Kinora is a supportive online community with a mission of working towards better outcomes for everyone navigating the NDIS. Kinora’s NDIS Coach Amelia shares her approach to setting goals to get the most from your NDIS plan and take control of your choices, and your life.

*[Image Description: A man sits in a wheelchair with his arms outstretched, and a lady behind him looks at him smiling. They are on a road with trees and green grass on either side.]*

You’ve heard of SMART goals, right?

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. They’re great in a business setting but not the best way to set goals for your NDIS plan.

Your goals have an incredible impact on your NDIS journey. They are the starting point and the gatekeeper to how you can use your funding, so you want to make sure you get them right.

All too often, it’s the goals written into someone's plan that actually prevents them from accessing the supports they need to reach them. So I’ve developed an approach to crafting NDIS goals that will help you get the most out of your plan, while giving you utmost flexibility.

Take some time before your next plan review, grab a cuppa and settle in. This is meant to be a guideline to provoke thought, not a checklist.

S

Sweeping goals to give you more flexibility.

Did you know that you can generally only access a support if it will help meet a plan goal?

Rather than being too specific, sweeping goals can offer greater flexibility in how you could use your funding which means you can access many different types of support to help reach it.

The easiest way to keep your goals broad, yet focused, is to think of a theme or category rather than a specific service or item.

Setting a goal like, “I want to take up painting classes,” will only allow you to access supports to attend painting classes. However, if you consider the purpose for painting, or activities similar to painting, the more general theme could be: creativity, motor skills, or social interaction. A better goal could be, “I want to find ways to be more creative.”

This goal could potentially fund supports for painting classes, pottery classes, social trips to the art gallery, hand therapy, and so much more.

C

Capacity building to improve life and increase independence.

A cornerstone of the NDIS is to help you become more independent and participate in the community. Therefore, goals that build your capacity so that you’re less reliant on others are the best way to gain funding and lead the life you want.

Hopefully you’ve already had a chance to evaluate your eight life domains to see where you might be able to improve your capacity. If you haven’t, this is a great time to go back and assess where you are now using this brainstorming tool.

After exploring the different areas of your life, you may have uncovered some unmet needs or desires - these should be the basis for your goals. They could be physical, social, or independence focused, and could cover things such as education, employment, relationships, communication, mobility, or being more independent in your day-to-day life.

Here are a list of keywords that could help gear your goals toward building capacity:

• Learn • Make • Increase
• Improve • Progress • Create
• Develop • Strengthen • Upgrade

O

Obtainable goals gives you greater clarity on next steps.

Although it’s great to set your sights high, a goal that is too lofty could result in inaction. Break your goals into achievable chunks with time frames, in the short, medium and long term.

Maybe you have the goal of playing competitive wheelchair basketball. Is this obtainable? Maybe not in the short-term, possibly in the long-term, but it also depends on how you’re tracking in your chosen sport.

Instead, a more obtainable near-term goal could be, “increase my physical fitness to become a better member of a team sport.” This could help you access physiotherapy, personal training, and any supports or assistive technology to play basketball. Plus if you decide to switch to another sport it still covers you.

P

Personal, because it’s all about you and what you want out of life.

You are an individual, with your own dreams and passions. There's no-one else out there quite like you, so why shouldn’t your NDIS goals reflect that?

Have a think about what you enjoy doing. What you want to do more or less of. What gets you excited and what would make you proud. Have a think about some of these scenarios:

One creative or physical outlet I’ve wanted to try, but never given a go, is ....
When I was younger, one job I really wanted to do was ....
I would feel so proud if I could …...
In my spare time, I most enjoy.....
My day-to-day life would be so much easier with a ….

If you’re stuck for ideas, chat to a close friend or family member, or maybe even your support coordinator. Sometimes other people can pick things up about how we live our lives that we don’t even realise ourselves. They may be able to bring something up you hadn’t thought of, or something you mentioned before that you’d like to explore that you’ve forgotten all about.

Making sure your goals are 100% your own will also keep you motivated. If you’re excited about reaching it, you’ll be more likely to work towards it.

E

Effect, focus on how it will benefit your life.

Just like creating sweeping goals, focusing on the effect and the outcomes a goal could have on your life is a great way to maintain flexibility.

Let’s say you want to speak better. You’ve been told speech pathology is a great way to do this. You would be tempted to create a goal “to access speech pathology sessions”. However, there are so many different support options that could help you not just speak better but level up your communication skills. Attending social day programs, occupational therapy, or even an ipad app that helps you practice your speech, can bring about excellent outcomes, but the goal of “accessing speech pathology” wouldn’t allow you access to these options.

Instead, if your goal is more focused on the effect you want to have, such as “to be able to communicate more effectively”, a whole world of support could be opened up to you.

Another benefit of keeping the effects of a goal in mind is that it is usually better at articulating an achievement. Compare how a goal like, “undergo public transport training” would feel against a more effects-focused goal such as, “independently use public transport.” Starting or even completing training are good outcomes, but the sense of independence and freedom from using public transport by myself - celebration worthy!

Creating NDIS goals with SCOPE will give you more flexibility, keep you motivated on what interests you, and make sure that the NDIS can help you get there. Download the SCOPE goals worksheet here.

Now get out there and SCOPE the life you want!

I’d love to know how this process helped you come up with some fantastic new goals for your next plan. Jump onto Kinora and share your goals with the community, because the path to better outcomes is easier when we walk it together.

Join or Log into Kinora

It’s FREE and we’d love to hear from you.

Set NDIS Goals with greater SCOPE to maximise funding flexibility.

S