Ring in the New Year By Writing Yourself a Mental Health Vision Statement

Ring in the New Year by Setting a Mental Health Vision Statement – CassandraStout.com

What do you want to accomplish in the next week? The next month? The next year?

A vision statement is usually reserved for businesses. It’s a purpose-driven overview of what the business owner wants to accomplish with their company. It should leave nothing to interpretation. You want to set this goal and contribute to the end result of the vision statement with little steps you can take during everyday life.

Most vision statements are an overarching goal of the company. For example, Disney’s is “make people happy.” There’s no reason you can’t write a personal, mental-health oriented vision statement. And yours doesn’t have to be nearly as ambitious, and you may want to center it on improving your own station rather than making other people happy, sometimes an impossible feat.

So how do you write a mental-health oriented vision statement to ring in the new year?

Basic Guidelines for Vision Statements

Here are the basic guidelines for vision statements. Keep in mind that you don’t have to follow all of these guidelines, but they’re good starting points.

1. A vision statement should be short. A vision statement is a brief outline of your goals. It should be one-to-two sentences, max.
2. A vision statement should be specific. What are you hoping to accomplish with your goal? Try to be as specific as possible. Disney’s vision statement, “make people happy,” is too general and too other-people focused for the vision statement you want to make.
3. A vision statement should be simple. Everyone who hears or reads your vision statement should be able to understand it. The less complex you make your end goal, the more likely it is that you are to follow it.
4. A vision statement should be ambitious, but achievable. When setting goals for yourself, you want to challenge yourself to accomplish great things. If you’re suffering from depression, such a challenge seems impossible to complete. That’s okay. You can adjust the level of ambition based on how you’re feeling. Like, “I will take a shower, feed myself, and make my bed everyday for six months.” These lofty goals are challenging for a depressed person, right? But definitely achievable.

Following these guidelines will help you write a compelling vision statement.

Vision Statement Examples

Using the above guidelines, set a goal for yourself which is mental-health oriented. Try to make the vision statement short, simple, specific, and ambitious but achievable.

For example:

• “I will focus on self-care three days a week for eight weeks, which should improve my mood.”
• “I will lose 11 pounds in three months by eating a Mediterranean diet, which may help treat my depression.”
• “I will find a competent therapist and attend therapy as often as I can afford, but preferably once a month, for the next year.”

Try to stay true to yourself, and focus on the types of goals that you can achieve.

Final Thoughts

If you can, do some thinking about what kinds of overarching, mental-health oriented vision statements you want to set for the next six months to a year. Setting yourself an ambitious but achievable goal may encourage you to meet it, and hopefully take care of yourself in the new year.

Happy New Year!

What vision statement do you think you’ll set for yourself this year? Let me know in the comments!

Related:

• What is a Warmline, and How Do You Use Them?
• 10 Signs that You are a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)
• How to Manage Common Bipolar Triggers

Advertisement