Wise Words
Jim Rohn, the late American entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker, had a pithy comment about the change in our lives:
Your life does not get better by chance; it gets better by change.
That’s an easy statement to agree with. We can’t just wait for our lives to improve and hope for a lucky break. Instead, we have to commit to making the changes necessary to make our lives better.
But most of us can also agree on this: Change is hard.
We get comfortable and complacent. We fall into habits and routines. We can’t muster the energy or willpower to make changes, even when we know they must be made.
If you are struggling with a substance use disorder, you need to make a change right away. Getting sober and working to stay sober are changes that cannot wait.
You probably know that. And yet you still may be struggling to find the motivation to change your habits and your life. If so, motivational interviewing may be a helpful counseling technique for you. Let’s take a look at what it is and how it works.
Motivational Interviewing: What Is It?
Motivational interviewing is all about helping a person commit to change—even when that change is hard. Making that commitment requires strong motivation, so the first aspect of motivational interviewing—as the name suggests—is all about building up that motivation.
If you, for example, need to make a significant life change, a trained motivational interviewer would encourage you to speak about that change and why you would want to make it. The goal here is to move past platitudes and clichés in order to discover the personal reasons that would make the change meaningful in your life. The interviewer is not there to provide answers or push you in any given direction, but rather to encourage you to find the answers and motivations that are most meaningful to you.
Once those issues have been fully explored, the interviewer will encourage you to express a commitment to that change out loud. It might sound hokey or embarrassing, but there is something powerful about making a commitment in this way—hearing yourself speak the words—that can make it easier to follow through.
As we have noted, this counseling approach differs from others in the sense that the interviewer’s role is not to intervene, but rather to listen and to guide your self-exploration of motivation for and commitment to change. As a result, motivational interviewing tends to be a short-term process, though it can certainly be used in conjunction with other therapeutic practices like cognitive behavioral therapy that may last for a longer period of time.
Would You Benefit from Motivational Interviewing?
Maybe you are already fully on board with the idea that you need to put substance use behind you. You are researching treatment centers and preparing for a sober lifestyle. If your personal motivation is strong, odds are that motivational interviewing, with its focus on building up weak motivation, is not a perfect fit for you.
But if you are struggling to find the motivation you need to make a change—or if you find that you are in the grip of emotions like hostility or anger—motivational interviewing may be the tool that can help you overcome your resistance to change so that you can move forward in a positive direction.
We Hope You Are Motivated to Give Us a Call
At The Aviary Recovery Center, we know change can be very hard. We understand that it can seem so much easier to let things continue to happen in the same old ways. But this is decidedly the wrong thing to do if you are struggling with a substance use disorder. It is absolutely critical that you find the motivation within yourself to get into treatment.
And once treatment begins, you will need to be able to rely on your inner motivation to protect your commitment to sobriety. Motivational interviewing, one of our many therapeutic approaches, may help you develop this passion to make a significant and lasting change.
Jim Rohn had another comment that might apply here:
Start from wherever you are and with whatever you’ve got.
If one of the things you’ve got is a powerful motivation to make a change, you are starting from a great place. If your motivation is weak, start with what you have: our phone number. Give us a call and let us help you find the motivation to begin treatment.
