No matter what aspect of life we look at, in order to make progress and grow we need to have direction. One of the easiest ways to establish a direction is through the use of goals.
What is a goal?
A goal is a statement of something you want to accomplish. This could be part of any aspect of your life. It could be for getting school work done, passing a test, losing weight, getting a promotion, buying a house. Goals can be established for anything, at any time of life.
What makes a good goal?
Good goals must be specific. It order to assess and establish a plan to achieve a goal, we need it to be specific. A goal also needs to be measurable and attainable. It is very difficult to achieve a goal if it is not measurable. For example if you want to lose weight you need to establish a weight that is reasonable for you to achieve. If the goal is to change your body weight from 200 lbs to 175 lbs you have a measurable goal that can be broken down to show progress as you begin to lose weight.
Goals need to be achievable. It is hard to say as a high school student you will be the president of the United States. It’s possible but not probable. It needs to be broken down to maybe class president first and progess along the appropriate level based on age of political office.
Short term versus long term goals
To make it easier to stay focused and attain meaningful goals it is wise to break them down into short term goals and long term goals. For looking at the weight loss goal of earlier we can further break that down to smaller more quickly attainable goals. So if we want to lose 25 lbs, what is the date that we want to shoot for? Is it a vacation that is 6 months away? Well make your long term goal 25 lbs in 6 months. To keep you on track and motivated you can set a smaller short term goal such at 10 lbs in a month. It makes it easier to keep track of progress and not get too discouraged looking at the long term picture. When you can celebrate attained goals along the way it can keep your momentum towards your long term goal.
Use of goals in therapy services
Goals are the backbone of therapy services. The short term and long term goals are set at evaluation to establish a plan to achieve getting back to whatever they were able to do previously. As said before these goals are broken down into measurable short term and long term goals. This allows us to demonstrate functional progress on a steady basis when there are achievable goals.
What makes a good therapy short term goal?
Short term goals for therapy need to be specific, measurable, and functional. For instance a good short term physical therapy goal could be a resident progressing from maximum assistance with transfers from bed to wheelchair to minimum assistance in 2 weeks to allow for increased out of bed activity. A good Occupaional Therapy goal could be progressing toileting from maximum assistance to minimum assistance to improve toileting ability with staff and improving independence and decrease episodes of incontinence.
Progression to long term goals
So with the short term goals written we need to establish the long term goals. Usually these in therapy, especially in short term rehabilitation, is primarily focused on what the person’s prior level of functioning was.
So using the previous short term goals as a guide we can establish long term goals either 4 to 6 weeks out with the possibility of being Independent with the functional mobility activities we were looking at. Of course that is all dependent on what the prior level of functioning was. If they have not been Independent for years now we need those goals to line up with what they were able to do. Maybe they needed contact guard assistance of their spouse to complete a transfer from their bed at home to their personal wheelchair.
New year, new you
So looking at the idea of proper goals and direction, it is time for you to establish some goals for the new year. Do you want to improve your health, achieve a degree, get a promotion? Where do you want to go. So sit down and physically write down your long term goals and establish your short term goals that will allow you to progress steadily towards that long term goal. Remember to make them measurable and achievable to keep you on tract and motivated with the ability to check off goals achieved along the way. You never know what you can achieve if you don’t set a goal for it.
Great advice. The company you work for is very fortunate to have you on their staff. You are doing the right thing and doing it well. Bravo.