Get Clear On Your Sober Vision

What does it mean to have a vision for your life and sobriety? Does that sound a little too wo-,woo for you? 

Well, I am pretty woo-woo and you may be shocked to hear that most high achievers, rock stars, professional athletes, successful entrepreneurs, one thing we all have in common is that we have a vision for where we are headed. 

You wouldn’t go on a road trip without Google Maps, so why would you live your life without some sort of map to know where you are headed? 

It doesn’t make sense if you ask me. 

One of the things I talk to you about all the time is planning ahead. If you are going to a party or a networking event or a family gathering, make sure you have a plan in place to keep your sobriety and anxiety in check. 

When you quit drinking, it leaves a lot of available time you have to fill, and to protect yourself and STAY sober, you should have a plan for how you will fill that time so you don’t get caught in the moment with no plan and you panic!

If you recognize you have moments in your day that are more challenging than others, you need a plan for how you will cope with those moments and fill in that space so you can soar through it with no sober problem. 

I think you get what I’m saying. 

A plan, or a vision, is important

I asked the question in the Addiction Unlimited FB group,   Do you have a clear vision of what you want your life and sobriety to look like? 

I got some incredible answers and some great ideas that I hadn’t thought of before. And that doesn’t surprise me because you guys are awesome.  And if you aren’t a member of the group then get your happy little buns over there and join us!  Facebook.com/groups.addictionunlimited and I will link that in the show notes. 

The concept of a vision is to get a little way out and imagine what you want it to look like. In my business, I do a 3-year vision.  I map out what I want my business to look like, what kinds of products I want to develop, what my team will look like, what kind of marketing I’ll be doing,  all of those details. 

Then, I can reverse engineer it to what I have to accomplish annually, to reach those goals, then monthly to reach the annual goals, then weekly to meet the monthly goals, and daily to meet the weekly goals. 

The other thing I want you to think about in this is, WHO do you want to be? 

I look at what goals I want to accomplish, but when I get down to the nitty,gritty, in order to accomplish any goal, it’s about ME being the person who accomplishes those goals. 

Does that make sense? 

If I set big goals, then I have to challenge myself to step up to the plate in many ways to achieve it. 

Get a crystal clear vision

That goes for my personal life as much as my professional life. 

You may not realize it, but you already do this in many ways in your regular life. 

Take holidays, for example,  you look down the road thinking about holidays, planning dinners, gifts, shopping trips, travel, outfits, getting the house ready because the family will be staying with you. 

You get a crystal clear vision in your head about exactly how you want it to go, the joy and happiness you want everyone to feel as they open their presents, how beautiful you want your living room to look with your tree and all of its decorations, the smiles on all the faces when they open the gifts you spent weeks hunting down, the boys watching sports and joking with one another, the ladies laughing together over dessert and coffee, 

You see every detail. 

Many of you do this with your kids, too. From the time they are young, their outfits, the family photos, planning which preschool you want them to go to or what daycare is best, what sports they will play, and what grades they will get. 

And now, I want you to think about this with your sobriety and your life. 

And I actually have a bonus for you, to go with this bonus episode, We are going to do a sober vision workshop, we will do a Zoom call and I’m going to walk you through the process, I have made a workbook specifically for the workshop!  I am going to walk you through what you are doing for your recovery now, a recovery audit, if you will,  then, together we will start building your sober vision and what you want your life and your sobriety to look like over the next 90 days or 6 months.  And here’s what I want you to do,  if are interested in the Sober Vision Workshop then I want you go to www.myrecoverytoolbox.com/108, because this is episode 108, and sign up to let me know you are interested! That way I can send you the details as it gets closer and we set an actual date for it.  I know not all of you will be able to make it because of schedules and whatever, and this way, I will know which of you want to connect with me personally and get your vision in order and I can keep you posted. 

Go to www.myrecoverytoolbox.com/108, sign up that you are interested, and I’ll notify you about the workshop. 

This will be our first workshop and I’m so excited to do it live with you!

Think about this with your sobriety and your life

If you have been struggling with cravings, anxiety, boredom, you know you want to quit drinking even though you haven’t had any major rock bottoms, but you haven’t been able to string together any significant time. 

Each day you say you aren’t going to drink, but by evening, the committee is winning the fight, telling you to drink, it’s not that big of a deal, you can start over tomorrow, 

You feel alone, like no one cares, lost, and overwhelmed. 

This is where a clear vision can help. 

Maybe you feel like you are missing out, you can’t wrap your head around quitting drinking forever, you can’t imagine how you will relax or enjoy social events. 

Instead of obsessing about those fears, let’s put your energy into something positive, like building the vision of what you CAN do, who you CAN be, and seeing exactly what that looks like. 

Let’s create a plan and fill in the gaps, build you a plan so you know what you are doing, how, and why. 

Remember the procrastination episode a couple of weeks ago? Some of the reasons we procrastinate and put things off is because it’s ambiguous, unstructured, and lacks meaning. 

We are going to address all those blocks and get you a plan that you can do easily, we’ll keep the vision short and sweet so it’s totally achievable, but also repeatable!

So if your sober vision is 6 months, we’ll put something together that you can use again for the next 6 months after that. But you’ll also know how to tweak it and readjust so you can utilize the process over and over again. 

The first thing I want you to do is to go over to www.myrecoverytoolbox.com/108 and sign up so  I know you’re interested, this is not a commitment to attend, it’s just letting me know you want more details. No commitment, don’t freak out on me. I have commitment issues, too, lol 

Repair damaged relationships

Then, I want you to start brainstorming some of the things you want to see in your life in the next 12 months. 

And don’t get too hung up on that 12 months, we just need a starting point to get the juices flowing. Sit down with a pen and paper and start writing down ideas, do back to school, be in a healthy relationship, a new car or job, move out on your own, pay off some debt, make new friends, exercise goals, run a marathon, learn a new language, start building a new wardrobe, commit to a healthier meal plan, volunteer more, join some clubs, repair damaged relationships with friends or family, 

Just start writing down everything you’d like to see in your life. Don’t get caught up in thinking it’s possible or not possible, just write it down if you want it! 

This includes character traits,  I want to be more honest, dependable, kind, patient, I want to follow through on things better, I want to get up earlier, I want to be more calm, I want a plan, learn how to stop my anxiety in its tracks, be a better friend or partner or parent,  ALL of it, just start writing it down. 

We call this a brain dump,  just dump it all out on paper, we’ll sort it and evaluate it later. 

The first step

I do brain dumps for many different things in my life and my business, it’s amazing how much things just start flowing as you are writing.  One way I do this, too, is I set a time limit,  like when I do a brain dump for content,  I give myself 15  minutes to write down every idea I have. I don’t know if I’m going to use them or not, but I write down everything that comes to me in those 15 minutes. 

It’s just the first step and if I can get the first step done, then I am more apt to take the next step. Do you get where I’m coming from on this? 

This is the epitome of one day at a time or 10 minutes at a time or just do the next right thing,  all of those shorthand phrases mean the same thing,  don’t worry about the big huge gigantic picture, just do the very next step. 

And that’s why we do a vision, so you can start to see the super simple, very next steps then it isn’t overwhelming, it’s not ambiguous, you know exactly what you are doing and WHY!

That’s what we’re up to around here!  So jump over there and sign up, this is going to be awesome and a huge step in really getting your act together and getting some much, needed clarity on your sobriety and your life, go sign up at www.myrecoverytoolbox.com/108, because this is episode 108, our first bonus episode!  I love this!

And for those of you who are members of the Inner Circle membership site, don’t forget all the great content that went up this month,  we have a special audio guest giving insight into the 12 steps, I posted a piece that I wrote about my personal story, we had a new super short and hilarious meditation go up last week, and of course, I love seeing you guys and getting to meet you in our online recovery meetings and the private chat!!

I’m telling you, I love the Inner Circle more and more every week, and thank you guys, for supporting me in that new endeavor, I appreciate you more than you know!

I hope you are having a fantastic day, and loving the blog, I’ll see you next week!