What’s on our to-do list today? Is it something we’ve come to dread or an activity that we look forward to doing? Perhaps more important, what do we have on the horizon as projects, challenges or activities we really want to get involved in? Surprisingly, what these things have in common has more to do with creativity and innovation than routine or discipline. Granted, when we’re in recovery we need to adhere to daily routines and regimens that are designed to train us to behave in healthier ways, to strengthen effective coping behaviors, to solidify our foundation in recovery. This requires the establishment of schedules and carving out time to tend to recovery-oriented tasks and duties. But these needn’t be something we look upon as undesirable or actions we find to be drudgery. How we view what we do has a great deal of influence on our overall motivation to continue doing the action. It’s a case of the glass half full or the glass half empty. If we think of what we do for our recovery in a positive light, we’ll be more likely to find value in the effort. Similarly, we are much more likely to think of new ways to broaden our activities to include more areas of interest that will produce hopeful outcomes. Creativity is what allows us to dream up new things to get involved in, areas to pursue, challenges that may become opportunities. Once we have our list, we may note that there are a few items on it that seem a little out of our reach. We want to go after them, and may even have been encouraged to do so, but we’re not all that sure what approach to take or confident that we’ll be able to pull it off in the end. That’s where innovation comes in. And we’re all innovators, even though we may not realize it. Consider for a moment the last time we faced a task or challenge we thought we couldn’t do. Talking over our concerns with our 12-step sponsor, fellow group members in the rooms of recovery, our therapist or counselor, our loved ones and family members, we may have decided upon an approach that we’d try. We did, and it worked. Or, perhaps it didn’t work out initially, but we revised our plan and added some other elements to it, a suggestion someone made or something that worked well for us in the past. This application of different elements is an example of our innovation. Each of us goes at tasks in a different way. Some of us mull things over for a while before we decide how we’re going to attack it. Others know right away what they’ll start off with and have back-up plans or strategies ready in case there’s a snag or things don’t turn out the way we’d like or anticipate. Some tend to give up at the first sign of difficulty, while others are determined not to let a bump in the road deter us from our ultimate goal. We can train ourselves to use both our creative and innovative thought processes to enhance not only our everyday activities but also to motivate us to push our boundaries outward to include goals that we never before entertained. Sure, some things may seem impossible now, but slow and steady progress will help us get there – and we’ll be using creativity and innovation every step of the way.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:40:39 +0000