Staying motivated throughout the Present Recovery process is one of the biggest challenges you’ll face. That’s because recovery involves making some big life changes. These changes can affect your lifestyle, relationships, and health. Recovery also involves taking stock of your life, self improvement, and learning about the nature of your addiction. The process can be long and painful, so learning how to stay present throughout the process will help you get through it.
Here are 5 tricks to help keep you present during recovery.
1. Focus on the small things
Because recovery can involve so many big changes, it’s common for many to feel overwhelmed and eventually give up. To keep yourself from experiencing the same kind of burnout, it’s important to take each step and each day one at a time.
Take the big goals you have for yourself, and break them into smaller more manageable ones. This can mean going one day without drinking, or cutting out sugar from your diet as part of a bigger effort to eat healthier. You’ll find that once you conquer these smaller goals, you can move on to the next small goal, until eventually you’ve achieved something big.
2. Be kind to yourself
This can be one of the hardest things for someone in recovery, or anyone for that matter, to do on a regular basis. All too often we put ourselves down, focus on our weak points, and fail to acknowledge the things we’ve done well or are good at. Being good to yourself also means taking care of your physical and emotional health.
So eating healthy, exercising regularly, and doing what it takes to keep your mental health in check are absolutely necessary during recovery. Don’t forget to take a step back to acknowledge how far you’ve made it and what you’ve accomplished as well. All these things will come together to give you a greater sense of self confidence and self worth that are valuable for staying present during recovery.
3. Reward yourself for work done well
This one ties in with taking care of yourself. Whenever you reach a goal, no matter how small, acknowledge it and allow yourself to enjoy the progress you’ve made with a little reward. This can take the form of a little gift, a relaxing trip, or a day off to do whatever you want.
Give yourself to enjoy life with these little rewards. This will help you remember that recovery is about finding a way to live a more fulfilling life, and there are many healthy and positive ways to do that.
4. Create a support system
This is a very important part of staying motivated and ensuring you have a successful recovery. No one can get sober on their own, so having a support system in place to fall back on is absolutely necessary.
This support can take the form of a 12 step group, therapy group, or just other sober friends who are there for you. People who encourage and support your recovery will be a source of strength to draw from when things get tough.
5. Stick to a routine
Another step that helps keep you motivated and on track is keeping a routine of recovery related activities. This another area that many neglect and then find themselves quickly losing steam. Decide what your schedule of meetings, therapy, self care activities, and group activities will be for each week and then try to stick to it.
In the beginning you may have to tweak things a bit to suit your other commitments, but always try to keep your recovery as a top priority. Having a recovery activity schedule helps you stay present and give you things to look forward to each and every week.
