Recovering From Poor Choices, Making Life Better
If you have a track record of making decisions that negatively affect your life in some way, you may have little confidence in your ability to make positive choices. Whether you want to pursue addiction recovery, health recovery, or any other kind of recovery, you have the power to make better choices going forward.
How to make better life choices
If you’re wondering how to make better choices, it only comes down to a few things. By realizing you have made poor choices in the past, you are already taking accountability for your circumstances and are on your way to the mindset needed to make positive changes. At the end of the day, making better life choices starts and ends with one person: you.
Trust yourself
If you go into wanting to recover from poor choices thinking failure is inevitable, you’re already willing yourself to fail. Failure is not inevitable, but unless you trust in yourself and believe that you can change, you’re likely to repeat the same pattern you’ve experienced in the past.
Making good choices requires you to build a relationship with yourself. All healthy relationships are founded on trust. By trusting that you can make positive changes in your life, you’ll find yourself on the right path.
Believe you’re worth it
Many times, people find that they’ve had a history of making poor choices because they have low self-esteem. If you don’t think you’re worthy of the life you want to live, then why would you make positive choices that will bring your hopes and dreams for yourself to fruition?
If you’re not used to building yourself up, changing that negative self-narrative can be tough. Take time each day to look in the mirror and say to yourself out loud, “I am worth it.” No matter who you were in the past, you are worthy and deserving of more than you have let yourself have.
Remember your why
Your ‘why,’ or your reason for wanting to recover from making poor choices is what will motivate you to keep getting up when you fall. Maybe you feel your relationships have suffered, your economic situation is precarious, or you’re simply not living the life you had dreamed for yourself as a child.
Finding the path to making good choices doesn’t just happen overnight. Know in advance that there will be bumps in the road, but in these times especially, remind yourself why continuing to pursue this change is important to you.
Set small and attainable goals
Sometimes making changes that impact our lives in a big way can be daunting. If you have a habit of making poor choices, setting a goal to stop a behavior dead in its tracks is a recipe for disappointment.
When taking those first steps to a big change, set small and attainable goals. Even if they seem like easy goals, by succeeding, you’ll slowly build your confidence and further develop that trust in yourself that you can make those big positive life choices and changes someday.