How to Stay Motivated During Recovery
Starting down the path of sobriety can at times seem to be a momentous endeavor. Acknowledging one’s addictions and making the conscious decision to overcome them is the first, but not the easiest step on your road to recovery.
Take each day, each moment, as a victory as we are not guaranteed every minute that we are granted, and every second that you spend heading towards your recovered and sober self is another second that you have taken for yourself.
You are in control of your life, and that’s not the simplest thing to remember, but it is critical in actualizing yourself in a serious way.
This article presents some common motivations to keep on the path to recovery. It can be easy to stray from the road to recovery during difficulties. Having a solid foundation to fall back on when any troubles do arise
Set Goals
Setting realistic goals for daily endeavors is a great way to progress on one’s path. Easy goals to strive towards are maintaining good hygiene, keeping a clean environment, cooking nutritious meals, or practicing any other self love routine. There are many resources to learn what routines could be best for you.
Every goal does not have to be a simplistic concept. Is a new career desired, more money, a new relationship? Action follows intention. Set an intention of what it is that you want to accomplish.
These goals can be complex, but they can be simple reminders of the kind of person that you want to become. What do you want to do, what kind of person do you want to be? Are you making the steps every day to become that person?
Complex goals can be boiled down to simple actions, and those simple actions can come as great reminders on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis.
Take back control of your life and start on the road to recovery now.
Form Habits
Habits are created over a set amount of time. Spend time and determine what characteristics you want to develop. Truly taking time to think about personal evolution is an endeavor every person should partake in. Doing so while on the path of recovery is the perfect point to begin. Take little steps on the journey towards your ideal self.
Every step taken is a step towards a habit, whether that habit is good or bad. You will form habits as you live your life, so then it comes down to the conscious decision to form these good habits instead of letting the habits form the person that you eventually will become.
Not only is it important to form habits, it is also extremely important to break negative habits, or at the very least identify these negative patterns. An easy list to watch for is the “seven deadly sins.” These include pride, lust, envy, greed, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. Avoiding the pitfalls are an easy way to maintain a healthy and happy life.
There is a difference between good and bad habits, however. Good habits are hard to make but easy to maintain, bad habits are generally the result of some sort of shortsightedness in one’s own life. Bad habits can be much easier to make, but so much harder to break.
Bad habits that have some kind of substance abuse involved are even more difficult to break as your brain will be chemically dependent on the habit that you have deemed not good for yourself. Truly an impossible situation to get out of without conscious thought and intentional effort, as well as a solid community of supporters around you to help encourage you to make and grow the right habits.
Journal
A great habit to form is journaling whenever there is free time, even just a few sentences. Write about feelings, days of elation, those of depression, poetry, draw pictures, whatever comes to mind. The simple act of putting pen to paper is an exceptional meditation to delve deeper into one’s own psyche. There is even a practice of analyzing the writing of a person, looking back and checking your own patterns could give insight to what particular emotions were being experienced while writing.
Journaling can become something that marks your progress, as well. It will help give you an idea of where you were years or months ago and help understand how your thought processes change.
Think about fitness and the parallels here. When people work out, they generally don’t see their own progress because they are looking at their bodies every day. They are familiar with themselves in such a way that the little steps that they make go largely unseen.
This goes the same for recovering individuals. People who have spent time addicted go through lots of change in a short amount of time. They might be able to see the progress that they are making, but not in the same way that a journal will help them see.
These journals act as “progress pictures” work for those that work out. They can look at how they looked on the first days of their training and compare it to how they look now. In the same way, one can look at their earlier journals, see how they have progressed, and be encouraged by their progress.
Journaling can become a huge relapse prevention strategy as well. As time goes on, it will be harder and harder to relate to the hard times that your substance has given you. With a journal, those feelings are so much closer to you than they have been before. This allows you to see and empathize with yourself that memory typically doesn’t allow you to.
Remember Motivations
What are the motivations for taking the journey of recovery? Always keep these in mind to maintain the correct course. Even if the only motivator is improving your own life, this should be enough.
Even still, remember family and friends and how relationships will improve as recovery continues. The markings of these improved relationships are a great motivation in the long run.
When times get hard, it’s helpful to have people that you trust around you to remind you of your own motivations. Writing them down at an early stage of your recovery and sharing these motivations with the world is a good way to ensure that you will have opportunities to be held accountable and reminded of what you are doing this all for.
Reach Out
If now is just a difficult time and recovery no longer seems like the best option, reach out. Difficulties are presented to all people, deciding how to deal with issues is what determines an individual’s character. There are always people willing to help those that are looking for it. The only issue is that one has to actually look for it. No one will know for certain that you need help unless it is asked for.
Having a support group dramatically increases one’s chances of getting and staying sober. Finding or creating this group is certainly not the easiest thing one can do, but putting yourself out there and trying to find these people will always be worth the time spent, especially if an individual is still looking for a group that they can call their own.
This can be a difficult journey, but you don’t have to go it alone. Let us be your guide and provide you the environment needed to regain control of your life and begin the path to recovery.
You Can Do It!
Remember you are making an immensely impactful decision to walk the path to recovery. Though difficulties arise, there are always avenues to find motivation, whether from friends and family, past writings, or future aspirations. Take each moment for what its truth is and face it honestly yourself. Do not try and turn away from difficulties, facing challenges head on is what creates the finest character.
If you or a loved one is struggling with abuse and don’t know where to turn, reach out to us at ecosoberhouse.com. We have the tools to help you get started on your journey to recovery and how to help your loved ones through an extraordinarily difficult time.
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