Throughout the process of recovery, you are consistently working toward reaching your goals and bettering yourself. To accomplish this, you have to formulate a basic understanding of who you are and who you want to become. Self-discovery can feel overwhelming, but it is a key aspect of the recovery process. The following tips can help you find yourself and determine what you want for your future.
Reflect on Your Goals
Setting goals is a vital step toward becoming the person you desire to be. While you may have a variety of goals already determined, you might not have fully pictured your future and who you want to be as a person after achieving those goals. Goal setting is often one of the first practices implemented into your recovery plan. Use this practice to help you through the journey of self-discovery, and change your goals when necessary to reach your desired outcome.
Try lying down, closing your eyes, and thinking about your goals in a quiet environment. Picture yourself accomplishing these goals. What does your life look like afterward? What kind of person are you? Are you happy with the person you are envisioning? Take time to think about these aspects. After this meditative exercise, reflect on what you experienced. If you find that you were not satisfied with your visions, think about what aspects you did not like and reflect on what you would like instead. This can help you dig deeper into what you desire, why you desire those things, and how you can achieve these goals through recovery.
Increase Self-Awareness
To understand your developmental process and truly know your desires, you have to be considerably self-aware. Understanding how different actions, events, and social influences affect your mental health and recovery process can help pinpoint specific attributes that deter you from reaching your goals.
Keeping a journal is a useful way to help improve levels of self-awareness. Write down your feelings at least once a day, describing the events that may have influenced your emotional state. Reflecting over past entries can help you observe common influences that lead you into a negative mindset and find influences that positively impact your recovery. Isolating these factors can help you create a healthy environment for yourself and discover what aspects of your life allow you to be the person you desire to be.
Accept Who You Are
One major factor in self-discovery is understanding who you currently are as a person. Many of us have an idealistic picture of who we want to be. This idealistic image can be a positive force because it will allow you to understand and implement aspects of your desires into your lifestyle. However, it is also important to accept who you are. While there are many actions you can take to become more of the person you want to be, it is not possible to become someone who you truly are not.
Think about qualities you currently have that you love about yourself. Appreciating a variety of positive characteristics that you have can help you understand who you are and realize that you may already have many of these qualities you wish for yourself.
Understand Your Setbacks
After developing an understanding of what you want to gain from treatment, you may expect everything to be a straight line from there on. Sadly, that is typically not the case in addiction recovery. There will be times when you are thrown off of your path to success and encounter setbacks. It is essential to value the knowledge that can be gained from these moments and allow yourself to move forward when needed.
Keep your focus on your end goal and remember that it is still possible to reach even when you are thrown off the path to success. Use each setback to learn what actions and behaviors you engaged in that may have led to this occurrence. These setbacks can help you solidify how badly you want to reach your end goal and can be used as a motivating factor.
When Does It End?
The process of finding yourself is an essential aspect of addiction recovery. However, this process never actually reaches an endpoint. It is human nature to continually look for aspects to improve and change. Accepting the ability to change your goals and desires as you grow as a person is extremely important. The process of self-discovery is about the journey, not the destination. There will always be more to discover about yourself. Find new aspects of the world to love, new hobbies to engage in, and try new things to continue strengthening your development over your lifetime.
Self-discovery is a significant part of the addiction recovery process. Many individuals are unsure how to find themselves and determine who they are and who they want to be. There are a variety of practices you can implement into your daily life to help you reach a greater level of self-discovery and push you toward treatment success. Reflecting on your goals, developing a strong sense of self-awareness, accepting who you are, understanding your setbacks, and valuing the overall journey of self-discovery are all crucial aspects to be mindful of when searching for yourself. Working to develop a level of self-understanding and envisioning what you want to achieve in your future can help you keep yourself on track to success through recovery. To learn more about how these techniques can help you find your sense of self, reach out to Dream Recovery at (949) 732-1960.