How to set goals in recovery?

Recovery can take a lot of time, so it is better to pace yourself and set reasonable goals. This can help you stay motivated, avoid burning out quickly, and prevent giving up. When setting goals, there are a couple of important things to consider:

1. It is best to be as specific as possible about your goals. Setting specific goals will keep them measurable and observable, and help you and others around you know if you have accomplished them. So, instead of setting "I will challenge my fear foods" as a goal, be specific and state what food you will try, how often, when, and where.
   

2. Aim for a range instead of absolute numbers when setting goals. If you are recovering from an eating disorder, your relationship with numbers can be a slippery slope. Keeping your goals in terms of a range is a good way to work on tendencies toward perfectionism and rigidity. Sometimes, things will get in the way of your plan, and it is important to allow for some leeway regarding how you accomplish your goals—or, more importantly, how much you accomplish. One of the real game changers in my recovery was accepting that good enough is good enough; I don’t have to do this perfectly. It helps to be specific when setting goals while also staying flexible, so you have a greater chance of achieving them. For example, instead of saying "I will try more fear foods," you might set the goal: "I will challenge one of my fear foods 1–3 times this week, in the evening, at home, with support if I need it." To practice flexibility, this doesn’t always have to be the same food or situation—it could mean trying a new snack on one day and ordering something else on another.
   

3. Be honest and accepting about where you are in the recovery process. For example, if you are bingeing and purging multiple times a day, it isn’t realistic to try to stop immediately. It may be more achievable to set a goal to delay bingeing for 5 minutes and journal about the feelings that come up, or to reach out to a safe person before you purge. Then, you can move on to delaying your binges for longer, and try journaling, reaching out, or using another form of distraction or self-soothing instead of one of your binge-purge cycles. Eventually, you will be able to stop one of your binges, then go a whole day without using eating disorder behaviors, and continue building from there.
   

Setting realistic goals is essential for many reasons. If you set the bar too low, you won’t make progress, but if you set it too high, you will likely get frustrated, lose motivation, and eventually give up. Aiming for progress and setting realistic goals is better than trying to recover perfectly and ending up feeling like a failure. Recovery is not a linear process; it will run its natural course. Relapse is not the exception—it is the rule.