Is there any better feeling than choosing your own goal (desire/want...) and then pursuing it with total certainty of success?

The mind is clear and focused, energy levels are running at optimum and a resilience is present to reassure you that you can overcome any challenge or obstacle in your path, you feel good about yourself and your future life.

Contrast this scenario with how you feel when someone else sets you a goal that frankly you don't think you have a chance of completing successfully - bored, frustrated, overwhelmed, angry, fearful...

How can you manage the challenge of balancing desires with expectations?

There are only two approaches available:

1. The first and by far the most common is to downplay your personal desires and avoid setting ambitious goals in order to protect yourself from the risk of failure and the negative feelings that accompany it.

2. The second and more challenging approach is to create a purposeful vision for your life and break this down into short term goals that stretch you but do not extend too far beyond your current levels of expectation.

The majority of offenders have very low levels of positive expectation. They expect to be judged negatively, they expect the doors of opportunity to be closed to them, they expect life to continue to be a real struggle...

That is why the New Horizon Programme has been designed to inspire the participants to raise their expectations for themselves and their future life. Raising hope, re-building self worth, appreciating existing strengths... are all critical elements of breaking the cycle of reoffending.
 
By supporting each participant in authoring their own PACT, they perhaps for the first time ever experience setting personal goals that are meaningful to them and most importantly with the right support and encouragement become goals that they can grow to really believe in.

When expectations can be set at positive on a consistent basis. wonderful changes take place.