April 21, 2023
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If you are considering rehab for your drug and alcohol problem, then thinking about the goals and purpose beyond the addiction may seem so far off. When struggling with addiction, it is often hard for our patients to believe that being clean and sober is even possible. However, Life Line Services believe in you and in our process. We have helped so many people beat drug addiction and leave to start achieving their goals.
Goals and purpose that go above and beyond addiction are important for our patients to remain drug and alcohol-free. It is easy to slip back into old ways and habits without having a game plan. Our team of experts will help you design some goals and plans to achieve them.
Addiction affects a person in all aspects of their life emotionally, physically, financially, and more. It can affect your relationships and turn you into someone you are not. All of these things can be turned around with goals in place.
A good intention isn’t enough when it comes to reaching your goals. Many times if you don’t have a plan and don’t have any particular steps set, you have no reason to keep with that intention. We at Life Line Services want to help our patients leave with some structure. Structure and goals can help keep you from falling back into old habits that could ultimately lead you to fall out of recovery. We firmly believe success is possible with the right steps in place.
Goals are not just important to those with addiction issues. Many people, for example, will set a New Year’s resolution. However, they won’t plan the steps they need to take action to achieve those resolutions. Maybe it’s wanting to lose weight or recover from an addiction. Maybe they make more money, but they don’t start looking at ways to do it. All of this sounds nice, but it’s so open-ended and not precise that it’s hard to stick with.
The goal is just the thing you are setting out to achieve. What you need is a plan. Those plans are put in place to give you the steps to achieve. We work with you on setting up these goals and the steps. (1) We have found small steps are great at first, as they will build your confidence and give you reasons to celebrate small wins.
Once you have small steps, you’ll need to track your progress. This can be daily or weekly. It’s vital that you see improvement, as this is an excellent motivator to ensure you continue toward your goals.
We will set goals in various areas of your life to ensure that you stay on track even after you leave our program.
Studies have shown that less than 25% of people actually stay committed to their resolutions after just 30 days, and only 8% accomplish them. Don’t be part of that statistic. This year, set goals instead of resolutions.
SMART stands for Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This is the approach we take when we work with patients on setting goals. Let’s take a look at what each of these steps looks like.
Be specific about your goals. For example, you want to lose weight. This is very vague. You should set an achievable goal: I want to lose 50 lbs by this time next year. You then set up ways to do that by watching portion control and adding in an exercise routine.
As our example above says you have a time set. So you want to lose 50 lbs in one year with actionable ways of doing so.
Set achievable small goals to achieve the larger goal later. Of course, if you lose more than 50 lbs, you will be ecstatic. But, to lose the 50 lbs, you’ll need to lose a little over 4 lbs in one month. That is achievable, but if you set to lose 50 lbs in 3 months, that is going to be far more difficult and may be impossible for some.
You want your goals to be relevant to your life. A goal of losing 50 lbs in a year isn’t relevant if you already weigh 115 lbs—set goals to achieve success.
You want to set a time to achieve your goals within reason.
These steps give you a sense of direction when setting your goals. They give you a clear path and aren’t vague. Such as wanting to lose weight but without much intention. (2)
You’ll have made significant progress toward beating your addiction if you know how to create SMART goals for your rehabilitation. Being sober is challenging in and of itself. The good news is that there are real and effective methods for overcoming drug addiction.
No one will force you to write down your SMART goals before you even begin recovery. But, once you have broken free of the addiction and aren’t in active addiction any longer, it’s time to start working on them. If you’re serious about maintaining your sobriety, it’s an essential step.
Setting SMART goals can help recovering addicts in the following ways:
Through the help of our counselors, setting your SMART goals is easy. The difficult or more challenging part will be you following through on them. Just like any weight loss journey, it takes dedication, time, and commitment. While weight loss has been our example, there are many different goals you can set up. Maybe your SMART goal is learning a new language or spending more time with positive people in your life.
One way to stick to your goals and the action plan is to have an accountability partner. This is a person that will check in with you on your goals.
Goals help with recovery. Having dreams and aspirations that you turn into measurable, actionable steps allows you to have something the focus on. However, it’s not going to be easy, and there will be slip-ups. It’s important when there is a slip-up, you recognize that and move on. Don’t resent yourself or harbor ill feelings, as this can quickly become a reason for slipping back into old habits.
If you are interested in learning more about SMART and the recovery process, contact us at Life Line Services today. We would be happy to discuss this in further detail.
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One Response
Greetings! Very useful advice in this particular article! Its the little changes that will make the biggest changes. Thanks for sharing!