When you are newly sober, there are plenty of resolutions you could make for the new year. The only challenge you really need to embrace is staying sober. Whatever your goals for yourself, stay focused on achieving and maintaining your sobriety by determining the best way to actually keep those sober-related resolutions.
Take the SMART Route
Follow the SMART acronym to set effective goals for your resolutions:
- Specific: Choose exactly what you want the outcome of your resolution to be.
- Measurable: Figure out a way to measure your progress.
- Action: Outline the specific steps you will take to reach your goal.
- Realistic: Make sure you’ve set an achievable goal given the resources you have.
- Timely: Set deadlines for yourself, whether they are daily, weekly, or monthly.
This framework works well for both short-term and long-term goals and is ideal for anyone in recovery because it is a concrete methodology of reasonable steps that produce results and, therefore, a foundation for success.
2. Do Something You Enjoy
One of the biggest drawbacks of New Year’s resolutions is that people make them to be “good” or to be “better.” And that often involves activities that they don’t enjoy. Make sure the resolutions you set are things you like doing.
If your goal is to write in your journal every day for 10 minutes because that’s what you did in holistic rehab but you hate writing, set a different goal of drawing for 10 minutes instead if you love to draw. It may seem like a small change but this kind of mindset shift is monumental in whether or not you succeed at keeping your resolutions – and your sobriety.
3. Celebrate Your Successes
Taking the SMART route allows you to set achievable goals that make you feel good about yourself. When you succeed at your resolution, celebrate it. When you fail at your resolution, do not be critical. A growth mindset is essential to recovery and you will have obstacles at many turns, you will make mistakes, you will encounter roadblocks. None of this means you’re a bad person or that your progress up to this point is moot. You’re trying – and that is a success.
4. Embrace Support from Your Family and Friends
When you were in holistic rehab, you received ongoing daily support. That doesn’t have to stop when you leave treatment – addiction specialists and peers are still there for you and that close network served you well.
Whatever sober resolutions you have set for yourself, consciously embrace the support that presents itself, whether through family, friends, peers at meetings, medical professionals, or even online communities. You deserve people in your life who listen, can be leaned on, will prop you up, and are dedicated to keeping you on track.
5. Ask for Help When You Need It
Never forget that addiction is a chronic illness. It is not a moral failing, lack of character, or a weakness. If you are failing at a resolution, or you are feeling tempted to use or drink, call your sponsor. If you don’t have a ride to where you need to be to make your resolution a reality, call a supportive friend or family member.
Putting yourself out there is not always comfortable, especially when you feel like you’re living a new life in recovery, but think of that as the gift – you have a brand new lease on life to live it the way you want to, resolutions or not. As long as you stay successful at staying sober, you’re winning.
6. Reevaluate Your Resolutions
There is no rule that says you must stick to the resolution you decreed on January 1. Life changes, circumstances shift, and so do your priorities. As long as your top priority remains staying sober, your resolution can change so it is more manageable, achievable, and therefore makes you feel good about yourself.
Ideally, you won’t reach too far to start. Set small, reasonable, actionable goals to set yourself up for success. And always know that your holistic rehab is there to help you at any point.
Learn more about the treatment offered by the therapeutic team at Beachside Rehab. Contact our trained admissions counselors at 866-349-1770 to discuss your individual needs and how luxury rehab can work for you.