An important part of our recovery is our commitment to the goals we set – our goals to get sober and stay sober over time, to change our unhealthy habits and develop new ones, to repair our broken relationships, and to heal our mental and emotional health issues. Our goals can be positive sources of motivation, but they can also be problematic for us in our recovery if the energy we apply to them isn’t conducive to healing.
The Pressure of Expectations
We often will put so much pressure on ourselves to reach our goals in specific ways at specific times, and we have expectations for ourselves based on these very specific timelines. This can be detrimental to us in our healing process because we start to feel increasingly bad about ourselves if we can’t always meet our expectations. We feel like failures if we haven’t accomplished what we set out to when we intended to. We feel disappointed in ourselves. We feel as though we’re falling behind schedule, falling behind our peers in recovery, and not measuring up to the people around us who we see succeeding. We feel ashamed of ourselves. We feel envious of other people, insecure, self-hating, and down on ourselves. When we’re applying this kind of energy to the goals we’re setting for ourselves, the act of goal-setting can ultimately be detrimental for us.
Productivity vs. Self-Sabotage
We want the process of creating goals to be productive for us, and to help us actually accomplish them. Putting too much pressure on ourselves, having strict expectations for ourselves, and beating ourselves up for falling short of them can infuse our goals with an energy of insecurity and self-doubt. This can cause us to self-sabotage our recovery, limit our progress and undermine our efforts. We want to be confident in ourselves and our abilities, and we want to bolster our commitment to our goals with an energy of self-love, confidence and optimism. We want to show ourselves that we have faith in ourselves to get sober, stay sober and live a life of recovery.
Patience and Self-Love
Setting goals for ourselves involves clarifying what our intentions are, creating definitive goals around those intentions, and then outlining the processes we’ll use to go about fulfilling them. At each point along the process, we can incorporate an energy of confidence and faith that we’ll be able to live out our intentions, while also having patience and understanding with ourselves if we slip up or need to modify our goals, timelines and processes. We want to love and accept ourselves throughout our healing, being firm but gentle with ourselves, so that our goals feel like wellness tools rather than yet another thing that we beat ourselves up over in our lives.
The Guest House is a welcoming and supportive recovery home where you will be met with open arms, wherever you are on your journey, without judgment or expectation.
Call 855-483-7800 today for more information.
theguesthouseocala.com
3230 Northeast 55th Avenue Silver Springs, FL 34488