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Change takes work, but it can’t be harder than living with unresolved addiction, trauma, and other disorders. If you or someone you love needs help, we’re ready and waiting.
By Beau Black
Deciding to enter recovery is a complex process driven by a variety of motivating factors. Where do we get the willpower to make a lasting life transformation when we’re struggling with substance abuse, depression, or other mental health issues? Finding and keeping the self-motivation to enter into and stay in recovery is vital to success.
There are two main types of self-motivation that help us with overcoming challenges and achieving positive change in recovery. Internal (or intrinsic) motivation is all about our own inner drive. VeryWellMind.com describes internal motivation as the willingness to do something because of the personal satisfaction it brings rather than out of a desire for an external reward or outcome.
When you’re internally motivated to pursue addiction recovery, you’re driven by its internal rewards, such as the personal development and life enhancement you can achieve as a result. The activity of recovery itself is satisfying as it’s giving you a sense of accomplishment and self-improvement, so you keep doing it.
When you’re internally motivated to pursue addiction recovery, you’re driven by its internal rewards, such as the personal development and life enhancement you can achieve as a result.
On the other hand, external (or extrinsic) motivation is driven by external rewards, explains VeryWellMind.com. External rewards can be positive, such as good grades, a physical award or trophy, or even praise from others. Yet these external rewards can also be based on avoiding negative consequences, such as going to prison, receiving a fine, or being punished or shamed by others.
The rewards you can receive can be effective external motivation techniques to help you stay the course, especially if what you’re doing isn’t personally satisfying. However, external motivation at best provides limited results and may even interfere with your internal motivation to achieve recovery and life transformation.
We are motivated by both internal and external factors. Internal motivators include our own feelings, desires, values, and goals for ourselves and our lives. How do you see yourself now? How do you want to see yourself? What’s really important to you? What do you want out of life? Asking yourself questions like these helps to motivate you internally.
External factors that can enhance or decrease our motivation include social or peer influence (which can be positive or negative), authority (whether from a supervisor or boss, legal authorities, or even parents), consequences, a therapist/counselor, money, relationships and sex, family, and more.
Motivators from both areas can work together in recovery. According to Alcohol Research and Health, “Although internal motivation appears to be more effective for long-term success, external motivation (for example, financial incentive) seems to promote short-term abstinence from alcohol and other drugs.” But external motivators must give way to internal motivation for us to succeed.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that a counselor or peer cannot give us motivation, but they can help us identify our reasons and need for change: “Successful [substance use disorder] approaches acknowledge motivation as a multidimensional, fluid state during which people make difficult changes to health-risk behaviors like substance misuse.”
SAMHSA also reports that your motivation to change can be “positively influenced by supportive family and friends as well as community support.” Conversely, it can also be negatively influenced by lack of social support or negative social support by friends who also abuse substances, and negative public perception of SUDs.
One key component to assist with this, SAMHSA says, is an empathetic counselor who can help you not only remain in treatment but lower your substance use. Studies show that a counselor or treatment program that helps patients in strengthening their own self-motivation will increase their likelihood of commitment to a specific behavioral change plan.
Such a counselor can help a client zero in on their “desire, ability, reasons, and need to change” to see clearly why they’re entering recovery. They can also help patients identify behaviors that don’t line up with their personal development goals so they can take steps toward course correcting.
What’s really important to you? What do you want out of life? Asking yourself questions like these helps to motivate you internally.
The road to addiction recovery can be a long journey, as you may experience obstacles and setbacks that make lasting life transformation difficult to attain. It can be hard to find healthier coping strategies when stress, tough circumstances, or triggers arise, for example. Others face the challenges of adjusting to the real world or going back home after their treatment ends. While pursuing recovery, you may experience heightened struggles with your co-occurring disorders, making each step to self-improvement all the more taxing. These challenges increase the likelihood of a relapse along the way as you’re tempted to revert to old habits in the recovery process.
With the inevitable difficulties and potential setbacks you can face along the way, self-motivation is key to overcoming challenges, staying on track, and achieving the long-term healing you want. Without it, it’s too easy to give up on your recovery when roadblocks or distractions occur. But with self-motivation, your addiction recovery instantly has purpose and priority as you seek positive change in your life. Self-motivation is vital as it gives you the necessary mental strength, growth mindset, and confidence you need to move on from your past addictions. Plus, it enables you to put in all the time and effort required in recovery!
Convinced, but not sure where to start? We understand that staying self-motivated is often easier said than done, especially when you’re struggling with mental health challenges like depression or addiction. That’s why it’s important to have a plan of motivational techniques in place so you don’t get overwhelmed as you begin.
Though giving yourself some external rewards can help early in the process, focus primarily on finding strategies that generate and reinforce your internal motivations and inner drive to self-improvement. After all, when you’re self-motivated to change because of the life enhancement you can experience, you’re all the more likely to succeed. With that said, here are some small ways to maintain self-motivation in recovery, adapted from Healthline.com:
Get up, get dressed, and maybe even make the bed. Morning habits are tied to both getting on a routine and focusing on small wins.
Exercise releases endorphins, which can ease depression.
Again, focus on small wins; every task completed can help fuel establishing and keeping a routine.
Whether it’s what you read or watch, the people you talk to, or your own self-talk, try to stay positive with uplifting news, people who encourage you, and thinking that’s going to help you meet your recovery goals.
Socialize and participate in activities with good people. Volunteering can help you to pull away from the narrow focus on yourself and redirect it to something or someone else who will benefit from your time and attention.
When your own motivation tank is near empty, it’s helpful to have people around you — friends, family, co-workers, church or support group members — who can help to refill it.
Getting enough sleep, but not too much, is essential to staying on track.
According to SAMHSA, there are two elements of motivation that can forecast success in treatment:
Building a recovery success story begins with your own recovery motivation. Are you ready and willing and committed to change? If so, why? What’s motivating you to change? Can you maintain this commitment throughout the recovery process? And are you ready to begin now? If so, your journey can start here.
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