There were many times during my recovery where I’d commit to making some sort of positive change then as soon as something went wrong, I’d give up, learning to overcome setbacks and adversity was an important lesson for me.  I found that holding myself accountable by telling other people what I was committing to really helped with this, but there were some behaviours I still felt a lot of shame about and to change those behaviours I had to hold myself accountable. 

That’s why I started creating self-contracts.  They were basic documents that allowed me to identify my goal, reflect on why I wanted to make the change I was committing to, be realistic about how long the change would take to implement and also identify any challenges that might come up while I was implementing the change.  Oh, and of course, I set myself a reward for achieving the goal – knowing I would have something positive to look forward to really helped when I was having “wobbles” and questioning whether I wanted to continue working towards my goal.

Below you will find a template for a Self-Contract that you might felt helpful.  You can choose to commit to change by yourself, or you may want to share your goal with someone else; it’s totally up to you.  The important thing is to be clear about why you want to make the change and how it will benefit you in your recovery.  Give it a go and see what you think – and don’t forget to reward yourself with something nice.  YOU absolutely deserve it.