- Lewis Bartelle
- Mar 22
Updated: 13 hours ago
SMART Goals: Turning the Overwhelming Into the Achievable
Hey friends, Lewis here.
When I first started my stroke recovery journey, I felt completely lost. Not just physically — although that was its own mountain — but mentally. The whole process felt like staring at a giant, complex map with no destination programmed in. No route. No starting point. Just an overwhelming expanse of everything that needed to happen with no clear idea of where to even begin.
I knew I wanted to get better. But here is the thing nobody tells you: “get better” is not a goal. It is a wish. And wishes do not have action plans.
If you are sitting in that same fog right now — that heavy, directionless feeling where recovery looks like one enormous impossible thing — I want you to know something first. That feeling is completely normal. It does not mean you are weak or behind or doing this wrong. It means you are human, and something enormous just happened to you.
But I also want to hand you the tool that changed everything for me. The simple framework that took the overwhelming and turned it into a sequence of daily, winnable steps.
It is called the SMART method. And it became one of the most important pieces of my entire recovery puzzle. Determination)
Why “Get Better” Is Not a Goal
Before we get into the framework itself, let me explain why vague goals do not work — because understanding this is half the battle.
Saying “I want to walk better” is like saying “I want to drive somewhere nice.” It sounds good. It feels motivating in the moment. But how do you know when you have succeeded? How do you track progress? How do you know what to actually do today?
You don’t. And that uncertainty is exhausting.
Recovery is fueled by progress. Progress requires clear targets. And clear targets require a plan specific enough that you know exactly what you are doing, when you are doing it, and how you will know when it is done.
That is where SMART comes in. Think of it as programming the GPS. You still have to drive — but now you know where you are going.
I lay out the full goal setting framework in Beyond Shattered, including how I used it to work back from nine months in inpatient rehab toward getting behind the wheel again. If you want the complete roadmap, grab your copy on Amazon. But right now let me walk you through each piece of the framework and show you exactly how to apply it to your recovery today.
S — Specific: What Exactly Will I Do?
Your goal needs to be precise. Not a direction — a destination.
Instead of: “I want to improve my arm.”
Try: “I will practice lifting a coffee mug to my mouth three times during my morning routine.”
See the difference? The second version tells your brain exactly what pathway to rebuild. It eliminates the daily question of what am I supposed to be working on right now. You wake up and you know.
That clarity alone removes a layer of mental load that stroke survivors simply cannot afford to waste.
Specific goals move the needle. Vague goals move nothing.
M — Measurable: How Will I Track It?
If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. And more importantly — you cannot celebrate it.
Instead of: “I want to read more.”
Try: “I will read one paragraph without losing my place, three days this week.”
That second version gives you something concrete to mark done. And marking things done matters enormously in stroke recovery — because the Victory Journal principle I talk about throughout The Word is built on exactly this. Daily, specific, irrefutable proof that the work is paying off. Numbers you can point to on the days when everything feels like it is standing still.
When the numbers go up — even slightly — that is neuroplasticity doing its job. And seeing it happen is one of the most powerful motivators on this entire journey.
A — Achievable: Is This Realistic Right Now?
Here is where a lot of survivors accidentally set themselves up for frustration rather than momentum. We all want to run before we can walk — sometimes literally. But a goal that is out of reach today does not inspire you. It defeats you.
Your goal needs to be challenging enough to matter and realistic enough to actually happen today.
If lifting the coffee mug is too much right now, your goal becomes: “I will move my hand two inches closer to the mug during my practice session.”
That is not settling. That is smart. That is the car guy in me talking — you do not rebuild an engine by trying to install the transmission before the block is ready. You work the process. You honor where you are right now and build from there.
Small wins create mental momentum. Mental momentum creates the confidence that carries you to the bigger wins. Every single piece matters.
R — Relevant: Does This Goal Actually Matter to Your Life?
Your goals need to be connected to something that genuinely matters to you — your real life, your real people, your real Why.
If being able to talk to your grandkids on the phone is your biggest motivation, your speech goal should reflect that.
Try: “I will practice my articulation exercises for ten minutes before I call my grandkids on Saturday.”
Now that goal has a face on it. It has a reason. And on the days when the exercises feel pointless and frustrating and endless — that face, that Saturday phone call — is what keeps you at the table.
Relevance is the bridge between effort and commitment. Build your goals on things that genuinely matter to you and they will hold up under pressure. Build them on things that do not and they will collapse the first time recovery gets hard. Which it will.
T — Time-Bound: When Will You Do This and By When?
A goal without a deadline is just a wish with better vocabulary.
Instead of: “I’ll try to walk more this week.”
Try: “I will walk twenty feet using my cane by Friday.”
The deadline creates urgency. Urgency creates focus. Focus creates action. And at the end of Friday you know exactly where you stand — you either hit it, or you learn something useful about what needs to adjust. Either outcome moves you forward. That is the point.
I practiced this principle in one of my favorite recovery wins — I had a goal of getting back behind the wheel. Specific, measurable, achievable in stages, deeply relevant to my independence, and time-bound by the milestones I set with my care team. I even used a PlayStation with a steering wheel controller and racing games as a driving simulator to practice coordination and reaction time between sessions. Unconventional? Maybe. Effective? I drove myself to an appointment and traded in my wheelchair for four wheels. So yes.
The Power of Small Goals Adding Up
Here is what happens when you start building your recovery around SMART goals: the whole thing transforms.
Suddenly you are not failing to “get better” — a target so vague it is impossible to hit. You are succeeding three times a day by lifting that mug. You are winning on Tuesday by reading that paragraph. You are making measurable, trackable, moments to celebrate progress every single day — progress your brain can feel and your confidence can build on.
That is neuroplasticity at work. Every small, specific, repeated effort is laying down new pathways. Every win — however modest it looks from the outside — is a piece of the puzzle clicking into place. And pieces add up. I know because I counted mine, one by one, over thirteen-plus years.
Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Give yourself the grace of starting smaller than feels significant — because consistency beats intensity every single time in stroke recovery.
And when you are ready to go deeper — when you want the full framework, the self care strategy, the visualization practice, and every other tool that helped me go from a six week coma and nine months in inpatient rehab to walking, driving, and building a life beyond the stroke — Beyond Shattered is waiting for you on Amazon.
Every chapter was written for the person who needed a roadmap and could not find one.
You are not lost anymore. You have a map. Now let’s program the GPS and get moving.
If you want to share your recovery journey with a community that truly gets it, come find us in Beyond The Shatter on Facebook. And if you are ready to let your story inspire someone else who is right where you were — the Army of Warriors program at BeyondtheShatter.com will give it a home. Always free. Always yours.
I am right here with you.
— Lewis
- Lewis Bartelle
- Mar 21
Updated: 13 hours ago
Why Recovery Is an Inside Job
Hey friends, Lewis here.
When a stroke first hits, you rely completely on the outside world. Therapists, doctors, medication, equipment — all of it is vital, all of it matters, and none of it should ever be taken for granted. These people are the experts, the map-makers, and the safety net. For everything they gave me — including my life — I am grateful every single day.
But here is the hard-earned truth that took me time to fully accept, and that I now believe with everything I have:
The ultimate progress has to come from within.
Nobody can want your recovery more than you do. Nobody can do the internal work for you. The best therapist in the world cannot rewire your brain — only you can, through focused, deliberate, daily effort that you choose. Not because someone scheduled it. Because you decided.
Recovery is an inside job. And the mindset that drives it is what I call The Hustle.
What The Hustle Actually Means
The Hustle is not about grinding yourself into the ground or showing up to every session with something to prove to the room. It is about something deeper and more sustainable than that.
It is about total ownership.
Ownership means you are not a passenger in your own recovery. You are not simply showing up and waiting for progress to be delivered to you. You are the CEO of your care — the one person in the room with the most at stake, the most to gain, and the most responsibility for what happens next.
I did not always operate this way. In the early months — six weeks in a coma, nine months in inpatient rehab, learning to shuffle ten feet in a pink gait belt while my daughters waited at the end of the hall — I was focused on survival. And that was exactly right for that season.
But at some point the season changes. And when it does, you have a choice to make. Are you going to keep waiting for recovery to happen to you? Or are you going to go get it?
Here is what total ownership actually looks like in practice:
Be the CEO of your care. Know your goals. Track your own progress. Ask your therapy team the hard questions — not just how did I do, but what should I be doing between now and next session to make the most of this? You are not just a patient receiving treatment. You are an active participant directing your own recovery. Nobody has more skin in this game than you do.
Practice on the off days. This is critical. Real gains do not only happen in the therapy room — they happen in between, in the quiet unseen moments when nobody is watching and you choose to do the work anyway. If your goal is hand mobility, pick up the TV remote with your affected hand. Wipe the counter. Reach for the glass yourself. Neuroplasticity does not have office hours.
Consistency is the currency of recovery and you are the one who decides how much to spend. I write about the full self-care and exercise approach in Beyond Shattered — including the bodyweight routines I used to shed 70 pounds and rebuild my strength from scratch. It is all in there if you want the complete picture.
Find your Why. Not the surface answer — the real one underneath it.
Not I want to get better, but the specific, deeply personal reason that makes getting better matter. For me it was getting back behind the wheel. Visiting survivors in that hospital as someone who had walked the whole path. Building something that could help the next person who wakes up in that bed with no roadmap. Write your Why down. Put it somewhere you will see it on your worst days. That Why is the engine — the thing that keeps the motor running when willpower alone runs dry.
Embrace the Fall — The Power of Failure
Now I want to talk about something that sounds completely backwards. Something that took me a while to make peace with and that I now consider one of the most important mindset shifts in all of recovery.
We have to learn to fail.
I know. You are exhausted by failing. You are tired of the gap between what you are trying to do and what your body will cooperate with. The last thing you want is someone telling you to lean into it.
But hear me out — because this reframe changes everything.
Think about a toddler learning to walk. They fall constantly. They wobble, they crash, they sit there looking confused, and then they get right back up and try again. Nobody calls it failing. We understand instinctively that the falling is the learning. Every crash is the brain and body figuring out something they will use on the very next attempt.
That is exactly what is happening when you fail in recovery. Failure is not an endpoint. It is feedback. It is the signal that you found the edge of your current capacity — which is precisely where growth lives. You cannot build a new road without first finding out where the old one ends.
Honestly? I want to see you fail. Because failure means you are pushing past comfortable. And comfortable is not where the progress is.
Here is what the real progression looks like — and I have lived every single step of it:
Try — and fail completely. You found the limit. Good. Now you know where to work.
Try again — and fail a little less. You adjusted. The brain took notes.
Try again — and stumble. You are almost there. Keep going.
Try again — and own it. Progress unlocked.
That chain — that persistent, stubborn, refuse-to-quit drive to be even slightly better than you were yesterday — that is what progress is actually made of. Not the big dramatic breakthroughs that make for a good story. The quiet, daily, cumulative result of choosing to try one more time when everything in you wants to stop.
Warriors and Gladiators — What Are Your True Colors
Every single person navigating stroke recovery is a Warrior. Let me say that clearly and mean it — just showing up for this journey, just getting out of bed and facing another day of this, is warrior-level courage. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise, and do not tell yourself otherwise on the hard days.
But Warriors have levels.
Think of it on a scale of one to ten. Every survivor starts at baseline — a Warrior simply by virtue of still being in the fight. But some Warriors decide at some point that they want more than survival. They want mastery. They want to look back at what tried to take them out and say — not only did I survive that, I came back stronger because of it.
That is where Warriors become Gladiators.
A Gladiator does not just endure the arena. They own it. They are not defined by the circumstances that brought them there — the stroke, the diagnosis, the limitations, the loss. They are defined by the ferocity of their comeback. A Gladiator takes full ownership of their effort. They practice on the off days. They ask the hard questions. They see failure as feedback and use it to go further. They never quit.
Moments of crisis reveal true colors — how people respond when things get genuinely hard, how much they actually have in them when the pressure is on. This journey has put real pressure on you. And the fact that you are still here, still trying, still reading this and looking for ways to move forward — that tells me something important about what you are made of.
The Gladiator is already in you. I know it because you are still in this fight.
So here is my invitation: step into the arena. Take total ownership of your recovery. Demand daily progress from yourself — not because anyone is watching, not because it is scheduled, but because you have decided that you are worth the fight.
And when you are ready to go beyond the articles and get the full roadmap — every strategy, every tool, every honest account of what this journey really requires — Beyond Shattered is waiting for you on Amazon. I wrote it for the person sitting exactly where you are right now.
Own the Hustle. The arena is yours.
If you want to stand alongside other survivors who are in it with you every day, come find us in the Beyond The Shatter community on Facebook. And if you have a story worth telling — which you absolutely do — the Army of Warriors program at BeyondtheShatter.com will give it a home. Free, always.
— Lewis
- Lewis Bartelle
- Mar 21
Updated: Apr 2
Why Doing Less Is Sometimes the Greatest Act of Love.
Hey friends, Lewis here.
This one is especially for the caregivers, spouses, and loved ones who pour their hearts into supporting a stroke survivor every single day. Before I say anything else — I see you. What you do is extraordinary. The logistics, the appointments, the patience, the emotional labor of watching someone you love fight this hard every single day — that takes a strength that does not get nearly enough credit.
We could not do this without you. Full stop.
But I need to share something that took me a long time to say out loud, because it is one of the most important truths in all of stroke recovery — and nobody puts it on the discharge paperwork.
Sometimes, helping too much is the one thing slowing us down.
I know that is hard to hear. So let me explain exactly what I mean — and why understanding this might be the single most powerful shift you ever make as a caregiver.
The Instinct That Works Against Us
When you watch someone you love struggling with something that used to be simple — reaching for a cup, tying a shoe, searching for a word mid-sentence — every instinct you have tells you to step in. To fix it. To spare them the frustration. That instinct comes from a place of deep, genuine love, and for that we are eternally grateful.
But here is the tough truth I had to learn in my own recovery, the hard way:
We need you to work with us, not for us.
There is a world of difference between those two things. And the line between them — though it can feel invisible in the moment — makes an enormous difference in how far and how fast a survivor can progress.
The Science Behind the Struggle
This is not just an emotional argument. There is real science behind it, and once I understood it, it changed everything about how I approached my own recovery.
The brain’s ability to heal after a stroke is called neuroplasticity — the remarkable process by which your brain reroutes itself around damaged areas and builds brand new connections. I think of it like road construction. Your regular route is closed. So your brain gets to work finding a detour. But here is the part that matters most: those new pathways are only built through repeated, effortful attempts. The struggle itself is the stimulus. The challenge is what triggers the brain to say — we need a new road here, let’s build one.
When a loved one steps in and does the task for us, the brain receives a completely different message: road not needed. No construction begins. The potential for that new connection — and everything that connection could have unlocked down the road — is simply lost.
I go deep on neuroplasticity and how to use it intentionally in Beyond Shattered — it is one of the core concepts in the book because understanding it changes how you approach every single day of recovery. You can grab your copy on Amazon if you want the full picture.
But the simplest version is this: think about a toddler learning to walk. They fall constantly. They wobble, they crash, they sit there looking confused — and then they get right back up and try again. We cheer them on. We do not carry them across the room to save them the trouble. We understand instinctively that the falling is the learning.
In stroke recovery, we are doing it all over again (not happy about itat all). We are the toddler. And the same rule applies.
Doing For vs. Doing With — Know the Difference
The heart of effective caregiving comes down to understanding two very different approaches. Here is what they actually look like in daily life:
Doing For Us — and why it holds us back
Grabbing the cup or the remote before we have had the chance to reach for it ourselves. Finishing our sentence because we paused to breathe — which for those of us living with dysarthria is not a sign we are done, it is part of how we speak. Managing every aspect of our day without ever inviting us to participate. Making decisions on our behalf that we are still capable of making ourselves.
The result, however loving the intention: dependence, eroded confidence, and a brain that never receives the signal to start building the new pathways it needs.
Doing With Us — and why it changes everything
Sitting patiently while we struggle and offering encouragement instead of intervention. Asking — do you want some help with that, or do you want to try one more time? — and genuinely respecting whichever answer we give. Managing the bigger logistics of life so we can focus our energy on recovery, while still letting us attempt the smaller daily tasks ourselves, even when it takes ten times longer than it would if you just did it.
The result: independence that builds on itself, confidence that compounds, and a brain that is actively doing the repair work we need.
That one simple question — do you want help, or do you want to try again? — puts the choice back in our hands. And in a journey where so much has been stripped away without our permission, having that choice returned to us is more powerful than most people realize. It is a form of respect. And respect is something stroke recovery does not always offer in abundance.
The Win That Nobody Can Give You
Here is something I want every caregiver to truly sit with for a moment.
There is a feeling that comes from pushing through something hard and coming out the other side completely on your own. A quiet, deeply personal triumph that cannot be handed to you, bought for you, or experienced on your behalf. It has to be earned. And in stroke recovery, it is one of the most powerful fuels on the entire journey.
I remember the first time I rounded the corner in the therapy gym and saw my daughters standing at the end of the hall. I was in my pink gait belt, wobbling on that walker with arm stilts, and every single step felt like it was costing me something. But I made it to them. And the feeling of that — of knowing my effort had closed that distance — is something I still carry.
Nobody gave me that moment. I built it.
Every time a survivor is allowed to struggle through something and succeed, that is a moment like that. Picking up a dropped object might look trivial from the outside. From where we are standing, that is a win worth everything. It tells our brain and our spirit something no amount of outside encouragement can fully replicate: I did that. I am still capable. I can keep going.
When a loved one steps in before we have had the chance to find that out for ourselves, that moment disappears. Not out of bad intention — out of love. But the effect is the same. We never get to discover what we could have done. And that loss, repeated quietly over days and weeks and months, chips away at the very confidence that recovery depends on.
By holding back — by staying close and warm and encouraging while letting us do the reaching — you are not withholding help. You are giving us something far more valuable.
You are giving us the chance to prove something to ourselves.
Your Role in Our Hustle
So what does this look like as an actual daily practice for the people in our corner?
Create the space for the effort to happen. Handle the bigger logistics — the appointments, the insurance calls, the household management that frees our energy for recovery. Stay close. Stay encouraging. But let us do the attempting, the failing, the adjusting, and the trying again. That cycle is not a problem to be solved. It is the process working exactly as it should.
The progression looks like this, and I have lived every single step of it:
Try — and fail completely. Try again — and fail a little less. Try again — and almost get there. Try again — and own it.
That last step — when trying becomes I got this — that is called progress. And every stage before it was necessary. None of the stumbling was wasted. None of the falling was a setback. It was all construction. Every failed attempt was the brain quietly building a new road for the next one.
We will ask for help when we need it. We promise. But the greatest gift you can give us in this journey is the room to find out what we are still capable of — on our own terms, in our own time, at our own pace.
This is the partnership that actually moves recovery forward. Not one person doing everything for another. Two people fighting for the same goal. That is when the real progress happens.
Work with us. Cheer for us. Believe in us enough to let us struggle.
That is the most powerful kind of love there is.
If you want to connect with other caregivers and survivors who are navigating this together, come find us in the Beyond The Shatter community on Facebook — you should not be figuring this out alone. And if you are a survivor with a story worth telling, the Army of Warriors program at BeyondtheShatter.com will give it a home. Always free.
For the complete guide to rebuilding life after stroke — including a full breakdown of how caregivers and survivors can work together most effectively — Beyond Shattered is available on Amazon. It is the roadmap I wish someone had handed me in that hospital room.
