Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes explains the action stage of change: when you move from planning into actually doing it. She covers self-monitoring, leaning on social support, and staying motivated through uncomfortable moments, plus how to build self-trust and work from your strengths.
Hey there, everybody, and welcome back to the Addiction and Mental Health Disorders Treatment Manual. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. This is unit one, part 18, the action stage of readiness for change. In the action stage, you're leaving on your trip. Remember, in the preparation stage, you were packing for your trip and you were making plans for how you were going to get to your destination. Destination in action. You're leaving. You're actually walking out the door and getting in the car. You are ready, willing and able to make the change. So you're motivated to do what you need to do. You've decided, okay, I'm going to spend my energy on it. And you have the tools and resources you need lined up along the way to make sure that you can accomplish your goal. It will be important to maintain your motivation as you go through the recovery process. You know, think about a trip, especially a long car trip, about two, three hours in, at least. That's for me. I start getting really bored and thinking, oh my gosh, when will this be over? I'm losing my motivation. I'm losing my enthusiasm. Couple more hours in, I start thinking, do I really want to go to this place that bad? Okay. My motivation continues to wane. The same sort of thing happens with change in recovery. When you start making these changes, it's hard and sometimes it's uncomfortable. And it's going to be important to recognize that you can continue to move forward toward your recovery, toward your rich and meaningful life and experience pain and experience discomfort. It's going to be important to be aware of all of the skills and tools and resources you have to help you along the way. Just like on the trip when, when you're, you know, putzing along and then you start to have to go to the bathroom, you know, where, where are the rest stops? Where is it? What, where can you stop in order to meet your needs so you are not overly uncomfortable, so you don't turn around and go back home, spend about 50 minutes. What are three things you need to do every day in order to maintain your motivation? And it can be helpful to reflect on the problems caused by your problem, whether it's mental health or addiction. But it's also important to re reflect on where you're going. What are you excited about? Why is this worth the effort? How will you know if you're slipping back into an earlier stage of readiness or losing motivation? What does it look like? What things do you start doing? What things do you start telling yourself when you start slipping backwards? You know, it's kind of like that pool analogy I made. Again, somebody who is really hot at the pool may decide, oh, I'm gonna go get in the water so I can cool off. They get over there and there's lots of kids splashing around and they're like, nah, that's more than I was really wanting to deal with. And they start making excuses for why they're not that hot, why it's really not something that they want to do right now. They start minimizing, denying, justifying, etc. So what do you do when the going gets tough? What do you do that may indicate that you're losing. Losing steam, so to speak? Final Thoughts on Change get to know and trust yourself. You have lived in your body. You know what your warning signs are. You know what your motivations are. You know what has worked for you in the past. That's important. If something has not worked for you in the past and you've tried it a couple of times, then continuing to try to do that is probably not in your best interest. So my question is, what are you going to do instead? Dead? What works better if this doesn't work? What works better for you? Find three people you can count on to provide honest, constructive feedback. In recovery circles, we say they won't co sign on your it's important to have three people who can see what's going on, who can call you out and say it looks like you're starting to relapse or it looks like you're falling back into old behaviors. Only you can verify whether they're right or not. But it's important to have people there who can help sort of uncover those blind spots before you slip back into your problem without even knowing. Continue to explore the pros and cons of the problem and the solution in order to increase your motivation. Compare your perception and others perceptions of the problem. If other people think it's a really big deal and you're saying that's not a big deal at all, try to get into their heads and think, why is it that they think this is such a big deal? Am I. What am I missing? Change is a gradual process. The addiction often helped you survive until you were able to start getting other tools. If you didn't have an addiction and you've just got a mental health issue, that mental health issue was holding you, was keeping you from achieving the life you wanted because you didn't have the skills and tools and it's going to take time to learn those skills and tools. Be compassionate with yourself. Don't expect a hundred percent accuracy on the first day. And finally, focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses. What is it that you've got going for you? Who's in your, in your corner? What things do you know work for you? Build on your strengths. The more you focus on strengths, the fewer weaknesses are going to be evident.
