Treating PTSD: Expected Outcomes and Priorities in Goalsetting

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In conceiving and outlining your healing PTSD goals, you’ll get to a day when you wonder, “What’s it all for?” Got to that day already? Fabulous! It’s time to answer the question.

In goal-setting it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day efforts involved in actually doing the work of healing post-traumatic stress symptoms. Which means it’s easy to forget what motivated you to heal in the first place. Sure, there’s the desire not to be triggering, etc., but there’s more than that.

There’s the desire you have to live a good life – - one that’s full of fun and joy and love and productive endeavors and __________ – - you fill in the blank.

Being clear about what you want the outcomes of healing to be is a huge part of healing. For example, I knew I wanted to stop living in such a depressed, dark fog. My expected outcome of my healing efforts was to wake up in the morning not already buried beneath anxiety, fear and sadness.

Knowing what you expect helps you keep moving toward your goal(s) with clarity and determination.

On the healing journey it’s sometimes necessary to stop for a moment and reassess. If you know the expected outcomes you can take some time to decide what you want to achieve first, second, third, fourth and so on.

Prioritizing goalsetting is a great way to remotivate yourself. To extend my own example, I knew the first thing that had to change was the way I felt every day. I couldn’t bear the tears and crying and desperation. That was the #1 thing that had to go. I set about designing my goal to achieve a happier mindset and dove in to a self-designed program for pursuing joy.

Good things happen when we know where we’re going and prioritize how we get there:

1. We begin to flex our power over the past.
2. We become clear about what needs to change, how and when in the present.
3. We take proactive steps toward choosing our future.
4. We energize ourselves by having a plan.
5. We free ourselves piece by piece.

When we look at healing this way we chunk it down, take that big mountain and break it into 10-foot pieces that are much easier to navigate. We take one piece at a time, climb up, slip back, climb up again, go further than before, keep climbing until we reach the top and then one day:

We arrive at the summit and stake out our claim.

BRIDGE THE GAP Exercise

It’s time to specifically envision the outcomes you want from your PTSD healing journey. Make a list of what you want to accomplish as the end results.

Looking over that list, rank each item. #1 = the item you most want to work on, #2 the second, and so on.

When you’ve numbered everything rewrite the list in the order of most important to less important. Here is your healing map. Now you know what route to climb the mountain.

(Photos: jimdepep(at)sbcglobal.net,

Tags: goals, healing, post-traumatic stress, ptsd, Setting Healing Goals, symptoms