Imagine that you meet an alcoholic who appears to be in very bad shape with their drinking. After talking with them for a while and trying to offer them some suggestions, you are pulled aside and someone asks you: “What do you think that person’s life will be like 10 years from now? What is your honest opinion about how that person’s life is going to play out?”

Now imagine that this same exercise is being done to your life, and someone else is objectively trying to guess what your life is going to look like in 10 years. What type of life would someone else envision for you? Are they guessing that you’ll end up in prison, or enjoying a peaceful life of serenity? Do they picture you as someone who is generally going to be happy, or someone who is fighting off depression?

It’s a useful thought experiment to go through because it helps us get honest with where our own lives are headed. Imagine that you’ve been assigned to accurately predict how your own life is going to look in ten years. You can apply this idea to your:

- Recovery
- Relationships
- Finances
- Physical health

And so on….

Now the big question is, after you’ve turned this laser-focus on to predicting your future without holding anything back, do you like what you see? Are you happy with who you are becoming?

Recovery is not about doing the same thing over and over again….it’s about doing something different. What changes are you inclined to make, based on your predictions? What do you really want out of life?

Exploring these ideas and following through with this type of exercise will help you:

1) Get clear about what you want in your life.

2) Get clear about what you don’t want in your life.

3) Help you to live more consciously, so that you are actively creating a new life for yourself in recovery.

When we sharpen our focus like this, it helps to bring clarity to our everyday actions. We can become more deliberate about how we are living out our everyday lives.

What do you think? Do you like the person that you are becoming? What changes do you need to make for the long haul?