Goals are something that most people are familiar with. You have most likely set a goal for something at some point in your life. New Year's resolutions, for example, are goals. Even if we do not complete them most of the time. Goal setting has been seen to have a positive impact psychologically (2). By setting small, attainable, goals you set yourself up for success and trigger your brain to release “happy chemicals” that make you feel a sense of happiness and accomplishment. “I will watch this entire TV series by the end of the weekend.” Is an example of an everyday goal. “I will finish all my house chores before dinner.” Is another example of everyday goal setting. Not having any kind of goals can be setting yourself up for dissatisfaction. Humans are junkies, we are always chasing the “happy chemical” highs. Many things trigger this chemical high such as food, sex, and exercise (1) as well as accomplishing a goal. By learning to set SMART goals, you will be able to use pacing as a tool to help you accomplish small goals as steps on your way to a larger accomplishment.
SMART goals are something that you may or may not be familiar with, but they were developed in 1981 by Arthur Miller, James Cunningham, and George Doran in their article, “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management goals and objectives” (3). Since the publishing of this article, it has become a very useful tool in cognitive behavioral therapy as well as some other therapy methods to help teach patients how to set and accomplish goals for themselves. SMART goal setting is a tool that can be useful for anyone especially someone who has recently been diagnosed with a chronic illness. By setting and accomplishing small, attainable, goals you set yourself up for the sense of accomplishment and direction that comes with the “chemical high”.
What is a SMART goal
SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.
Specific
Specifics are the “W” questions: Who? What? When? Where? And Why? Answering these questions can give you a clearer picture of your goal. Let us say, for example, you have a goal to run a marathon. The “W’s” of running a marathon would look something like “Who do I need to talk to to sign up? What do I need to do for training to get ready? When will the marathon be (i.e. how long will you have to train)? Where will the marathon be? Why is running a marathon important to me?” By answering these questions for yourself, you start to create a roadmap of how you will get to where you want to go. Breaking things down into smaller steps allows you to start using pacing in order to accomplish your goals.
Measurable
Measurable answers the “how” questions. The “how” questions are your progress markers. How will you know if your marathon running skills are improving? Will you track steps or mile time? How do you measure progress?
Measuring progress is an important part of accomplishing goals. How will you know if you are progressing if you are not measuring your progress? For example, if you were to use the marker of, “take thirty seconds off of my mile time by the end of the month.” You could measure your progress by how many seconds you are reducing your mile time per week. If you observe that you are taking ten seconds off of your mile time each week, then you know you are making sufficient progress to meet your sub-goal of taking thirty seconds off your mile time for the upcoming marathon.
Attainable
Attainable focuses on making sure you can actually reach the goal that you have set for yourself. When you are assessing the attainability of a goal, it is important to focus on whether or not you can accomplish your goal with the skills and tools you have now, and if not, what skills or tools do you need to make the goal attainable. If you are getting ready to run a marathon and you decide that it is not currently attainable because you need a better pair of running shoes, that is something that is easy to fix for most people. In that case, you may have to make a new sub-goal of saving up enough money to buy a pair of shoes for the marathon. However, if you decide that running in an upcoming marathon is unattainable because your leg is broken, making the goal to run in the marathon is setting yourself up for failure. There is likely nothing you can do to repair a broken leg and fix the muscle atrophy in a short amount of time, so there are few to no skills or tools that you can use to attain that particular goal. When creating goals, it is important to assess the attainability to ensure that you are not setting yourself up for failure.
Realistic
Realistic focuses on making sure that the goals you are setting for yourself are truly attainable. Attainability asks if your goals can be accomplished in theory, realistic asks if your goals can be accomplished in practice. If you are looking to sign up for a marathon that starts in a week and your sub-goals are to take thirty seconds off your mile time and save up enough money to buy a new pair of shoes before the marathon, those most likely are not realistic goals unless you are already an experienced runner and make enough money (or have the savings) to set aside $60-$100 for a new pair of shoes within a week.
Much like goals that are not attainable, goals that are not realistic are also setting yourself up for disappointment. If you were to set a goal for yourself that is not realistic you will probably end up investing time and energy in something that you cannot do and will disappoint yourself. If you decide to get ready for a marathon that starts in a week with no prior running experience, you would most likely have to go running every day during the week leading up to the race and even then you could injure yourself or simply not have enough training to complete a marathon by the end of the week. If you bought a new pair of shoes and ran every day for a week and then fell short of your goal, you would probably disappoint yourself and feel discouraged from trying again. Making goals that are realistic is important so that you do not fall short and become discouraged from setting goals for yourself in the future.
Timely
Timely ensures that you have a realistic timeline to accomplish your goals. To make sure your goals are timely, you should look at your goals from the top down so you can see the bigger picture. You start by looking at the marathon (when is it? How long is it?) and then you work down through your smaller goals. If your marathon is in a month and you need to take thirty seconds off your mile time, be able to run five miles, and buy a new pair of shoes, you have to make sure that you are achieving everything in a timely fashion. To be able to accomplish everything in time for your marathon (assuming you have no prior experience or savings), you will have to increase your distance by one mile, take six seconds off of your mile time, and save up around $25 every week in order to reach your goals. Overall, that sounds very realistic for a goal and so long as you stick to your timeline, you should be able to complete the marathon that you set out to accomplish.
Pacing and SMART goals can both work together to help you continue moving forward after a Dysautonomia diagnosis. By learning to set goals for yourself and break them down into smaller steps that you can complete with the help of pacing, you can create a sense of structure and continue to move forward with your goals. While it is fun not to have any goals or things to focus on occasionally (like vacations or holidays), when you have no focus long-term it can begin to have a negative psychological impact. By setting small goals for yourself regularly and using pacing to accomplish them, you maintain a sense of purpose and satisfaction in your life. Even if your illness negatively impacts larger areas of your life (job, marriage, ect…) having small goals to focus on can help you to feel better mentally and keep from getting in a rut.
Here are a few examples of small goals you can set for yourself regularly:
Walking your pet every day (or going for a walk by yourself)
Picking a different room in your house everyday and cleaning it for ten minutes
Completing an art project
Learning a new skill (cooking, crochet, photography, ect…)
Completing a book list (make a list of books and pick one to read every week/month)
Dysautonomia can feel all consuming and it is easy to let the illness become the center point of your life, but it is important to keep yourself moving forward. Being diagnosed with a chronic illness changes a lot of things and unfortunately there will be things that you cannot do anymore, but by using pacing and SMART goals you can learn the limits of your new normal and live the best life you can with your illness. Think of Dysautonomia not as your enemy, but as your annoying roommate. You may not like them all the time, but at the end of the day you two are stuck together, so the only way to be happy is to learn to work together. Your illness is your body’s annoying roommate and you have to learn how to work with it in a way that allows the two of you to coexist as peacefully as possible.
References
“Dopamine.” Healthdirect, https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/dopamine#:~:text=Activities%20that%20make%20you%20feel,your%20life%20can%20also%20help.
“Generalized Goals Linked to Depression.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201307/generalized-goals-linked-depression.
Setting Goals - Bard Center for Civic Engagement. https://cce.bard.edu/files/Setting-Goals.pdf.
There's a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Managements's Goals and ... - Temple Mis. https://community.mis.temple.edu/mis0855002fall2015/files/2015/10/S.M.A.R.T-Way-Management-Review.pdf.
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