Christian Track: The Benefits of Goal Setting in Addiction Recovery

Man Contemplating The Benefits of Goal Setting in Addiction Recovery

“If you don’t know where you’re going than any path will get you there.” – Zig Ziglar

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” – Zig Ziglar

We were about $6,000 in debt trying to pay off a few babies (hospital bills), some school debt and some other financial duties that made our future feel a bit hopeless.

Find Momentum and Direction

We were looking for some last ditch efforts to try and get some encouragement and forward momentum to keep from sinking our personal finance into a spot that would feel almost like we could never recover.

That’s when we made our desperation play and decided to sign up for the “Dave Ramsey: Financial Peace University”. If Dave could offer Financial Peace I would definitely take it!

During that class we learned about the power of goal setting and how creating goals, regularly checking goals and systematically celebrating goals create an inner momentum that is almost unstoppable. During the next few years we pounded out the debt one payment at a time and after 24 months of FI over T (Focused Intensity over TIME) we had killed the debt with radical momentum.

This is the power of goal setting in your recovery. As you set goals in your addiction recovery plan there some important things to keep in mind:

Your goals should be measurable and controllable:

  1. Good goal: “I want to be in an “AA” or accountability group at least once per week.
  2. Bad goal: “I want to FEEL better”

Woman-Praising-And-Enjoying-GodYour goals should be attainable:

  1.  Obviously you want to do better and feel better, and if you could control the timing of your emotions, wouldn’t that be awesome? Unfortunately, that is not how it works.
  2.  You shouldn’t set goals that are unreachable or unattainable because you will lose momentum before you even start.
  3.  Find the next small step and take it!

Your goals should be celebrated!

  1. When you set a simple goal (I will attend an “AA” meeting this week, OR I will not drink today,) we should create “rhythms of celebration” that foster an internal culture of celebration.
  2. When we started moving intentionally and seriously to kill our debt we would do little things to celebrate when we made another payment.

Finally remember this; it’s not just the destination that promises great rewards but the journey itself is part of your recovery. Embrace the goals, measure your growth and systematically celebrate the reality that you are slowly being transformed!

 


Ryan Moffat FamilyAbout the Author: Ryan received his BS in Bible and Theology and a minor in counseling from Multnomah University. He has pastored students, families and is passionate about Christ-centered recovery and healing.

He’s been married to his beautiful wife Michelle for 13 years and they enjoy raising four crazy, unique and special kids together. Ryan is the teaching pastor at Vast Church in Sisters, OR and is currently working on his Masters in Theology at Western Seminary in Portland, OR


Addiction Hope is proud to announce the initiation of a special Christian Track of blogs and articles to commemorate the blessing of our sister site, Eating Disorder Hope’s 10th year anniversary. Watch for further content noted as “Christian Track”.


The opinions and views of our guest contributors are shared to provide a broad perspective of addictions. These are not necessarily the views of Addiction Hope, but an effort to offer discussion of various issues by different concerned individuals.

We at Addiction Hope understand that addictions result from a combination of environmental and genetic factors. If you or a loved one are suffering from an addiction, please know that there is hope for you, and seek immediate professional help.

Reviewed By: Jacquelyn Ekern, MS, LPC on February 24, 2016
Published on AddictionHope.com

About Baxter Ekern

Baxter Ekern is the Vice President of Ekern Enterprises, Inc. He contributed and helped write a major portion of Addiction Hope and is responsible for the operations of the website.