One Day at a Time You Are Getting There

“One day at a time” is a concept that is taken seriously in alcoholic recovery circles, but it isn’t just for those who are struggling to move past that sort of addiction. It is for all of us!

There are times when we all feel overwhelmed; and sometimes this is due to actual stresses, struggles and commitments, but at other times this is because our mind has wandered too far into the future … too far into the land of “What ifs?”

Have you ever found yourself wandering further and further into the dark woods and thorny briar patches of The Land of What If? It is usually a shadowy place filled with scattered worries and hypothetical situations that have not yet come to pass. After spending a little time in this land, we usually feel shaken, confused, and yes depleted.

So what is the remedy for this sort of unproductive mental traveling? Namely it is coming back to the here and now, and simply focusing on the day in which we presently find ourselves.

It is the One Day at a Time approach.

Perhaps you’ve already taken a journey into the Land of What Ifs this week, and as such feel exhausted or defeated. Maybe you’ve worried about a commitment later in the week; maybe you’ve imagined yourself “feeling worse” later in the week; maybe you’ve even jumped ahead a month or a year to worry about some situation that isn’t even close to being a reality.

Let’s bring things back to the here and now—back to today—by doing the following:

• Remind yourself that you will find the strength to deal with today, and that is enough. You don’t have to deal with anything that hasn’t yet come to pass. You only have to find the strength to get through today, that is all.

There is a great quote by the author Max Lucado that says: “The Key is this: Meet today’s problems with today’s strength. Don’t start tackling tomorrow’s problems until tomorrow. You do not have tomorrow’s strength yet.”

Especially when you find yourself in a healing or recovery process, you must remind yourself that:

a) Your “reserves” are limited right now so you must use them with an eye on conservation (your reserves of energy, attention, social output, productivity, etc.). Traveling into the future, into the “Land of What Ifs” uses up reserves that you frankly don’t have right now. Stay focused on one day at a time to conserve your reserves.

b) You are in a process of incrementally rebuilding your resilience, strength, and systemic balance day by day. As you care for yourself each day in all of those important holistic ways, your “today’s” are stacking up to build the strength of “tomorrows.” When the challenges of the future arise, you will eventually be in a much stronger place to handle them.

Just focus on caring for yourself today. Just make a plan for successfully getting through today, whatever that looks like for you right now. Don’t worry about tomorrow. A successful focus on “just today” will contribute to tomorrow.

• Tell yourself one good thing about today.

What is something that you are grateful for in your life today? What is one thing you will do today that will contribute to moving your healing, life and future in a positive direction? What is one small thing you are looking forward to? What is one way in which you are making yourself proud?

Even in the midst of life’s challenging seasons we can find something useful, reassuring, encouraging, or even beautiful about the day. It might take looking at times—really, really looking—and at other times it might take the voice of someone else to point such things out to us, but there is value and hope to be found in the day so don’t give up on it.

Make it through today the best you can, however you can. That is all you must focus. It is productive. It is enough.

Michael