MORE THAN THERAPYTHE RESOURCE LIBRARY

MODULE 07 / 24 · Mindfulness · 15–25 MINUTES

Effectiveness: Focus on What Works

Choose actions that serve your actual goal within your values and circumstances.

Try the worksheet

Understand the skill

Being effective means asking what helps in this situation. It includes realistic constraints, power differences, and long-term consequences. Winning an argument may be less useful than reaching a meaningful goal.

Practice step by step

  1. Name the goal you want to move toward.
  2. Identify the facts, constraints, and people involved.
  3. Compare two possible actions and their likely effects.
  4. Choose a workable action and decide how to review it.

TRY IT · SOLO OR WITH A GROUP

A practice activity

Goal versus impulse: use a fictional disagreement to compare a satisfying immediate response with a response that better serves the person's chosen goal.

Group option: Work from a fictional example for five minutes, rehearse or compare choices for five minutes, then discuss one useful adaptation. Pass, write, observe, or work alone.

Your practice worksheet

Writing is optional. Responses stay in this open tab and are not submitted or automatically saved. Closing or refreshing clears them. Avoid names or identifying details. Printing or downloading includes your words.

Use paper or discuss the prompts if you prefer.

Recovery connection

Ask for an appointment change or practical support in a way that improves access, even while acknowledging frustration with the system.

Facilitator notes

Ask whose goal is being served. Include advocacy and collective action rather than defining effectiveness as obedience.

Adaptation and care: An effective response may be leaving, delaying, or seeking support when negotiation is unsafe.

Between-session practice: Choose one manageable situation to try this skill. Notice the context, what you did, and what helped or needs adjusting. An attempt counts as practice even when feelings do not change.

Background and sources

DBT skills concepts originate in Marsha M. Linehan's work. These are original More Than Therapy activities, not reproductions of official worksheets or endorsed materials.

References inform the skill framework; they do not validate these particular exercises. Life-structure modules are DBT-informed applications, not additional standard DBT core modules.