Mind Your Own Life: 5 Strategies to Help you Focus

There can be a lot of pressure to conform to living the life that everyone else is living and measure success according to certain common standards. Nowadays, most people measure success by looking at what house one has, what car one drives, whether someone of a certain age is married with children, where they go out to eat, where they go on vacation, what clothes they wear and a whole lot of superficial things.

This ‘eye service’ style of living has brought a lot of people up to their neck in debt yet they still continue borrowing just to keep up appearances. These same people accuse others who do not want to go down this path as being frugal or stingy.

It is not a bad thing to live a luxurious life if you can afford it, however, for someone in recovery, massing up huge debts just to live to impress other people may serve as a source of stress and potential trigger for relapse.

By all good means and with patience, strive to achieve success which should be measured by your own goals and where you envision yourself in a few years from now, then work towards those goals: your own goals, not those of your friends and neighbours.

Lets look at a few strategies that can be used to live a satisfying life while striving to achieve your goals without getting into unnecessary debt.

1. Live Within Your Means

This should be very basic knowledge for everyone but somehow, it is very difficult for many to follow. In an age where loans are being shoved in our faces here and there, it is very difficult to resist the temptation of taking advantage of these credit facilities.
It is however easier to manage whatever you have, to live within your own means, accruing as little debt as possible so as not to add the stress of servicing huge debts to the other stresses of life.

Make it a rule: Borrow only when it is an emergency.

2. Be Grateful for Where You Are

As you may have heard before, ‘we are all walking different paths in the same world’. Some of the people you started life with may seem to be miles ahead of you. The truth is, how do you know that is true? You may just be where you are meant to be and they may also be just where they are meant to be.
Be grateful that you are on the recovery road right now. There is hope that every other thing in your life will eventually fall in place soon.

3. Have a Clear Picture in your Mind’s Eye about where you are Going

To be motivated and driven to achieve anything in life, you need to have it very well drawn in your mind. Then you need to express that picture in your mind on paper, add up projected timelines with which you wish to achieve these goals, then start working towards them.
Focus hard on these goals, avoid any distractions and diversions and with determination and hard work, you will definitely reach where you want to be.

4. Believe in Yourself, Not What Others Say or Think about You

Most of the time, those people who do not conform to living the life that everyone else is living are tagged as odd or strange. The people in your inner most circle may even call you slow, boring or even stingy. They will tell you that life is short, so spend your money. They will not tell you to save. Yet ask them for assistance in times of crisis and you will most of the time be very disappointed.
Remember, no one will take care of you better that you can. Only you know why you have decided to live your life this way. Believe in your cause and no one can derail you from your path no matter what they say or think about you.

5. Have a little more Faith, it is already done, You just can’t see it Yet

Someone once said that, without faith, we would not be able to do anything, not even something as mundane as sitting on a chair. You sit down on the chair because you believe it is strong enough to hold you up.
If you live life based on the principle of the chair, it would be much easier for you to achieve anything you put your mind to. You would be very confident, questioning the possibility of nothing, because you are sure that whatever enterprise you engage in will succeed.

Your Takeaway

It is true that sometimes you may feel left behind but do not be deceived, a life may look pretty and glamourous but may also be full of debt and stress; just keeping up appearances. Do not get caught up in debt trying to follow that crowd, you do not even know where they are going. You know where you want to be, focus on your goals, and do not give up or allow yourself to be distracted for any reason. Slow and steady always wins the race, just ask the tortoise.

This Human Condition

We are always preoccupied with eating, drinking, sleeping and exercise.
We are so high maintenance.
Failure to do any of these maintenance activities results in deprivation which prevents the human body from functioning properly.
Overindulgence in these activities floods the system with unnecessary junk and also causes the human body to malfunction.
The human body will function at optimal capacity only when a good balance is found between indulgence and deprivation.
There can never be perfect balance of course, but a careful balance at both ends is essential.
I know you have heard all this before, but sometimes I think about it a lot, and realize how so basic this life is, how it can easily be destroyed if not properly cared for.
Take care of yourself, like you would care for your little child.
If you would not over feed or over exert your child, do not do the same to yourself.
Recovery from Substance Use Disorder is not only about Abstinence, it also has everything to do with Self Care.

Take good care of Yourself.

5 Basic Reasons why it is not too late to get back on the Good Road

Sometimes in life, most people think that they may have gone so far off down the wrong road, they think just continuing on the wrong road and getting lost forever will be easier than making it all the way back unto the good road.

I spoke to a man once, about five years ago at a drug rehabilitation centre who said that, he will never quit drinking because he had drunk almost all his life, that is what he is used to; even though he does not like it very much any more. He believes his family is just wasting money keeping him in that rehab centre because to him, it does not make any sense to quit now and have to face living life trying to catch up with his other siblings who have married, have kids, good careers, enviable bank statements and property.

Each one of us has a different path to walk and it does not matter how fast you walk that path. The most important part of the whole matter, is actually realizing that you are going down the wrong road and turning back around unto the right path.

The path of Substance Use Disorder (SUD) may have derailed you from the good road but it is definitely not too late to turn around. Depending on your personal ambitions, the good road may mean different things, however, there are some basic things you can have on the good road which will make it worth coming back to, instead of just going off and getting lost on the bad roads forever.

1. Abstinence

The most important state of being that almost anyone who has SUD desires to achieve is abstinence, because obviously, continuous drug use is what got you started on the wrong road in the first place. Being able to maintain abstinence, is the beginning of all the other ‘perks’ which is found on the good road.

2. Wellness

When abstinence is achieved and maintained for a period of time, you will begin to feel a general sense of wellbeing which cuts across physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. Getting back on the good road does not mean that every problem in your life will be automatically resolved, in fact, there will be a lot of ‘mess’ (broken relationships, trust issues, among others; depending on your individual circumstances) that you may have to start cleaning; but this will be the beginning of your healing, which will eventually lead to a situation in which you will feel that your are finally getting well.

3. Basic Needs

On the wrong road, you may not have been able to take care of yourself in terms of getting yourself basic things like food, clean water, shelter and clean clothes regularly: probably because you could not hold down a job long enough to afford all these things. Coming back on the good road will make it easier to be able to get all these for yourself.

4. Dignity

One of the challenges that you may face as a person with SUD is that, unfortunately, some people forget that you are a person just like them! That is sad and unfortunate but that is the big, fat, truth!
People will treat you according to how you look, smell and present yourself, they will not take time to think about what you could be after SUD or what you may have been before SUD. Society will only treat you as worthy of respect or honour if you treat yourself that way first. You can begin to do that on the good road.

5. Life

Health is wealth, wealth makes life easier and better. The good road leads to life, the bad road leads to misery and eventually death. You can choose life again, and have all the good things that your siblings and neighbours have that you also wish you had. As long as you have life, there is still time.

I have said a lot by all these words; and all I am saying is that, it does not matter how long you have had SUD, you can get well again, be able to buy your own food, water, clothes and pay your rent again all by yourself, regain the respect of family and society and live life to the fullest, that is , if you realize that it is time to quit using and actually take the step towards abstinence.

Keep in touch, let me know how it goes.