Testing Motivation in Recovery

Content
What is motivation?
Negative consequences of a lack of motivation
Pitfalls of depending on social support to overcome your lack of self-motivation
How to sustain healthy self-motivation
Irrational thinking contributing to a lack of motivation

What is motivation?

Motivation to change problem behavior and sustain the change is:

* Being willing to make sacrifices necessary for change
* The acceptance of the belief that if there is "no pain'' then there is "no gain''
* A commitment to rid yourself of problem behaviors, both now and in the future
* The rational perspective that it takes time, energy, effort, hard work, internal strength, and drive to change and sustain the change
* The inner voice of patience, self-love, and nurturing that allows you to recognize the necessary changes that need to be made
* A call to respond to the challenge of life
* Willingness to initiate recovery lifestyle activities
* Enjoying the changes made and wanting to sustain them
* Being unwilling to return to an unhealthy lifestyle
* Accepting relapse in the pursuit of recovery and picking yourself up to start again

Negative consequences of a lack of motivation

If you lack motivation to change or to sustain efforts, a recovery lifestyle eventually will cease. Excuses used, conscious and subconscious, for your lack of personal motivation include:

* Your scapegoating of other people, agencies, or circumstances as to why efforts to change or sustain change are unsuccessful
* Experiencing stress, depression, or confusion as to why the efforts to change or sustain change are unsuccessful
* Denial that the change is stagnated
* Blaming others for the inability to succeed in recovery
* Blaming a lack of money, effort, energy, persistence or time to attain or sustain change
* Not realizing how hard it is to attain and sustain change
* Becoming discouraged with the length of time change takes and the necessity for lifelong commitment to sustain change
* An inability to accept personal responsibility for one's self
* Depending on others to provide prodding, cajoling and nagging to attain and sustain change.

Pitfalls of depending on social support to overcome your lack of self-motivation

If you lack personal motivation and depend entirely on social support to attain or sustain a change, you could:

* Eventually resent the prodding, encouragement, and support of the others
* Resist sacrificing for change
* Begin to think, "Why should I be doing all the suffering?''
* Become jealous of the people in the support system because they are not taking extreme measures to change their own lifestyle
* Begin to feel obligated to pursue the change just to satisfy others
* Feel anger at the others, thinking, "They want this more than I do.''
* Feel guilty for not accomplishing the change which others wanted for you
* Begin to blame the others for wanting this change
* Believe that personal self-esteem is dependent on making the change and maintaining it
* Begin to distort the motives, desires, and best wishes of the others
* Feel a sense of coercion, force or ultimatum which inhibits your freedom to participate in the process of change
* Begin to feel worthless for not changing fast enough, for having relapses or for not sticking to the time frame or the guidelines

How to sustain healthy self-motivation

In order to sustain healthy self-motivation, you need to:

* Love yourself enough to believe you deserve to accomplish change in your life
* Set realistic goals
* Visualize successful change
* Be committed to personal health and self-satisfaction to attain and sustain change
* Devote energy, effort, sustained vigilance and personal sacrifice
* Accept personal responsibility for problem behavior
* Believe that only through personal efforts can a problem behavior be changed
* Reinforce your success, no matter how small
* Be able to break a large goal into small increments, which are obtainable, reasonable and measurable, and to reward yourself for the attainment of these sub-goals without regret over the remaining steps still needing to be accomplished or satisfied
* Accept that change of old habits is a lifelong process
* Realize that the efforts to change do not end once initial cessation of old behaviors is attained
* Believe that a work-oriented recovery lifestyle model is a lifelong process
* Sustain the change in problem behaviors
* Commit to a lifelong contract of behavior change

Irrational thinking contributing to a lack of motivation

* Unless I am able to achieve my goal quickly and with little effort, it isn't worth pursuing.
* Everybody else is relying on me to change; this is enough to keep me going in my need to change my lifestyle.
* There is only a need to lose weight, stop smoking, stop drinking, stop gambling, stop using my credit card, stop using crack, etc., in order to change my life.
* There is no reason for me to change my entire lifestyle in order to change my problem behaviors.
* It should be easy to change my behaviors.
* The professionals who preach lifestyle change don't know what they are talking about.
* My problem behavior is not addictive; I am in control at all times. Why all the fuss?
* Change should be simple and easy to achieve; why am I having so much trouble? There must be something wrong with me.
* My friends are all wrong in encouraging me to change. It appears that I mean nothing to them unless I change.
* The effort it takes to sustain change is too much; therefore, I will only work on attaining the change and leave sustaining change to time to take care of.
* I should enjoy the adventure of change; it should come easy and be pleasant.
* If someone makes fun of or criticizes my efforts, I'll get angry enough to give up.
* For me to be successful it is important for everyone to understand me and my need to change.
* When my family and friends don't make accommodations for my changed lifestyle, I should give up. I can't stand to change alone.
* People should realize how hard it is for me to change; they should be more sympathetic.
* Unless everyone supports me, I'll never succeed in changing.
* I must have warmth, understanding, and caring from others in order to change.
* This need to change my lifestyle is being perpetrated by professionals who have a financial interest in it.
* Why are they making this seem so difficult? Are they using scare tactics to make me change?
* This "change thing'' is beginning to look like a plot hatched by the professionals and my support system. They're never satisfied.