Addiction Recovery: 5 Tips for Personal Goal Setting

Did you know that your journey to addiction recovery is more than simply overcoming substance use and abuse? Ending an unhealthy dependence on drugs or alcohol is actually much bigger than that. Achieving and maintaining your sobriety is also about improving each and every aspect of your life – forging stronger personal and professional relationships, adopting healthier eating habits and exercise routines and learning healthy coping skills to deal with stress and anxiety. By making positive lifestyle changes, you can reduce your risk of falling back into the toxic behaviors that led to a life of addiction.
If you are working on creating a new, more vibrant and addiction-free life, it’s wise to take a few moments to develop an action plan that outlines what you want to achieve and how you are going to reach your goals. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be perfect or the length of a novel. Just consider a few of these tips for making personal goals for a better and more fulfilling life for yourself – one free from addiction.
Be Proactive, Not Reactive About Your Future
- Write down the key areas of your life that you want to improve. This can include your career, your finances, your health – anything that you may have been neglecting while you were under the influence of addiction.
- Create mini-goals for yourself. It’s easy to get overwhelmed thinking about where you are now and where you want to be 5, 10 or 20 years down the line. Jot down a few realistic goals for yourself that you can accomplish in the near term. For example, say you want to lose 10 pounds in the next twelve months. Think through a realistic weight loss strategy and outline your specific goals for each month.
- Prioritize your goals. If you are creating a new, sober lifestyle, evaluate which goals will make the most impact and help fuel your addiction recovery.
- Develop an action plan. Write down the lifestyle choices you can make to support each of your goals and be specific. If you want to reduce your credit card debt, think about how you can cut back on unnecessary spending and pay down more of your balance each month.
- Celebrate your success! Set aside a specific time each week to review your progress towards your goals and fine-tune your personal development plan. Reminding yourself of your recent accomplishments will help you stay motivated, boost your self-confidence and help you stay on track!
At Coast to Coast Recovery, you can find a range of addiction treatment services from holistic healing and complementary therapies to 12-step programs and Christian-based teaching. Let us help you end a life of addiction and start your journey to lasting sobriety. To learn more, call (800) 210-8229.