New Year, same Relationship how to Grow within your Relationship
Setting Meaningful Goals within your relationship from a Couples Therapist
Setting goals as a couple can be a transformative process, deepening your connection and providing a roadmap for shared growth and connection to one another. However, for couples navigating the effects of stress, mental health, parenting, trauma, and or attachment wounds; the process requires sensitivity and intentionality on a regular basis not just at the beginning of the year. Integrating the principles below offers a compassionate and effective framework for setting and achieving goals together and effectively growing together. I love to incorporate Gottman Method Couples & Internal Family Systems approaches for establishing a safe environment for goal setting.
The Gottman Method emphasizes the importance of a strong relational foundation rooted in friendship and partnership. They recommend checking in weekly during date nights on your Love Maps which promote connection and deeper reflection on life values. When setting goals, applying these principles help promote a strong connection, which permits individualization and shared meaning for both partners to grow within the relationship.
The Importance of Knowing and Supporting your Partner’s Goals
Trauma leaves an imprint on how individuals experience safety, trust, and connection. When setting personal and relationship goals, it’s essential to create an environment where both partners feel emotionally secure and understood. There is no right or wrong way to plan goals, these are deeply personal based on the person’s perspective of themselves, hardships, ambitions, and how they relate to their partner. Some simple steps that promote a deeper connection to emotional safety and security:
Establishing Safety: Begin by ensuring that the goal-setting process itself feels safe. There are no overt or covert tactics to control or caregiver for one another. If either partner is not regulated or feeling flooded, use grounding techniques or mindfulness exercises to create a calm space for oneself or co-regulate with affirming statements and breathwork.
Building Trust: Acknowledge that past experiences may influence each partner’s expectations, fears, or hesitations, which may be from childhood, past relationships, or even within this relationship. Approach the process with empathy, patience, and realistic expectations.
Fostering Collaboration in the Relationship: Trauma and mental health factors can sometimes lead to feelings of disempowerment, apathy, negative sentiment over-ride and emphasizing equal input and shared decision-making promotes trust and enhances emotional safety for all.
Practical Steps for Goal Setting
Set the Stage: Choose a time and space free from distractions from stress, hunger, children to promote intentionality and focus. Start with an activity that promotes connection, such as sharing a meal or taking a walk to help set the stage for success.
Nurture Fondness and Admiration: Before diving into practical goals, spend time reflecting on your strengths as a couple. What do you admire about each other? What shared values or dreams bring you together? What connections do you see within your own individual goals and shared relationship goals that could be supported with more fondness and admiration of each other? Powerful stuff, I tell you!
Practice Self-Leadership: Encourage each partner to approach the process with their core “Self”—a state of calm, curiosity, and compassion.
Dream Together: Use the Gottman concept of “dreams within conflict” to explore deeper aspirations. Ask open-ended questions like:
What do you envision for our future?
How can we support each other in achieving individual and shared goals?
Is there anything I can do to connect with you more on this issue?
Start Small: The Gottman Method encourages breaking down larger goals into manageable steps, which is helped by meeting weekly to review and support each other in the accountability department and to share the load if needed. Celebrating and speaking about the small wins build momentum and confidence within the relationship and outside of it.
Define Your Goals from a strength based approach, taking turns talking about each of your goals. This step is fun and important for being able to clearly articulate what you would like to accomplish for yourself and potentially your partner in actionable and measurable ways. Many couples enjoy establishing various goals together, both:
Short-Term Goals: Focus on immediate, actionable steps (e.g., dedicating one evening a week to a shared activity).
Long-Term Goals: Dream big together, maybe 2-20 years from now, such as planning for a move, baby, retirement, or cultivating a specific relationship quality that entails regular conversations about one’s dreams, desires, fears, and values.
Establishing personal or couple goals, who will lead the goal or who will keep us accountable with check ins help with successful goal completion.
Use SMART Goals: Make your goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Leverage Strengths: Identify each partner’s unique strengths and how they can contribute to achieving your goals. This can also lean into who will take lead and who will be the follower, ensuring there is an equal balance of both for each.
When setting goals, consider how each partner’s “parts” (sub-personalities) may show up in the process. Identify and Acknowledge each other's Parts: Each partner can reflect on internal voices that may influence goal setting. For example, a protective part might fear failure, while an ambitious part pushes for success.
Create Shared Meaning: Frame your goals in a way that aligns with your relationship’s overarching purpose and overall values if you identified any. For instance, if you value adventure, your goals might include travel or trying new activities together, both goals can be individual and relationship focused.
Balance Individual and Shared Needs: IFS emphasizes the importance of honoring all parts. Make space for both individual aspirations and the goals you hold as a couple.
Anticipate Challenges: Discuss potential obstacles and create a plan for navigating them. Emphasize collaboration and flexibility, which can be hard for those who experience emotional distress with interpersonal relationships and “letting their partner down” so speak freely about your insecurities and fears so your partner can know you and support you in a kind and supportive way.
Create Rituals for Check-Ins: Regularly revisit your goals, using IFS-informed questions like:
How are our parts responding to this goal?
Are there unacknowledged fears or needs that we can address together?
Celebrate Progress: Acknowledge even small achievements. Celebrations reinforce connection and motivation. Everyone who knows me, knows I fully support and endorse regular celebrations and connections to progress as LIFE is HARD and we are not perfect, so celebrate every win you can!
Conclusion
Goal setting for couples isn’t just about achieving milestones; it’s about co-creating a life that reflects your shared values, dreams, and resilience. Not every goal will be achieved and that is to be expected in life. Your partner being by your side helps you to engage in life meaningfully, which is what makes individuals feel healthy and By integrating trauma-informed care, the Gottman Method, and IFS principles, you can create a compassionate and effective roadmap for your journey together. With every step, you’re not only working toward your goals but also strengthening the foundation of your relationship.
