11 Best Emotional Goals and How to Achieve Them

Have you ever thought about what your life would look like if you knew how to control your feelings? Recall the things that you did and the words you said during the moments when you were angry, jealous, anxious, or happy.

When you can control your feelings, you will experience less stress, regain your focus, and enjoy every moment of your life.

Does this sound impossible to you? By setting the right emotional goals and knowing how to achieve them, you can turn this into reality.

Emotional goals are the goals that you set and achieve yourself in order to improve your emotional well-being. By setting these goals, you may slowly improve how you interact and react to the situation happening around you.

In this article, we will discuss what emotional goals mean, the things you can achieve when you accomplish these goals, examples of emotional goals that you can set for yourself, and how to set them properly. Read on to learn more.

Table of Contents

What are Emotional Goals?

As we’ve mentioned earlier, you set emotional goals for yourself. These goals should be achievable with a timeline that you have set. By accomplishing these goals, you can attain emotional well-being.

Emotional well-being is a state of mind in which you interact with yourself and your surroundings. It refers to being conscious of all of the many human emotions and comprehending how you feel, think, and act when they occur.

Beyond that, emotional wellbeing is the ability to disconnect oneself from one’s emotions, understanding that how one feels does not truly and completely represent one’s identity.

As a result, having a good relationship with your emotions is the overarching goal of emotional wellness, allowing you to exist on the upper end of the range.

Living in a perfect world full of solely pleasant emotions isn’t the goal of emotional wellness. Instead, it’s to live well despite the ups and downs, free of the control of your intense emotions.

What to Achieve in Getting Emotional Wellness?

You can offer yourself a beautiful gift by attempting to live a life of emotional wellness.

Emotional wellness has numerous goals, all of which work together to help you build your best (although not perfect) self into a fulfilling life. Your journey in this quest will include emotional wellness objectives such as:

1. Being comfortable with discomfort

Negative emotions are unpleasant, so we often behave rashly to relieve them. Have you ever been offended by someone’s words and retaliated by uttering things you subsequently regretted?

These emotional reactions are frequently triggered by discomfort. We may learn to allow those uncomfortable feelings exist without reacting to them if we can halt, take a few quiet deep relaxing breaths, and become that distant observer.

2. Being emotionally active rather than passive

One of the many goals of emotional wellbeing is to be able to shift your focus from your current feelings to something more positive and useful.

When you’re furious, for example, you can choose to do a different task rather than letting your anger consume you and trap you in a cycle of rumination and hatred.

Even if you have excellent emotional health, you will occasionally become enraged. It’s what you do with it that matters.

3. Making peace with the things that you don’t have control

Acceptance is another term for this. Much of our negative feelings, the ones that harm our mental health and wellbeing, stem from battles with things and situations we wish we could change but can’t.

Accepting the unexpected or things beyond our control will not miraculously bring about the changes we desire, but it will dramatically improve your emotional wellness by giving you power over what you can influence: your thoughts, feelings, and actions.

This also allows you to free yourself with your thoughts.

4. Becoming an observer

Being a distant observer is a path to emotional regulation that involves allowing your thoughts and feelings to exist while just stepping aside from them and witnessing them as if they were occurring to someone else.

You become more objective and your sentiments are muted. Observing your feelings rather than becoming imprisoned in them provides you with more control over your emotions.

5. Emotional regulation

Emotional well-being is one of the components of emotional regulation. Emotional regulation is one of the skills that you can learn.

It entails pausing and thinking before behaving impulsively when you’re upset. Emotional management also entails making the conscious decision not to be defined by your emotions.

6. Life satisfaction

This is the ability to look at the bigger picture rather than exaggerating negative experiences and feelings.

You understand that a bad day does not equal a bad life and that an argument does not imply that a relationship is doomed.

When you achieve your goals;

You grow to become a better version of yourself
You can live life the way you like it
You are the master of your emotions
You are stabler than before.
You have the personality that you wanted before.

11 Emotional Goals to Achieve

There are many emotional goals that you can set for yourself. When choosing a goal, make sure that it’s well fit to the results that you want to achieve and that you can do it within a given timeline.

Here are 11 emotional goals that you can choose from:

1. Let go of all your “life” regrets

We’ve all made mistakes in our lives. Some people are able to move on from our mistakes, whereas others become stuck and regret their actions.

For those who become stuck, life becomes a nightmare. They eventually acquire self-doubt, a lowered self-image, and a mind that is dominated by negative thoughts.

Their joy is fleeting since their memories of regrets keep flashing across their minds, preventing them from being pleased.

If you’re one of the people who can’t let go of your previous mistakes, then this could be the best emotional goal that you can set for yourself.

How can you achieve this goal?

Acceptance is the most effective way to overcome regrets from the past. Accept that you don’t have control over your history and that making mistakes is a natural part of being human.

Take some time with yourself every day instead of running away from your old ideas. Consider “what exactly happened” and “why everything happened,” then learn from it and go forward.

2. Remove any “destructive dissatisfaction”

Contrary to common belief, you don’t have to be satisfied with your life. That’s right.

It’s because once you’re content with what you have, you stop trying to break out of your comfort zone. You stop stretching your boundaries and never realize your full potential.

It’s fantastic to be hungry and foolish at the same time.

The issue emerges, though, when you become destructively unhappy. Instead of attempting to improve yourself, you start blaming your condition on events and other people. You exaggerate every difficulty in your life, hoping for a supernatural solution, and the result is emotional pain.

Does this sound like you? If so, then you can work on this and improve yourself.

How can you achieve this goal?

First and foremost, quit looking for fulfillment in material possessions.

Begin each day with thankfulness (don’t touch your phone for a couple of minutes). Consider how many people would like to have what you have. Consider yourself fortunate and grateful for all that God has bestowed upon you.

Grab your journal and write down three things that you love about yourself and three small goals that you would like to achieve on that day.

Soon, your thoughts will be filled with optimism and eagerness to achieve your objectives. You won’t feel destructively unhappy again once these hobbies become a regular habit.

3. Control your stress

Stress is unavoidable, and we all experience different levels of stress in our daily lives. You may also notice that immediately following a stressful experience, you feel a great deal of panic, have racing thoughts, and begin to worry continuously.

Although there are no cures to stress and anxiety, you can control these emotions.

How can you achieve this goal?

Close your eyes for a couple of seconds whenever a problem arises and a stress wave hits you, take a few deep breaths, and relax your brain. You’ll notice that the abrupt surge in stress is immediately handled.

Doing deep breathing and yoga techniques can also be incorporated into your regular practice. They will assist you in mastering the art of directing your brain as well as regulating your overall emotions.

4. Control your actions and reactions

Impulsive behaviors cause us to lose our minds the majority of the time. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could maintain control before going insane?

During stressful situations, it’s understandable if you can’t control what happens in your surroundings, but it’s possible for you to control your reactions.

How can you achieve this goal?

Being aware of your emotions may be the most effective means of preventing overreactions before they occur. You might begin by becoming more conscious of your daily feelings.

Small steps, frequent practice, and constant efforts to be aware of emotions will help you gain perfect control.

5. Set realistic expectations

Setting false expectations creates uncertainties in the situation. It reduces your productivity, interest, and happiness, lowers your self-esteem, and makes you feel unworthy of nice things in life.

If you’re having problems setting realistic expectations, then this should work perfectly for you.

How can you achieve this goal?

Always remember and acknowledge your limitations when setting goals, and be reasonable. Make time for small break times in your schedule to help you work more productively. Don’t push yourself too hard unnecessarily. It’s fine if some chores take a few days.

6. Don’t be afraid of moving forward

Have you ever felt bad about not doing something you should have done because you were afraid? Afraid of making bad judgments, failing, disappointing people, and so on.

You know you could be happier and better, but you’re not because you’re frightened to take the first step.

How can you achieve this goal?

Rather than worrying about the opportunities you’ve missed, focus on the ones you can now seize. Begin doing everything that makes you happy and fulfilled. Start taking risks you’ve never taken before. Only your actions, and nothing else, will be able to assist you.

7. Focus on the higher purpose

There are two choices in life.

To be the follower, an average person, and not know your purpose.
To be the leader and know your defined purpose in life.

If you choose the first option, you will have low energy levels every day, follow the same pattern, lack enthusiasm, and have a persistent sense of being lost.

If you choose the second option, your purpose will encourage you to get out of bed with excitement, you will be continuously learning new and exciting things, and your life will feel like it has a clear direction.

Of course, everyone would choose the second choice. But how can you do this?

How can you achieve this goal?

Continually trying new things is the key to discovering your mission. Expand your horizons of knowledge, explore new life horizons, and meet new role models.

Look for something that makes you happy and gives you a sense of accomplishment. Something that gives you the impression that you can do it indefinitely. Take your time to locate the ideal fit for you. Don’t rush the process or leap to conclusions.

8. Be social

We were created to be social beings.

We feel happy, joyful, and fulfilled when we stay connected and surround ourselves with people. It gives us the impression of being cherished and cared for.

Sharing our feelings with our loved ones allows us to express ourselves and relieves us of tumultuous emotions.

It’s the right moment to hunt for companions for all introverts who don’t have anyone to listen to their hearts.

How can you achieve this goal?

Stop wasting time expecting others to contact you. Instead, make contact with them. You must understand that you, not others, are in need of friendship.

You can contact your former acquaintances by phone or text, whatever is more convenient for you. All you have to do now is start conversing, and you’ll see that your old bond has resurfaced.

9. Develop useful habits

Do you enjoy junk food or eating in fast-food restaurants?

According to studies, high-calorie foods do not make you happy or help you feel better. Healthy foods like fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, do.

Several other practices can help you feel joyful every day, live longer, and improve your mental well-being.

Say goodbye to all of your bad habits and make your behaviors responsible for your positive feelings.

How can you achieve this goal?

The first thing that you would want to do is cut down your intake of junk food and fast foods.

You would want to switch to a healthier diet that will enable your body to perform at its fullest potential. Partner this diet with regular exercise and you’ll be surprised to know its effects in the long run.

10. Laugh more

Even the little things used to make us happy when we were young. We used to laugh for no reason at all, but as we got older, that pure laughing faded away.

Some of us have gotten so serious in a world full of responsibilities, family pressures, aspirations, and expectations that we’ve lost our beautiful smiles.

We have lost sight of the importance of laughter. We’ve forgotten how laughter relieved our tension, made us happy, satisfied, and made us feel like everything was fine.

If you notice that you haven’t smiled often these past couple of days or weeks, then this goal will be perfect for you.

How can you achieve this goal?

Take part in some enjoyable activities. Spend time with the people that make you laugh. Attend some stand-up comedy shows.

Take everything in slowly and lightly. You will notice that, once you start doing fun activities, you will smile more often.

11. Stay optimistic

It’s not simple to maintain a happy attitude with everything happening around us. There are times in life when it appears that everything is going in the wrong direction.

When you’ve been a pessimist for much of your life, staying positive becomes even more difficult. So, even if something has more advantages than disadvantages, you still focus on the disadvantages.

How can you achieve this goal?

When your life takes a turn for the worse, forget about everyone and everything else and focus solely on yourself.

Try to cheer yourself up by doing something you enjoy. Take a walk, listen to upbeat music, or play video games, for example. It will offer you an immediate boost of motivation to keep going.

Next, talk to your loved ones about how you’re feeling. Finally, as the wave of chaotic emotions subsides, take some time to yourself and think out the greatest possible reason why you’re going through this.

Get back on your feet, be hopeful, and prepare to battle.

How to Set Emotional Goals

Now that you have an idea of the different emotional goals that you can set for yourself, it’s time for you to know how to set these goals so that you can achieve them in an efficient and effective manner.

1. Acknowledge that it takes time to achieve these goals

It’s critical to remember that achieving our emotional goals takes time. It’s not supposed to be simple. It’s natural for us to make mistakes or to have doubts about ourselves.

If things aren’t working out, we may need to take a step back and rethink our goals altogether, which is fine.

What matters is that we recognize that achieving our objectives is a process while yet holding ourselves responsible to complete them. It’s also critical to remember to look after our mental health at all times during the process.

2. Identify the reason why you started in the first place

Consider the “why,” or the real motivation behind your goals, before you begin to pursue them. We should avoid setting goals that we hear from other people or what society tells us.

Instead, we should set personal objectives. What can work for other people may or may not work for you.

They should be based on our core beliefs and what we actually desire for ourselves, particularly when it affects our mental health.

3. Set both short-term and long-term emotional goals

Big goals can be difficult to achieve at times. If we need to, we can break down these long-term goals into more attainable short-term ones.

Deciding on short-term goals for each day, week, and month will boost our motivation and allow us to gradually work toward our larger, year-long objectives. We won’t feel pressed to make major, often frightening adjustments all at once this way.

Setting mental health-related objectives can be really useful to us. We can start forming our larger goals for other areas of our lives after we create these types of goals.

Begin setting these goals for yourself right now, and remember to always be kind to yourself along the way. Keep track of your minor successes and reward yourself for how far you’ve gone along the journey!

4. SMART goals

SMART goals are probably something you’ve heard of before. These objectives are explicit, quantifiable, realistic, timely, and relevant. It’s a tried-and-true technique for achieving your objectives.

When it comes to making our goals SMART-ER, there are two factors to consider. These objectives are evaluative, ethical, and gratifying.

With the addition of the E and R, our goals should be in line with our personal values, and the ultimate product should give us a sense of achievement or reward.

Setting SMART-ER emotional goals will help us feel inspired and fulfilled in our efforts to improve our health.