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Goals from the family side

The wellness goals kept for your loved one, and the question worth asking before you add one.

Written by Brian Fluhr

Goals in the Caregiving hub is the wellness goals page, seen with your family context around it. You can add a goal, follow its Progress, and remove one with Delete Goal.

Where to find it

Open Caregiving and choose Goals.

The question to ask before adding one

Whose goal is this?

A goal your loved one chose, that you are helping with, works. A goal set for them by someone else, however sensibly, usually does not, and it can quietly sour something that was meant to help. Independence is the thing most people are protecting hardest at this stage of life, and a target arriving from an adult child can land as a verdict rather than support.

The best version of this page is a goal you agreed on together, in their words, with you keeping half an eye on it.

What makes a goal work

Small and specific, and attached to a moment that already exists in the day.

"A walk to the end of the road after lunch" works because there is a point at which you can tell whether it happened. "More exercise" does not.

One at a time, too. A page of goals reads as a list of ways to fall short.

Their own goals

Your loved one has My Goals on their side, under My Day, with the same small-habits idea behind it. If they are already using it, that is the better home for anything they have chosen themselves.

What the app will not do

It will not chase anyone, score anyone, or tell either of you that a goal is going badly. There is no streak to break and no red mark for a missed day.

Nor does it judge whether a goal is a good idea. SeniorThrive does not know anyone's health, and anything with a medical dimension belongs with a doctor rather than in a target.

If a goal is not working

Adjust it or remove it with Delete Goal. A goal that keeps slipping usually needs to be smaller, more specific, or moved to a different time of day.

Making it easier is the right move. The habit is the thing being built, and habits grow at a size a person can keep.

Where the real work is

Not on this page. A goal someone believes in, that fits their day, is worth more than a well-designed one they never agreed to, and that agreement happens in conversation rather than in an app.

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