Practice Makes Progress
We live day to day in routines and habits that develop through small shifts and changes over time. The people we spend time with, our interests and activities, work, meals, sleep and a myriad of other cyclical patterns that become subconscious over time.
Some of these routines enrich our lives, like going to the gym or brushing our teeth in the morning. Some of them are subject to change and preoccupy our thoughts until they do, like substance use. Creating habits and routines doesn’t happen overnight and often takes a cumulative amount of effort that becomes an obstacle between wanting change to happen, and making it happen.
The most important thing to remember is that the end of every journey is reached by many small steps. This video introduces the science behind habit forming and why our brain makes it difficult to follow through on our intentions. It also provides some good information about the change process.
Recovery is a journey full of small changes we take to build the life we want to live. Learning skills and strategies to gradually make changes is often most effective, as the positive rewards are more recognized by our brain over time, and we know the experience won’t be as uncomfortable.
Take grounding skills for example. In the moments leading up to a craving, your brain signals your central nervous system to activate your stress response. Grounding skills are an effective way to calm your stress response in the same way using substances would. They replace the less desirable habit with a healthy alternative and create a memory that makes it easier to choose them again.
It’s important to remember that it’s the attempt, not always success, that is the key to making change.
The secret is to learn how skills feel in other circumstances first, before applying them during the most difficult times. The strategies we learn during our journey need practice to provide our brains with the familiarity of routine and outcome. In essence, our brain needs to know how they feel and that means we need to practice them before we use them in hard situations. It needs to believe that the skill can achieve the same calming response, without engaging in problematic behaviours.
It can be hard to find the time to practice skills, so use Habit Stacking to schedule in small chunks of time to dedicate to your skill development. Once you’ve mastered a new skill, try it out in the tough moments as consistently as you can. One small step at a time becomes an intentional journey toward your goals.