Setting Grief-Informed Goals: A Therapist's Guide to Navigating the New Year
Welcoming a new year can bring a wave of resolutions and new aspirations. However, for someone navigating grief, the very idea of a new year and all that comes with it can be daunting and emotional. For anyone working through a recent loss, it’s important to just focus on the basics right now. You’ll want to care for your basic needs, like eating enough, moving your body, and finding safety with supportive friends and family. However, for those of you who are a little more distant from your loss, you might find that setting grief-informed goals is motivating and encouraging.
The Benefits of Setting Goals
A new year doesn’t have to bring new goals, it’s a great time to seek out what navigating this new “normal” looks for your life. While there are many benefits to doing this, I first want to note that it’s most important for you to be gentle and compassionate with yourself. Take on what you feel ready to do and let go of everything else.
With that in mind, some of the benefits of setting goals are:
Providing Direction and Focus | Loss shakes up every aspect of your life, often including your sense of purpose. It’s extremely valuable to seek out that vision and purpose for your new “normal,” and goals will help give guardrails for that.
Gives Motivation | When you take the time to think through what you want your year to look like and create an action plan for goals, you build momentum and motivation for what you want to achieve. This can be life-giving and provide a much-needed emotional lift.
Enhance Your Well-Being | When you are taking action toward the goals you have set for yourself, you have a greater opportunity to feel fulfillment and happiness. This is another way to provide something positive to focus on as you navigate grief.
Increased Resilience | As you begin working toward goals, you will face challenges and setbacks. Working through those and overcoming them will help you build emotional resilience, which can also serve in other areas of your life.
Builds a Positive Mindset | Setting grief-informed growth goals will help you feel more optimistic as you move into a new year and build towards a new way of living.
What are Grief-Informed Goals
Loss is a natural, universal experience we will all have throughout our lives. There aren’t stages or endpoints in grief, and there is no right or wrong way. Experiencing a loss will shake most things in a person’s life, from perspectives, goals, motivations, values, and more. And let’s be clear: this is not just from experiencing the loss of a loved one but also the loss of a career, friendship, relationship, dream, or plan for your life.
Creating grief-informed goals means looking through the lens of where you are today in your loss journey and plotting where you hope to be. It’s holding tightly to the fact that grief is nonfinite and dynamic. It changes how you think and experience life. It also considers the value of being compassionate and gentle toward what you achieve and when.
How to Set Grief-Informed Goals
I don’t think I can iterate enough the value of taking your time to move to this space. While I know that setting goals is powerful, it might not be where you are in your journey right now. And that’s okay! If you are looking for how to set goals for yourself as you move forward in loss, here are some things to keep in mind:
Practice Embracing Realism
We want these goals to be motivating and life-giving, which means we also need to be realistic. While it would be amazing for you to suddenly be able to run a marathon, if that’s not something you were working towards before, it might not be something to work on today. Instead, what’s a realistic goal that aligns with your emotional capacity today?
Set an achievable goal and then break it down into small steps with celebration points along the way. An example could be going for a walk 3/7 days a week. After the first week, celebrate with your favorite treat. After the fourth week, change your goal to walking 4/7 days and celebrate with a new pair of shoes.
Nurture Self-Compassion
As you write out these new goals, be compassionate towards yourself. There is no timeline for your grief, and there is absolutely no set plan or stages. Instead of “should-ing” yourself (i.e. I should be able to walk every day of the week), focus on caring for yourself and celebrating wins along the way.
A great way to continue to build self-compassion is to set a goal of practicing daily mindfulness. Start small, with a few minutes a day, and work towards building upon that initial number as you go.
Take Glances into the Rearview Mirror
While setting goals for yourself, you’ll be forward-thinking, but it’s also important to reflect on the past as you go. I know this isn’t an easy process and is often done best with therapy and coaching, but it’s an incredible part of the healing journey. You can use journaling as an option as you work through setting and working towards your goals to take time to reflect on your experiences.
While you likely know your loved one would be glad to see your positive growth, it can be hard to experience new things after loss. By being aware of that and reflecting on your feelings, you can take those thoughts and begin processing them.
Share Your Goals with Safe People
As you’ve navigated through your loss, you’ve seen the value of safe, supportive people. This is true for today, too. Share your goals with the people who can be trusted and will cheer you on along the way. You can even invite them to be a part of the goal with you, increasing the positive experience. For example, invite a friend to join you on your Wednesday morning walks.
Make Room for the Ebb and Flow of Grief
You know that grief can often be unpredictable and, as I’ve said, completely non-linear. It’s important to keep that in mind when setting your goals. Build an action plan for those days you don’t want to or simply can’t. It’s also important not to set a goal that would mean you have to be “perfect” at something (i.e., run every single day).
A goal with space could look like building a habit of healthy movement by doing yoga 3/7 days a week for 5-20 minutes. This will give you room to have days you don’t, and days you simply do 5 minutes.
Think of What You Need Right Now
Ideally, the goals you set for yourself will be based on your needs and hopes. Taking time to think of what you want or need more of and building goals and plans around meeting those needs will help you create new habits that care for you.
Examples of Grief-Informed Goals
Looking for a good place to start with setting your goals? Here are some examples, but please adapt them to where you are today and where you want to be in the future.
Practice healthier ways to express and process my emotions by journaling 4/7 days a week and getting grief coaching.
Prioritize self-care in my life by building a morning routine that includes movement, nutrition, rest, and mindfulness.
Build a safe, supportive network by attending grief support groups, seeing a grief therapist, having monthly friend dates, and getting dinner with family every other week.
Find a new hobby or outlet that will bring fun and joy to my life by trying a new hobby or activity once a month.
Building new coping skills to manage my feelings and thoughts as I grieve by spending time with a grief coach and practicing their strategies weekly.
As a grief therapist and someone who has experienced loss, I know the challenges you face and the hope you’re seeking. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of being gentle with yourself as you learn to move forward into this new season of your life. Take slow steps and seek support. If you’re just starting, my book, Moving On Doesn’t Mean Letting Go, is a great place to dip your toes in with gentle guidance.
