Redefining the win.

We live in a world obsessed with numbers and results. We want quantifiable data and concrete feedback. We want to know how we measure up – we want the win.

“Focus on the positive”, “be patient with yourself”, “give yourself time”…when you’re fighting through recovery, phrases such as these can seem trite. When your brain is struggling with even the most simple, straight-forward things, how do you take a concept like patience/positive outlook and figure out how to apply it to your frustrating situation?

Reframe your situation by redefining the win, and start with the small, easy things. One task where I’ve seen this concept make a big difference is changing my sheets. I always buy my bed sheets from the same place, because they are amazing: on the inside of the bottom sheet, they have tags telling you which are the sides and which are the ends. Initially, I could only view my reliance on those tags as one more sign of my brain’s brokenness. I chose to let my frustration drain me; all I could see was how hard something “easy” had become.

Slowly, I began to break this negative pattern. Instead of being short-sighted and focusing solely on that single task, I fought to broaden my perspective. Rather than looking at the tags as reminders of what had been “taken” from me, I began to focus on what those tags could give back to me. Objects are only negative or positive if we assign them a value. It became so much easier to view them positively once I began to ask myself “what can I do with the mental/physical energy these tags save me?” An extra chapter read, a sink absent dirty dishes, time for an extra-long shower – these things feel a lot like winning!

This perspective shift may not come easily; I certainly found it to be a struggle! You may find it is not an innate perspective; for me, it is definitely a way of thinking I have to choose to have. It is so worth it, though: in the world of recovery, where control and wins seem so few and far between, why not seize them at every opportunity?