Have you ever dared to envision what your life might look like look one year from today?
Seriously, if you could jump into a time machine and meet your future self, what would that life look like? How would you be feeling about your marriage, your career, or your recovery? Would your life look any different than it does today?
Every year around the end of December thru early January, I try and make it a point to ask the men that I work with this question. Standing on January 17th, 2023, what do I want my life to look like on January 17th, 2024? Listen, I get it.
You’re reading this and some guy is asking you to think about your future self 365 days away. You, on the other hand, are just trying to survive Tuesday.
Let me encourage you with this question that might be a little more palatable: WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE IN 2024?
Perhaps you’ve never contemplated that before, but setting a new direction for your life doesn’t start with resolutions for the year (which happen to normally drop off after 2 weeks). It starts with smaller, more manageable changes that you can start making right now even as it pertains to your recovery.
One of the greatest tools I want to encourage you with as you start thinking about that question is something we use here at XXXchurch and also in Small Groups Online. That is the recovery map.
I love this tool! It helps an individual who’s just starting the recovery journey visualize and map out the direction they want to go. Once you start the recovery process, you essentially approach your first “fork” in the road as you have to decide what kind of change you are seeking after: Real Change or White Knuckle Change.
Many men and women bounce between the two circles early on in recovery. I know I did!
And I think one of the greatest reasons is precisely this post’s whole point: We haven’t developed a long-term vision of WHO we really want to become.
Yes, we haven’t experienced the freedom and healing that awaits us. But many of us weren’t at a “rock bottom” place where we were ready to change. So we go through the motions as we walk in self-reliance. And ultimately, this leads to a dead end as our recovery stalls.
It wasn’t until I realized what my sin, my addiction, and my destructive behavior was doing not only to myself but to my fiancé that I genuinely desired real change for the first time in my life. And I’m thankful that for the last 14 years, I’ve been walking on the real change side and still going strong!
This is an appropriate place for me to mention that it has first and foremost been by the grace of God that I could have made it this far.
The recovery map has helped me chart a path for success. As I’ve been able to help other men, I’ve walked through the map myself throughout the years, continuing to hold it as a guide to my recovery.
Small Groups Online offers you an opportunity to be in community with others who are on the same path you are. Each week, you’ll be able to join others online in a safe, secure environment where you can be free to share the good, the bad, and the ugly. With NO judgment.
Becoming a part of a community is so vital for your journey.
How do we become better if we don’t first have a concept, an image, or a picture of the kind of person we want to become? I encourage you to start envisioning your FUTURE self TODAY.