goals aren’t rigid checklists or fixed milestones. They’re flexible, collaborative, and meant to evolve as you do. And when they’re rooted in your values, your needs, and your pace, they become something much more than a plan, they become a pathway forward.
At Octave, we believe psychotherapy works best when it starts with intention. Whether you’re just beginning your journey or looking to bring more clarity to the one you’re already on, we’re here to support goals that feel personal, purposeful, and truly yours.
And if you’re looking for a place to start, we’ve also created a short, optional Therapy Goals Worksheet that you can download and fill out. It’s designed to help you reflect on what’s been feeling heavy or important lately, and give you something to bring into your first session, if that feels helpful.
Examples of meaningful goals you can set in therapy
When people first hear the word “goals” in therapy, they naturally think about achieving a particular outcome by a set date, especially when time or cost is a factor. But therapy goals work a little differently.
They’re not about rushing to fix something or racing against the clock. Instead, they offer structure, direction, and space for growth at a pace that honors where you are and where you want to go. They support the process without trying to control it.
Therapy goals can take many forms depending on what you’re hoping to build, shift, or explore. Some focus on symptom relief or daily functioning. Others support personal growth, emotional regulation, or healing from past experiences. Goals can also center around developing new, supportive behaviors, or reducing unhelpful behavior patterns.
To help you imagine what this might look like, we’ve pulled together a few different types of goals and examples that you and your therapist might build on together.
Foundational therapy goals
Foundational goals are common goals that many people explore in therapy, regardless of diagnosis, therapeutic approach, or background. They tend to focus on emotional and mental well-being, personal development, and everyday challenges that impact mental health. They can also be especially helpful during life transitions or periods of adjustment, when things feel uncertain or out of sync.
These goals are a powerful starting point, especially if you’re new to therapy or unsure where to begin. And over time, they often lead into deeper, more specific work as patterns become clearer and needs evolve.
Here are some examples of foundational goals:
Improve emotional regulation. Learn to identify, tolerate, and express emotions in a healthy and productive way, rather than feeling controlled by them.
Build self-esteem and confidence. Address inner criticism, shift unhelpful beliefs, and develop a more supportive and balanced self-image.
Develop healthy coping skills. Identify tools and techniques that help you manage distress, anxiety, or overwhelm without relying on avoidance or numbing.
Enhance communication skills. Learn to express your needs, set boundaries, and navigate difficult conversations more effectively.
Increase self-awareness. Understand the emotional patterns, triggers, and life experiences that influence how you think, feel, and respond.
Make value-aligned decisions. Clarify what matters most to you and make more intentional, fulfilling choices based on those priorities.
These goals may seem simple, but they often lay the groundwork for deeper emotional insight and lasting change. Whether you stay focused on these foundational areas or use them as a springboard into more specific work, they can help you build greater awareness, resilience, and alignment in your everyday life.
Therapy goals for specific mental health conditions
When you’re navigating a specific diagnosis like anxiety, depression, OCD, or bipolar disorder, your therapy goals can be tailored to meet the unique symptoms, triggers, and experiences that come with it. These goals focus on symptom relief, emotional resilience, and strategies for daily life that support long-term healing and stability.
We’ve provided a few examples of how therapy goals can look when they’re aligned with specific mental health conditions.
For anxiety:
Recognize and manage triggers. Identify situations or thoughts that activate anxiety and build skills to respond with greater calm and control.
Reduce avoidance behaviors. Gently work toward facing feared situations or tasks to reduce anxiety’s control over your life.
Practice grounding techniques. Learn and regularly use strategies like deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation techniques, or mindfulness to stay centered when anxiety rises.
For depression:
Establish structure and routine. Reintroduce consistency with small habits, such as getting out of bed at the same time or preparing simple meals, to help counter low energy and motivation.
Increase engagement in meaningful activities. Identify small actions (like walking outside, journaling, or calling a friend) that bring a sense of purpose or enjoyment and intentionally build them into your day, particularly when it feels hardest to engage.
Challenge self-critical thought patterns. Practice identifying and reframing negative inner dialogue to develop a more compassionate and balanced internal voice.
For trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder:
Build a foundation of emotional and physical safety. Identify what helps you feel grounded and supported, and incorporate those elements into your sessions and daily life.
Learn to recognize and respond to triggers. Develop awareness of the cues that lead to emotional flashbacks or shutdowns, and use calming strategies to regain control in the moment.
Process and integrate past events with care and support. Work with your therapist to explore past trauma, using techniques to reduce its emotional charge and reclaim your narrative.
For obsessive-compulsive disorder:
Reduce compulsive behaviors. Practice tolerating obsessive thoughts without engaging in rituals in collaboration with your therapist.
Challenge unhelpful thinking patterns. Work with your therapist to reframe beliefs like “If I don’t do this perfectly, something bad will happen” and replace them with more balanced, realistic alternatives.
Increase tolerance for distress and uncertainty. Develop emotional tools to sit with discomfort, rather than trying to neutralize or avoid it.
For bipolar disorder:
Create a consistent sleep and activity schedule. Establish daily routines that support mood stability, including sleep hygiene, meal timing, and manageable activity levels.
Build early recognition of mood shifts. Learn to identify signs of mania or depression before they escalate and respond proactively.
Develop a support plan for challenging moments. Collaborate with your provider to outline what to do and who to contact if symptoms escalate, including grounding tools and safety supports.
While these examples are grounded in specific conditions, your experience is always more than a diagnosis. The most meaningful goals reflect how those symptoms show up in your life and what support looks like for you. Your therapist can help tailor each goal so it feels manageable, flexible, and aligned with your needs.
Therapy goals based on your treatment approach
Different types of therapy offer unique tools, and your goals may reflect the focus of the specific modality you’re working with, such as DBT vs. CBT. These treatment goals are often skill-based and structured around how the therapy itself works.
In cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), for example, your goals might center around identifying and shifting thought patterns. In dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), you might focus on building distress tolerance or emotional regulation skills. And in EMDR, your goals may include processing memories in a safe and supported way.
These examples show how therapy goals might look when they’re aligned to a specific modality.
In cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT):
Identify and reframe cognitive distortions. Learn to catch unhelpful thoughts and shift them into more realistic, empowering beliefs.
Track emotional and behavioral patterns. Use worksheets or journaling to better understand how thoughts, emotions, and behaviors interact.
Practice behavioral activation. Reconnect with rewarding or meaningful activities as a way to lift mood and counter avoidance.
In dialectical behavior therapy (DBT):
Strengthen emotional regulation and distress tolerance. Build skills to manage intense emotions without impulsive reactions or self-harm.
Improve interpersonal effectiveness. Learn how to ask for what you need, say no, and manage conflict without damaging relationships.
Integrate mindfulness into daily life. Increase your ability to stay present and grounded, especially during high-stress moments.
In acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT):
Clarify personal values. Explore what really matters to you and let those values guide your decisions and goals.
Increase psychological flexibility. Build the capacity to stay open and adaptive in the face of discomfort, rather than resisting or avoiding it.
Practice acceptance of difficult emotions. Learn how to make space for discomfort while still moving toward what’s meaningful.
In eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy:
Reduce the emotional intensity of traumatic memories. Use bilateral stimulation to process past events in a way that makes them feel less distressing or overwhelming.
Challenge negative core beliefs linked to trauma. Replace beliefs like “I’m not safe” or “I’m to blame” with more adaptive, compassionate self-understandings.
Strengthen internal resources for safety and resilience. Establish calming mental images, grounding tools, or personal strengths to help you stay regulated during processing.
In mindfulness-based therapy:
Develop present-moment awareness. Practice noticing thoughts, sensations, and feelings without judgment, using techniques like breathwork or body scans.
Practice responding rather than reacting to emotional triggers. Create space between stimulus and response so you can choose how to act instead of being swept up in automatic patterns.
Foster greater self-compassion and acceptance. Use mindfulness to shift from self-judgment to self-kindness, especially during moments of difficulty or discomfort.
No matter the approach, your therapist will help you translate what you’re working on into goals that feel grounded, manageable, and relevant to your life. You don’t need to fully understand the framework for the work to be effective, you just need goals that reflect what matters to you.
Therapy goals for couples and families
In relational therapy (whether with a partner, family member, or loved one) the focus shifts from the individual to the relationship itself. The goal is to improve communication, repair connections, and shift unhealthy dynamics between people.
Goals in couples and family therapy are often co-created between partners or family members. At their best, these goals reflect both the needs of each individual and the dynamic of the relationship. They’re not about assigning blame or fixing one person, they’re about building stronger, more compassionate ways of being with each other.
These examples reflect how goals might be shaped based on relationship dynamics.
For couples:
Improve communication and conflict resolution. Learn how to talk and listen in ways that foster connection and reduce misunderstandings.
Rebuild trust after rupture or betrayal. Create a safe, structured space to explore pain points and begin repairing emotional injuries.
Deepen emotional intimacy. Strengthen your bond through vulnerability, empathy, and shared understanding.
For families:
Clarify roles and expectations. Reduce tension by creating shared language around responsibilities, boundaries, and needs.
Foster healthier family dynamics. Address patterns like blame, silence, or enmeshment and replace them with more balanced connection.
Navigate transitions together. Set shared goals for adapting to change, whether it’s adolescence, divorce, illness, or other life events.
These examples aren’t one-size-fits-all, and they’re not fixed. A goal might shift as you gain insight, or new goals might emerge as your life changes. What matters most is that your therapy goals feel grounded in what you need and reflect what healing and progress look like for you.
Working with your therapist to set meaningful goals
Setting goals in therapy isn’t about having everything figured out from the start. It’s about creating a sense of direction that can grow and evolve with you. If you’re curious about why you should set goals in therapy, we’ve shared more about how it can bring structure and meaning to the work.
Once you’re ready to start shaping your own goals, a licensed mental health professional can help you translate what you’re feeling into something grounded, actionable, and meaningful. From there, goal-setting becomes a shared process. It begins with reflection, takes shape through structure, and evolves alongside your growth.
1. Therapy goals start with a conversation
Your first therapy session isn’t about setting goals right away, it’s about exploration. Your therapist will likely begin with open-ended questions to get to know you and understand what’s bringing you in, such as:
What brings you here today?
What do you want to feel or experience differently?
What would progress look like for you?
Your therapist isn’t looking for a “right” answer to these questions. If you’re not sure how to respond, your therapist can help you reflect on recent challenges, emotions, or patterns to uncover personal goals together. Therapy goals aren’t handed to you, they’re built with you.
2. Therapy goals take shape as the work unfolds
In most therapy settings, goals don’t follow a strict formula. They’re not something you’re expected to define before you begin and they rarely show up fully formed in your first session. Instead, goals tend to take shape gradually through conversation, shared reflection, and what you and your therapist begin to notice together.
If you’re someone who feels more comfortable with structure, you may be familiar with the SMART framework, which is an approach originally developed outside of therapy that some people find useful for organizing their goals. While SMART goals aren’t commonly used in most therapeutic settings, they can be adapted in a flexible way that centers around your lived experience, not rigid milestones.
Therapy goals are typically shaped around what’s happening in your day-to-day life, such as how you’re functioning, what symptoms you’re experiencing, and what’s getting in the way of feeling more stable or connected. That might mean learning to manage panic attacks, improving emotional regulation, navigating relationship patterns, or building coping strategies to help you get through tough moments.
Your therapist will help you identify what feels most important to focus on, and how that can translate into a clear, supportive direction. That’s why structured frameworks like SMART can be helpful for some, but not necessary for everyone.
If you do find clarity in using that kind of structure, here’s how the SMART model can be thoughtfully adapted in a therapy context:
Specific: Clearly define what you’re working on, like “I want to sleep through the night” rather than “feel better.”
Measurable: Identify a way to notice change or track progress, such as journaling, symptom tracking, or self-reflection.
Achievable: Set a goal that feels realistic and attainable based on where you are right now.
Relevant: Make sure the goal aligns with your values, needs, and life context so it feels meaningful.
Time-bound: Set a soft timeline or deadline (like “within the next month”) to help pace the work without adding pressure.
Your therapist can help you decide whether something like SMART feels supportive or limiting. The goal isn’t to fit your experience into a framework, it’s to make space for goals that meet you where you are.
3. Your goals will evolve as you do
Therapy is a process, and your goals are meant to grow with you. Often, short-term goals lead to bigger shifts over time. You might begin with a focus on managing anxiety through breathing exercises or grounding techniques. As those skills start to take hold, you may find yourself ready to explore deeper work on core beliefs or healthy relationship patterns.
As therapy continues, goals should be reviewed and adjusted. Sometimes, you’ll accomplish one goal and feel ready to move on to something new. Other times, your goals may need to shift in response to changes in your life or new insights that emerge. Therapy isn’t linear, and your goals don’t have to be either. The most meaningful goals are flexible and responsive.
Evidence shows therapy goals help people move forward
Goal-setting in therapy isn’t just helpful, it’s supported by strong research.
A 2020 study found that when clients feel clear about their goals in therapy, they tend to feel more engaged, more connected to their therapist, and more satisfied with the therapeutic process overall. Clarity creates connection, and when both the client and therapist are aligned, the work becomes more focused, collaborative, and effective.
Setting goals in therapy also supports consistency. Another 2019 study found that young people who set goals early in treatment were more likely to continue showing up and stay engaged in the work. Especially for those who are new to therapy, having clear intentions can help the process feel more purposeful from the very beginning.
And it’s not just about showing up, it’s about outcomes, too. A 2017 meta-analysis found that when therapy goals are personalized to the client, results tend to improve. The takeaway is simple but powerful: therapy is most effective when it’s built around what matters to you.
At Octave, we help clients shape goals that are meaningful, flexible, and truly their own. When therapy is grounded in clarity and real progress, it becomes more than supportive—it becomes transformative.
What if you don’t know your goals?
That’s completely okay. In fact, it’s incredibly common. Many people come to therapy not knowing exactly what they need, just that something feels off, heavy, or stuck. You don’t need to complete a worksheet, draft a plan, or figure everything out before your first session. The work starts when you and your therapist sit down together.
Your therapist is trained to help you explore what’s going on beneath the surface, whether it’s symptoms of anxiety, relationship patterns, past experiences, or something you can’t yet put into words. Together, you’ll identify what feels most important and begin shaping goals that are personal, flexible, and meaningful. Therapy isn’t about arriving fully prepared. It’s about showing up as you are, and letting the process unfold from there.
If you’re looking for a way to begin reflecting, you’re welcome to download our Therapy Goals Worksheet.
Our worksheet is a simple, one-page resource designed to help you explore what’s on your mind and bring more clarity to your sessions—if and when that feels helpful to you. And if sitting down with a worksheet feels a little daunting or hard to connect with on your own, that’s completely okay. Many clients go through it together with their therapist during the intake process as a way to start the conversation and shape goals collaboratively.
How to check in with yourself during the process
It’s completely normal to wonder whether therapy is helping. Growth isn’t always obvious, and change doesn’t always show up in big, dramatic ways. In fact, some of the most meaningful shifts are the ones you feel, not necessarily the ones you can measure.
Still, it can be helpful to have ways to reflect on how far you’ve come. At Octave, we use a measurement-based care approach to check in regularly, not just on symptoms, but on what’s feeling different in your everyday life. These tools help keep therapy responsive and aligned with what you need most. They also support shared accountability between you and your therapist, offering a clear way to revisit goals, shift direction when needed, or recognize when you may be nearing a natural stopping point in the work (if and when that feels appropriate).
But not all progress is measured on paper. Often, it shows up in subtle ways, through small shifts that build over time.
For example, you might notice:
You’re handling stress a little differently than before.
You feel more grounded or less reactive to triggers.
You feel more self-compassion in tough moments.
You’re experiencing more ease in your relationships.
You’re making decisions with more clarity and intention.
These quiet wins matter. They’re signs that the work you’re doing is landing, even if you’re still in the middle of it.
Meeting your goals and moving forward
Reaching your goals in therapy is an important moment—one that’s worth noticing and honoring. It’s a sign that the work you’ve been doing is creating real change in your life. But reaching your goals doesn’t always mean the work is finished.
Sometimes, achieving a goal opens up new space to explore deeper patterns, relationships, or future hopes that are just beginning to surface. Other times, it’s an opportunity to practice and maintain the growth you’ve worked so hard to build. Or it might be the right time to start moving toward wrapping up therapy.
You and your therapist can talk openly about what feels right. That might mean setting new goals, shifting the focus of your work, moving to less frequent sessions, or preparing for a meaningful close.
Wherever you land, this is a chance to reflect on how far you’ve come and to choose what kind of support (if any) feels right for you now.
Turning intention into progress
No matter where you’re starting from, therapy goals can help you bring shape, structure, and meaning to your mental health journey. Whether you’re managing a specific condition, working through past trauma, or simply trying to improve your overall well-being, setting clear goals creates a sense of direction.
The right goals aren’t about “fixing” who you are. They’re about honoring what you need and building a path that reflects your values, your pace, and your life. And just like therapy itself, your goals are allowed to grow and evolve over time.
If you’re thinking about beginning therapy or if you’re already in it and want to reconnect with what progress means to you, we can help you find an individual therapist or couples therapist to help you move forward with intention.