50+ Therapy Goals to Help You Get the Most Out of Your Sessions

Starting therapy can feel intimidating, even when you’re desperate for support. It feels a bit like asking for help while not knowing what type of help, exactly, you’re looking for. Many people book their first session with a sense of urgency or discomfort, but not much clarity. While that’s completely normal, setting therapy goals can make the whole process feel a lot more straightforward and sustainable. And—good news—your therapist can help you set and track these goals.    

Research shows that even a few clear goals make you more likely to show up to therapy and stay engaged in the process. They also improve outcomes: A meta-analysis found that people made bigger improvements on their personal therapy goals than on general symptom checklists, meaning therapy often helps most with the specific changes you care about.

You don’t need the perfect words or a fully formed plan to reap the benefits of therapy goals, just a sense of where you’d like things to shift.

What Are Therapy Goals?

Therapy goals are the things you want to change, understand, or feel differently about as you move through therapy. Think of them as the direction you want your sessions to point toward. A therapy goal can be sleeping better or managing anxiety, or something more internal, like building confidence or breaking old relationship patterns.

Having therapy goals doesn’t mean you have a perfect plan of how to get there. They simply help you and your therapist align and know what matters most so your time together feels focused and meaningful.

Goals vs. objectives:

• Goals are broad and aspirational like “Improve my communication in relationships”
• Objectives are the specific steps or skills you’ll develop to get there “Practice using ‘I statements’ once per week”

Most people don’t walk into therapy with goals already formed. Many refine them over time or co-create them with their therapist. If you’re curious what that process looks like, this guide on what therapy is really like is a helpful place to start.

How to Create Effective Therapy Goals

1. Start by asking yourself some questions 

If you’re not sure what your goals are, get curious. The right questions can reveal what you actually want to work on. Ask yourself things like:

• What feels hardest for me right now?
• What patterns keep repeating in my life?
• What do I want to understand better about myself?
• What would I love to feel different in six months?
• What would make daily life feel lighter or easier?

2. Turn your ideas into SMART therapy goals

Once you have a general direction, shape it using the SMART framework so your goals feel doable.

• Specific: What exactly do I want to change?
• Measurable: How will I know it’s improving?
• Achievable: Is this realistic for my life right now?
• Relevant: Does this goal actually matter to me?
• Time-bound: When do I want to accomplish this by? 

3. Learn the difference between short-term vs. long-term therapy goals

Not all therapy goals operate on the same timeline. Some goals help you get relief or stability in the next few weeks. Others help you build deeper, lasting change over months or years. Understanding the difference can make your progress feel clearer and more intentional.

Short-Term Therapy Goals (4–8 weeks)

Short-term goals are usually focused, concrete, and skills-based. They help you feel better sooner, create momentum, and build early wins. They help you stabilize, feel less stuck, and build confidence in the process.

Long-Term Therapy Goals (3–12 months or longer)

Long-term goals go deeper. These often involve identity, past experiences, relationships, patterns, or meaning-making. These goals unfold gradually and often evolve alongside your insight and confidence.

Short-term and long-term goals aren’t separate tracks—they can actually support each other.
Short-term goals build the skills and stability you need to make long-term transformation possible.

4. Explore goals across key areas of your life

Effective therapy goals aren’t limited to symptoms. Most people set goals in one or more of these seven domains:

• Symptom relief: anxiety, depression, panic, stress
• Behavior change: conflict avoidance, procrastination, overworking
• Emotional regulation: feeling emotions without getting overwhelmed
• Relationship patterns: communication, boundaries, attachment
• Identity and self-esteem: confidence, self-worth, values
• Trauma processing and healing: triggers, grounding, past experiences
• Personal growth: purpose, self-awareness, new habits

5. Collaborate with your therapist to refine and track your goals

More than anything, therapy is a collaborative process. Don’t just develop your goals in isolation—work with your therapist to ensure they’re realistic and meaningful. Take some time in one of your sessions to chat through: 

• How you’ll track progress (journaling, check-ins, symptom changes, mood tracker)
• What “small wins” look like for your specific goals
• How often you want to revisit or adjust your goals
• How you’ll know therapy is starting to work for you

Not sure what progress should feel like? This guide, signs therapy is starting to work, can help you stay grounded and motivated.

25 Examples of Good Therapy Goals

You don’t need a diagnosis, a clinical label, or a perfectly articulated problem to start therapy with purpose. Many people begin with a general sense of wanting life to feel easier, lighter, or more aligned.

The goals below are broad and universal and can help you clarify what you want to work toward, even if you’re not sure exactly why you’re feeling the way you do. Use them as a starting point for reflecting on what matters most to you, and as the base for building your SMART goals.

Symptom Relief

• Feel more in control during moments of panic, and learn skills to move through them with less fear.
• Improve sleep by addressing the stress or thought patterns that keep you up at night.

Emotional Regulation

• Respond to stress in calmer, more intentional ways instead of reacting on autopilot. 
• Understand what you’re feeling while you’re feeling it, not only after you’re overwhelmed.
• Build healthier ways to process anger, frustration, or shame.

Behavior Change

• Practice setting small boundaries so saying “no” feels less scary and more natural.
• Build a weekly routine that supports your wellbeing, not just your productivity.
• Understand what fuels your procrastination and create healthier patterns with support.

Relationship Dynamics

• Communicate your needs more confidently in relationships—without apologizing.
• Notice and interrupt recurring patterns that cause conflict or miscommunication.
• Set boundaries that protect your energy, and hold them without guilt.
• Break recurring conflict patterns or attachment dynamics.
• Build empathy, emotional attunement, and mutual understanding.

Self-Esteem and Identity

• Challenge the negative self-beliefs that keep you stuck or small.
• Strengthen self-compassion and talk to yourself the way you’d talk to someone you care about.
• Explore who you are with more clarity and confidence.

Trauma Processing

• Understand how past experiences show up in your present-day reactions.
• Learn grounding strategies to help triggers feel less intense or destabilizing.
• Process difficult memories at a pace that feels safe and supported (e.g., through EMDR or other approaches).

Personal Growth

• Deepen your self-awareness and build emotional vocabulary.
• Create everyday habits that support long-term mental and emotional health.
• Clarify your purpose or direction so decisions feel more aligned with who you are.

Crisis or Stress Management

• Create a personal safety or care plan you can lean on during difficult moments.
• Build resilience and coping skills to navigate big life transitions with more stability.
• Gain support through the use of progressive muscle relaxation or other mindfulness techniques when experiencing stress or a crisis.

If you’re new to therapy, these FAQs on how to know if a therapist is a good fit and what to ask in a first session can help you bring these goals into the room confidently.

28 More Therapy Goals for Common Concerns (Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, ADHD & More)

If you’re coming to therapy with a specific concern—like anxiety, depression, trauma, ADHD, grief, or burnout—it can help to see examples of goals tied directly to those experiences. These examples reflect the kinds of goals people often set when they’re working through a particular concern or diagnosis. 

Therapy Goals for Anxiety

• Practice grounding or breathing exercises daily to reduce the intensity of anxiety spikes.
• Identify anxious thought patterns and learn to reframe them with support.
• Build a coping toolkit for social anxiety, panic, or generalized worry.
• Gradually face avoided situations in safe, supported ways.

Example SMART Goal for Anxiety: Practice two grounding techniques for five minutes each day to reduce daily anxiety spikes, and track how often I use them over the next four weeks.

Therapy Goals for Depression

• Establish small, manageable routines that support mood and energy.
• Increase engagement in meaningful or pleasurable activities (behavioral activation).
• Challenge negative self-talk and build a kinder internal dialogue.
• Improve sleep, appetite patterns, or daily motivation with achievable steps.

Example SMART Goal for Depression: Complete one meaningful or enjoyable activity each day (10–20 minutes) for the next month to help improve my mood. 

Therapy Goals for Trauma or PTSD

• Understand how trauma affects your body, thoughts, and relationships.
• Learn grounding and stabilization skills to navigate triggers more safely.
• Process traumatic memories through EMDR, TF-CBT, or somatic work at your own pace.
• Rebuild a sense of safety, trust, and emotional stability.

Example SMART Goal for Trauma/PTSD: Use a grounding exercise around triggers at least three times per week and log my distress level before and after for six weeks.

Therapy Goals for ADHD

• Create sustainable routines for organization, time management, or planning.
• Develop personalized strategies for managing distractibility or overwhelm.
• Address emotional patterns like rejection sensitivity or impulsivity.
• Improve task initiation and follow-through using structure and cues.

Example SMART Goal for ADHD: Use a daily 10-minute planning routine each morning for four weeks to improve task initiation.

Therapy Goals for Anger

• Identify anger triggers and the emotions beneath anger responses.
• Practice regulation skills to pause and respond thoughtfully instead of reacting.
• Strengthen communication skills for expressing frustration or needs.
• Reduce the frequency and intensity of anger episodes through coping tools.

Example SMART Goal for Anger: Pause and use one regulation skill (breathing, stepping away, naming emotions) during anger triggers at least twice per week for the next month.

Therapy Goals for Grief or Loss

• Process the emotions connected to grief without self-judgment.
• Build coping strategies for navigating triggers, anniversaries, or sudden waves of sadness.
• Maintain or rebuild daily routines while honoring your loss.
• Explore identity, meaning, or life changes that arise through grieving.

Example SMART Goal for Grief: Spend 15 minutes twice a week journaling or processing grief-related emotions for the next six weeks.

Therapy Goals for Stress or Burnout

• Recognize early stress signals and respond with healthier coping tools.
• Set or strengthen boundaries that reduce overwhelm.
• Develop a realistic, restorative self-care routine.
• Address perfectionism, people-pleasing, or overworking patterns that fuel burnout.

Example SMART Goal for Stress/Burnout: Set one work or personal boundary per week and reflect on its impact for one month.

Common Mistakes When Setting Therapy Goals

Even with the best intentions, it’s easy to set therapy goals that feel overwhelming, unclear, or disconnected from what you actually need. Here are the most common pitfalls:

1. Setting goals that are too vague

Goals like “feel happier” or “be less anxious” are valid starting points, but they’re hard to track.

2. Taking on too much at once

If you try to fix sleep, anxiety, boundaries, and your career all in the same month, you’ll burn out.
Start with 1–3 priorities and build from there.

3. Choosing goals someone else wants for you

Goals tied to external pressure often fail. For example, a goal like: “My partner says I need to calm down” usually doesn't stick. Therapy works best when goals reflect what you want to change.

4. Setting goals without understanding the root issue

If you skip reflection, you may chase the wrong goal. For example: The goal isn’t “stop procrastinating.” It may actually be to “understand the shame, fear, or overwhelm behind procrastination.”

5. Expecting goals to stay the same forever

You’re allowed to adjust your goals as life changes. Revisiting them every 4–8 sessions helps therapy stay aligned.

6. Thinking goals must be “positive”

Not every goal needs to be uplifting or growth-oriented. Sometimes the most meaningful goals are the ones that simply help you make it through, like: “Learn cope when things feel overwhelming.” 

What to Do If Your Therapist Doesn’t Help You Set Goals

While many therapists, especially at Spring Health, use goal-setting early on, not all therapists use them, and that can leave people wondering whether they’re making progress or using sessions effectively. If your therapist hasn’t helped you set goals, here are a few ways to navigate it:

1. Bring it up directly

You can say something like: “I’d like to talk about goals so I know what we’re working toward.” or “Can we define a direction for our sessions?”

Most therapists will welcome the conversation.

2. Share what brought you into therapy in the first place—even if it feels messy

You don’t need a polished narrative. Some ideas to get you started: “I feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start,” or “Something in my relationships isn’t working and I want to understand it.” Your therapist can help distill this into clear goals.

3. Ask how they typically work with goals

Different therapy approaches vary. CBT tends to be structured; psychodynamic therapy may be more exploratory.  It’s okay to ask: “Do you set goals with clients?” or “What does progress usually look like in your approach?”

4. Reflect on whether the fit feels right

If you’ve asked for support around goal-setting and still feel directionless, it may be worth exploring whether the therapeutic relationship is meeting your needs. A good fit includes feeling guided, aligned, and supported.

If you’ve found the explanation of goals to capture what you’re looking for, a therapist who prioritizes goals might be a good pivot to make. Remember, you can always switch therapists without guilt. The right fit is the one who listens to your needs and helps you move forward.

Ready to Start Therapy?

Starting therapy with a goal can help you get more out of every session. With Spring Health, you can take the first step in minutes. Here’s what makes getting care easier:

• Find an in-network therapist fast—not months from now
• Filter by preferences, therapy goals, clinical specialties, and cultural needs
• See real-time availability and book as early as this week 
• Complete a self-assessment that helps match you with the right provider and pinpoint where to start
• Stay supported between sessions with free on-demand tools, self-guided exercises, and direct chat with your provider

Frequently Asked Questions

How many therapy goals should I have?

Most people focus on 1–3 goals at a time. You can add or adjust them as therapy progresses. Fewer, clearer goals tend to create more meaningful progress.

What makes a therapy goal “good”?

Good therapy goals are specific, meaningful, and realistic for your life right now. Using the SMART framework helps you transform vague hopes (“feel less anxious”) into actionable goals (“practice a grounding technique daily to reduce daily anxiety spikes”).

Can therapy goals change over time?

Yes, and they should. As you learn more about yourself, move through life transitions, or achieve certain milestones, your goals can evolve. Revisiting them every few weeks helps keep therapy aligned with your needs.

How do I measure progress toward my therapy goals?

Progress can be tracked in many ways:

• Fewer or less intense symptoms
• Using coping skills more consistently
• Feeling more emotionally regulated
• Noticing shifts in your relationships or reactions
• Journaling or rating your mood each week

Your therapist can help define what “progress” looks like for your goals.

What if I feel like therapy isn’t working?

Feeling stuck is normal. Talk to your therapist about what feels off. You may need to refine your goals, adjust the approach, try new tools, or even switch therapists. 

Are therapy goals the same as treatment plans?

Not exactly. A treatment plan outlines the approach and interventions your therapist will use. Your therapy goals are the personal changes you want to see. 

What if I have multiple issues I want to work on?

Your therapist can help you prioritize what feels most urgent or meaningful. You don’t have to work on everything at once, therapy is a process of layering insight and skill-building over time.

How long does it take to reach my therapy goals?

It varies. Some goals may shift within weeks; others take months, and sometimes even years. What matters most is consistency, collaboration, and having goals that reflect what you truly care about.

Should my therapist help me set goals?

Yes, goal-setting is a collaborative part of therapy. A good therapist will help you refine your ideas, break down broader goals, and check in regularly about what’s working.

Where should I start if I’m overwhelmed?

Begin with one question: “What do I want to feel different in a month?” Even a light direction helps you and your therapist find your footing.

How do I talk about goals in my first therapy session?

Share what brought you in, what’s been hard, and where you’d like help. You can say:

• “I’m not sure what my goals are yet.”
• “I want to understand my anxiety better.”
• “I want support setting boundaries.”
• “I’d like help figuring out where to start.”

A good therapist will guide the rest.

What if my goals feel too big?

Your therapist can help break them into smaller, achievable steps. No goal is “too big”; it just needs to be translated into manageable pieces.

Is it normal if my goals feel vague or emotional?

Completely. Goals like “feel calmer,” “feel more confident,” or “understand myself better” are valid starting points. You and your therapist can refine them over time and understand what they are in service of.