Emotional goals: ways to achieve psychological well-being

Do we have absolute control over how we feel? No. Can we make plans, and then execute them, so that our emotional state changes in a consciously directed way? Yeah.

Anger, disappointment, rage, frustration, fear, anguish… Negatively valenced emotions have many faces and orchestrate deep discomfort. In this context, one of our most important objectives would have to be to understand and manage all these realities.

Going from emotional slavery to emotional self-mastery requires setting goals. Taking charge of what we feel will allow us to achieve what we want. Also, we can relate much better to others and have greater control over our lives. Just as we set personal, economic or physical health goals, we should do the same in this matter.

After all, the emotional sphere dominates our entire existence. It is the architect of everything we are, decide and carry out. Improving management at this level almost inevitably translates into an increased feeling of control. Achieving emotional goals is a valuable strategy worth delving into.

There are many people who allow their emotions to rule them completely. This leads to psychological discomfort.

What are emotional goals?

Just a few months ago, research was carried out by Liverpool Hope University, the University of Warwick and the Autonomous University of Madrid. The objective was to delve deeper into the emotional objectives that people set for themselves throughout their lives, from childhood to adulthood.

Something that became evident in this work is that, for human beings, Emotions are not just ways we feel: they are also mechanisms to gain control of our lives.. We are not only faced with psychophysical states that overwhelm us, that bring us happiness, despair, panic or hope.

When we become aware of the power to govern our emotional world, we can begin to set goals for ourselves.. That is, we begin to make action plans to achieve objectives, in the same way we do in other areas, which is a fabulous tool for psychological well-being.

Emotional goals are reactions or states that we want to experience by practicing adequate management or regulation of said states.. For example, I can set a goal to remain calm when presenting my work so as not to make a fool of myself and achieve a good grade. I can also make it a goal not to get angry and lose my temper when talking to a coworker with whom I don’t get along. Let’s get more information.

What types of emotional objectives or goals exist?

There are two types of emotional goals. They are two strategies that, in some way, we have all experienced and carried out more than once without realizing it. They are the following:

Hedonic goals: They consist of promoting a series of behaviors that allow us to feel good. The person who experiences great stress at work and who intends to have a good time over the weekend without thinking about anything else is an example of this.Instrumental goals in emotional matters are the most useful and beneficial for psychological well-being. They consist of promoting useful strategies with which to reduce negatively valenced emotions in a specific context. In this case, the hedonic and pleasurable emotion is not used as an escape mechanism, but instead the goal is to regulate and manage that problematic state. Face it without avoiding.

There are always contexts and situations in which we can anticipate how we will feel and be prepared to act in the best way.

How to set instrumental emotional goals

Instrumental emotional goals tell us that there are situations and contexts in which it is common to feel more overwhelmed, stressed or worried. So, When we have a personal challenge ahead of us, it is interesting to ask ourselves the following question: how would I like to feel in that situation?

Let’s imagine that we have a stressful job or that there is someone who frequently makes us uncomfortable or angry. In these cases, we can set the emotional goal of being able to act with greater self-control and solvency. The goal is not to “enjoy” or experience hedonic and pleasurable emotions. What we want is not to get hurt, to be calm. Act in balance.

In these cases, the instrumental goals propose us to reflect on the following:

All emotions are useful, including negative ones. Anger, anger or anguish are only warning you of a threat that you must act on. And to do this you need to meditate calmly and apply solutions to problems.We cannot get carried away by our emotions. To avoid these “kidnappings”, let us reason, take a deep breath and consider what to do before reacting. We must assume that we are not at the mercy of our emotions. We are all capable of developing strategies to modulate these states and use them to our advantage.

Going from emotional slavery to self-control of emotions requires time and appropriate strategies. No one learns from one day to the next, but with will, focus and patience, we will emerge as effective managers of that universe so decisive in our lives.

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