Celebrating Our Successes
Living with addiction can harden us to the point where we are quick to criticize ourselves and judge ourselves harshly. We create a self-image based on self-rejection and self-hatred. One thing we can do to soften our perception of ourselves and create a healthier sense of self is to start celebrating all of our successes, no matter how small they might be or insignificant they might seem. The more we can cheer ourselves on, the more we establish good habits for ourselves and mentally reward ourselves for reaching our goals.
When we’re overly focused on our failures, we are subconsciously telling ourselves that we don’t believe in ourselves, that we expect to fail, that we don’t have faith we’ll be successful in our recovery. When we’re working to recover, we need all the support and encouragement we can get. When we withhold these things from ourselves, we’re setting ourselves up for more failure.
When we put energy into celebrating our successes, we bolster our progress and reinforce our goals. We become our own source of motivation. Subconsciously we’re embracing ourselves rather than rejecting ourselves. We’re giving ourselves the love and support we need.
As part of our recovery work, we can set goals both large and small. We might want to give ourselves a goal of one year of sobriety. That would be a large goal. Small goals can be to attend a support group meeting once a week, to see a therapist on a regular basis and to find a sponsor to connect with. Along the way, as we’re working towards our larger goal, we can be implementing and working towards these smaller goals. Setting these small, more incremental goals helps us stay on track with our recovery, hold ourselves accountable, and keep ourselves focused on the daily things we can be doing to help ourselves. We can congratulate ourselves for each of these steps. Even the things that seem unimportant add up to and contribute to our growth and evolution. When we focus exclusively on the bigger goals, we can get overwhelmed at the loftiness of our expectations. Keeping ourselves on track with small, achievable goals helps us with our overall progress, and before we know it, we’ve reached our goal of one year, then two years, then three.
Part of celebrating ourselves for our successes is learning not to be so hard on ourselves, to love and accept ourselves unconditionally, even when we falter. We set ourselves up for a successful recovery when we believe in ourselves and can celebrate ourselves.
Wherever you are in the recovery process, we’ll meet you there and help you find your way. Enlightened Solutions has the caring and supportive team to help you achieve your recovery goals. Call (833) 801-LIVE today for more information on our treatment programs.
