<aside> 🎖️ Welcome to the Group and Week 1 of our learning module!

Congratulations on taking this important step towards self-healing! We're here to support you on your journey. We understand that struggling with anxiety, depression, self-doubt, or low self-esteem can be challenging, but it's never too late to make positive changes.

This week, you'll learn how to set SMART goals and explore the concept of emotions. Emotions are a fundamental aspect of CBT, and understanding them will help you become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

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Setting a Goal

Congratulations on officially joining our program! This is a huge step for you and also big trust in us. To ensure program efficiency, before we start learning anything, let’s work on specifying your goal, and making it as SMART as possible.

• Specific: Clearly defined and detailed.
• Measurable: You can track your progress.
• Achievable: Realistic and attainable.
• Relevant: Connected to your overall well-being.
• Time-bound: With a clear start and end date.

Here are the steps to SMART your goal:

• First, from the general issues you described, write down your general goal. For example, if one of your issues is “low mood or sadness,” your general goal may be “improved mood.” or if you're feeling lonely, your general goal might be "improve social connections."
• Next, make the general goal more specific. What does this goal mean? How will you know if you have met this goal? For example, if your general goal is to improve social connections, a specific goal might be to "attend one social event per week."
• Finally, identify actions that will help you reach your goals. What can you do to move closer to your desired outcome? For example, if your goal is to attend more social events, you could join a club or become a volunteer.

We provide some examples of what the goal looks like regarding different levels of detail. It’s ok to start with a general goal. You can come back to refine it or discuss it with your communities to get more ideas.

<aside> 💪 **Examples

General goal**: I want to feel less stressed. Specific goal: I want to have a better work-life balance and have more free time when I’m off from work. SMART goal: I want to stop working at home, and have 120 minutes of free time each week for myself by the end of this month. Actions consistent with my goal: I will plan my work responsibilities reasonably and not take on more tasks than I can manage. I will set my work email to silent on my devices when off from work. I will practice my hobby twice a week for 60 min.

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✍️  Now, write down your SMART GOAL using the template in tab 1. This is the tool to monitor your progress and also a reminder of what you are working towards.

Congratulations on your goal setting! You know what you want to achieve, the next step is to learn the most important concept in CBT: emotions!

Learn CBT Model of Emotion

Emotions have a strong influence on our daily lives. We make decisions based on whether we feel happy, angry, sad, bored, or frustrated. We also choose activities and hobbies based on the emotions they evoke. Understanding emotions can help us navigate life with greater ease and stability, but they can also become overwhelming and unhelpful. Recognizing your emotions and learning to manage them is one of the most important skills you can develop.

Research shows, that people who are good at noticing how they feel and can calm themselves down are more likely to do well in life, have healthy relationships, and manage difficulties and setbacks.

In many Asian cultures, open emotional expression may be less emphasized compared to Western cultures. A good understanding of emotions is the first thing we want you to gain from this program.

What are emotions?