Step 5

Setting Your Positive Change Goals

As your self-assessment deepens and you embrace your ambivalence, your unique set of positive change goals can emerge and be considered. Goals may be quantum leaps, or they may be tiny forays into new territory. You might think of goals as experiments with new ways of being.

Remember that every positive change, large or small, is a success. Small positive changes add up to larger changes. Small changes can also give us feedback about ourselves that may contribute to a growing sense of confidence in our ability to change.

Once you have identified goals that you are curious about exploring, you will feel motivated from the inside to work on this rather than pressured to do it by someone else, a condition for change that does not seem to be very helpful in the long run. Choosing the goals for yourself dramatically increases the likelihood that you will stay with the process and achieve positive change.

The ideal use plan

This is an exercise for clarifying what your ideal, healthiest, most self-affirming relationship with substances might be.

• Based on your assessment of the risks and negative impact of your current pattern of using, which changes might minimize the risks and reduce the harm? Describe, as specifically as you can guess at this point, how this new pattern of use might look in terms of substances, ways of using, frequency, amount and circumstances of use.

• Consider which other changes might you make in your life that would support your desired changes to your substance use.

• If you make an initial attempt to implement your new plan, bring a scientific, “hypothesis-testing” attitude to your experiment. Does your plan achieve the results you desire? Is it realistic? Are there challenges or obstacles that need to be considered with a view to revising your plan?