How to Change

The Recovery Mentality

The Recovery is all about changing the old for the new healthier ways of living life. It takes more than to adventure into recovery if you want to experience change in your life. One psychological stance that would serve well, for a person in recovery, is to acquire the experimenter mentality. It is a technique that not only supports recovery, but makes the process of change more interesting, meaningful, and effective.

The experimenter is more than an "adventurer" in recovery. The adventurer simply goes out to see what is, while the experimenter goes out to change what is to what isn’t, or visa versa. The adventurer is mainly an observer, while the experimenter is more of a doer, a creator. The experimenter plans for change, takes a risk, makes a change, evaluates the outcome, and is willing to be responsible for it. To experiment with change, is what recovery is all about.

The experimenter has internalised several affirmations along the lines of:

"Let’s give it a go, or, Let’s take a risk to change and improve."

"Let’s see what would happen if I do this? or, If I did this, let’s see what would happen?"

Changing Your Actions

Sometimes a person can feel ‘as if’ they are not getting anywhere. All the thinking in a person seems to go nowhere. If you find yourself in this situation, try the following:

  If you're indecisive, make a decision and go along with that decision.
  If you can’t get motivated, start acting towards change and the motivation of it will follow.
  If you're not confident about changing, start acting towards change and the how of it will follow.
  Act the role to feel the role. Example: Put your body in a relaxed position to become relaxed.

Affirmations and Clichés to Help You Change

'A goal without a plan is only a dream.'

'Action speaks loader than words.'

'To be responsible is to respond.'

'What is me, changes.'

'Recovery is a process, not an achievement.'

'It works if you work it.'

'I am miserable because I fail to do something about it.'

'I become what I think.'